Number 1527: Spirit of the gun

Recently I presented a bloody tale from Desperado #1 narrated by a gun. Here I have another tale, this time from Will Eisner’s Spirit Section of March 4, 1951, also narrated by a gun. Is this a good gimmick or not, having stories narrated by inanimate objects? (To answer my own question, the esteemed Ray Bradbury used it when he had a rocket ship narrate “I, Rocket” in Amazing Stories, May 1944. Perhaps I should just shut up.)

Another thing about this Spirit story that caught my eye was the panel sequence I have used as a teaser above, and a similar sequence from Mad #12 (1954), when Harvey Kurtzman and Will Elder did their satire, “Starchie.”

I wonder if the Spirit had any inspiration on the Mad sequence, either consciously or unconsciously.

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Number 1493: Spirit of the haunted house

This Spirit episode was originally published in its newspaper Comic Book Section on December 12, 1940. It was reprinted in Police Comics #19 in 1943, which is the source of my scans. An interesting sidelight to this moody and effective story of an old dark house on a bleak and rainy night, is that the Grand Comics Database credits Joe Kubert with the coloring. Yes, that Joe Kubert. The GCD doesn't distinguish between the original and the reprint when reporting Kubert as colorist, but I’ll assume they mean the reprint. Joe was 16-years-old at the time.

Another item of interest for you Marvel Comics fans: Sam Rosen, a familiar name from countless comics of the 1960s, is credited with the lettering.

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Number 1472: Spirit of the thing...

We’re finishing up our Week of Quality with an early Spirit Section, the 16-page newspaper supplement that Will Eisner produced for Quality Comics publisher Everett “Busy” Arnold. At some point in its 12-year life the Spirit Section became copyright by Eisner, but in this early example Arnold held the copyright.

This section, dated July 14, 1940, was the seventh to appear. It’s early enough that the Spirit has his flying car. I think Eisner made a wise move when he dumped that silly gimmick.

Chuck Mazoujian drew ’Lady Luck.” According to some biographical information Mazoujian left comics when he went into the service during World War II. After the war he went into teaching painting and figure drawing at Pratt Institute. Later Mazoujian went into illustration and commercial art.

Bob Powell did “Mr. Mystic” and had a long career in comic books.

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Number 1428: The UFO Spirit

Orson Welles, the enfant terrible of theater, radio and the movies of his day, gets the Will Eisner treatment as “Awsum Bells” in this tale from the September 28, 1947 Spirit Section. I have scanned it from the blackline-and-graytone reprint in Warren’s The Spirit #2 (1974).

The update paragraph on the last page was new for the reprint version. The scripter (credited as Eisner by the Grand Comics Database) had been paying attention to the news stories that began appearing in June, 1947 about mysterious “flying disks” buzzing around in U.S. airspace.

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Review: The Plot: The Secret Story of the Protocols of the Elders of Zion graphic novel by Will Eisner (W. W. Norton & Company)

[Doug Glassman celebrates Will Eisner Week with this review.]

Will Eisner’s final graphic novel, The Plot: The Secret Story of the Protocols of the Elders of Zion, is an atypical book for the graphic novel genre. It was published after his death and may not have been fully completed. The best way to explain it would be to call it an “illustrated textbook.” There’s no real main character, apart from Eisner himself, who narrates some of the final portions of the book; instead, the book details the complex and convoluted history of the world’s most dangerous hoax through a variety of vignettes.

As The Plot explains, a French author named Maurice Joly wrote an essay called “The Dialogue in Hell Between Machiavelli and Montesquieu,” intended as a critique of the despised French dictator Napoleon III. Decades later, a Russian forger found the “Dialogue,” copied parts of it, and changed the language. Instead of a political satire, it became the “records” of the supposed Jewish overlords who controlled the world’s governments. A lengthy segment of Eisner’s book places the text of the “Dialogue in Hell” and the text of the Protocols next to each other so you can see just how much was plagiarized.

The influence of the Protocols spread from the court of the insane Tsar Nicholas II to the newsletters of the unhinged Henry Ford, eventually influencing the Nazis. Despite being thoroughly disproven as a hoax, the Protocols are still sold worldwide and were even adapted into a television series in the Arab world a few years ago. In the last portion of the book, Eisner documents the modern incarnations of the hoax, sounding more and more exasperated and shocked each time the Protocols are cited as the truth. In an almost comically tragic sequence, Eisner keeps declaring that the hoax could never recover from the burden of proof assembled against it, only to be proven wrong by the march of human ignorance.

Eisner’s sense of design never faded, and The Plot frequently demonstrates his perfect use of extreme detail, empty space and everything in-between. Often, the backgrounds are lightly drawn in with just the right amount of shading. His figures always have interesting expressions no matter how minor the character. His lettering is a bit rough, and I do wonder whether Eisner would have gone back and redone some of the lettering if he hadn't passed before he completed the book. There are also some sections that are pure text and these, along with the wide margins, indicating that Eisner perhaps hadn’t progressed as far as he wanted.

Adding to the textbook feeling of The Plot are the extensive notes and back matter. Eisner made sure to cite his sources, leading to two pages of references and a full three-page bibliography. It’s even introduced by Umberto Eco, a scholar who has done quite a bit of his own investigations on the Protocols. Eco’s praise for Eisner legitimizes The Plot and helps it transcend the “age ghetto” that often surrounds comics by older creators.

The narrative resonates with me because of my Jewish heritage, but I can see where it might fall flat if you don’t know about the Protocols beforehand. Still, I think the outrage surrounding such a terrible hoax should be enough to convince readers to check out Eisner’s final work. While I can’t call The Plot Eisner’s best book, I can certainly label it as one of the most important. If you’re intrigued by this book and want to read something similar but with a stronger narrative bent, read Eisner’s Fagin The Jew.

Thanks, Doug! Learn more about Will Eisner week at www.willeisnerweek.com.

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Number 1241: Eisner pre-war and postwar

This is the second of four postings this week with features from Quality Comics.

Will Eisner was one of the more accomplished artists in the comic book field, even from his very early days in the industry. And he joined the industry before it was an industry.

He had a distinctive style before World War II, and it grew into the style we all know and admire from after the war. (He also had several people helping him, but the overall look of his work is consistent with his layouts and inking.)

“Espionage Starring Black X” was a strip from early issues of Smash Comics. This episode is from #12 (1940). The Spirit story, reprinted in a 1950 issue of Police Comics, #100, originally appeared in the newspaper comic book section Eisner produced, dated April 28, 1946. “Black X,” who always wore a monocle (even when covering his face, as he does in this story), is a type of pre-war spy story where spies were gentlemen, and agents had numbers instead of names. The Spirit story is one of the types of Eisner stories I really like, whimsical and pure fantasy.

Less than two months ago I did another posting with Eisner's Black X, in Pappy's #1212.

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