The New York Times George Gene Gustines reports the Will Eisner Estate is up for sale, including rights to the groundbreaking, much admired comic creator’s most famous character, The Spirit. The sale includes an unpublished 72-page Spirit graphic novel that includes a cameo from the artist himself, which Will apparently set aside, which he drew in 1996.
Word of an unpublished Spirit story has set Eisner fans aquiver, although some knew of its existence, including comic creator Mark Wheatley.
“When I was told about this a few years ago, I was informed that Eisner was not happy with how it turned out,” he notes. “He wanted to try something else. And that was his wish, and it was honoured.”
The New York Times (subscription required) reports Carl Gropper, the nephew of Eisner’s widow Ann Weingarten, and his wife Nancy, have been in control of the estate since Weingarten’s death in 2020, and the couple, both in their seventies, hope the sale will continue to keep his work in the public eye, and, perhaps, lead to a new film based on The Spirit.
The Spirit comic stories have been collected in The Spirit Archives series published by DC Comics, and character has hit the big screen before, back in 2008: a film, written and directed by Frank Miller, starring Gabriel Macht, Eva Mendes, Sarah Paulson, and Dan Lauria, which was less than a critical and financial success.
“You need to have a good story that’s consistent with the character, and that clearly was not consistent with the essence of the character,” Lloyd Greif, the president and chief executive of Greif & Co., the investment bank handling the sale says of the previous film. “And frankly, the story didn’t make a whole lot of sense.”
Works the new rights holders would gain access to would include The Spirit Returns, an unpublished, satirical 72-page story Eisner wrote and illustrated in 1996, nine years before his death. In it, The Spirit takes on “a superpowered vigilante who fancies himself judge, jury and executioner.”
ComicsBeat notes other properties Will Eisner created also in the sale, such as his seminal work A Contract With God, but also point out early The Spirit stories, first published in 1940, will begin to head into the public domain in just ten years time. Will any major company want to risk buying rights, given the time required to get a film into production?
Still, the idea of a Spirit story, largely kept secret for three decades is something of a surprise, and the pages posted by The New York Times, lettering unfinished, look glorious to my eyes. If the sale at very least sees its publication, accompanied by appropriate supporting material explaining its history, I’d be in the queue to buy a copy.
• Visit WillEisner.com for more information about Will Eisner
Who Was Will Eisner?
Brooklyn born Will Eisner was (6th March 1917 – 3rd January 2005) is recognised internationally as one of the giants in the field of sequential art, a term he coined. He has been described as one of the most influential comic artists of all time.
In a career that spanned nearly eight decades – from the dawn of the comic book to the advent of digital comics – Will Eisner, who I was fortunate to meet, helping arrange his appearance at the Norwegian comics event, Raptus, back in 2003, is often described as “Father of the Graphic Novel”, although I’d argue he that should also be applied to Bryan Talbot and Raymond Briggs.
As the “Orson Welles of Comics”, he broke new ground in the development of visual narrative and the language of comics and was the creator of The Spirit, John Law, Lady Luck, Mr. Mystic, Uncle Sam, Blackhawk, Sheena, and countless others.
During World War Two, Will Eisner used the comic format to develop training and equipment maintenance manuals for the US Army. After the war this continued as the Army’s PS Magazine. He taught Sequential Art at the New York School of Visual Arts for 20 years, and the textbooks he wrote, based on his course, are still bestsellers.
In 1978, Will Eisner wrote A Contact with God (available here as part of a larger collection, AmazonUK Affiliate Link) the first American modern graphic novel, followed by almost 20 additional graphic novels over the following 25 years.
The Eisner Awards, the”Oscars” of the Comic Industry, are named after him, presented annually before a packed ballroom at San Diego Comic-Con, America’s largest comics convention.
In addition to deserving acclaim from comic creators, in 2002, Eisner received the Lifetime Achievement Award from the National Federation for Jewish Culture, presented by Pulitzer Prize winning cartoonist Art Spiegelman.
Will Eisner Week, devoted to keeping graphic novels in the public eye, takes place each March: a series of in-person and virtual events celebrating Graphic Novels, Comics and Sequential Art, Free Speech, and the legacy of Will Eisner. Last year, events were held in over 200 locations in the US and Internationally. Find out more, and how to get involved, here.
• Visit WillEisner.com for more information about Will Eisner
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John is the founder of downthetubes, launched in 1998. He is a comics and magazine editor, writer, and Press Officer for the Lakes International Comic Art Festival. He also runs Crucible Comic Press.
Working in British comics publishing since the 1980s, his credits include editor of titles such as Doctor Who Magazine and Overkill for Marvel UK, Babylon 5 Magazine, Star Trek Magazine, and its successor, Star Trek Explorer, and more. He also edited the comics anthology STRIP Magazine and edited several audio comics for ROK Comics; and has edited several comic collections and graphic novels, including volumes of “Charley’s War” and “Dan Dare”, and Hancock: The Lad Himself, by Stephen Walsh and Keith Page.
He’s the writer of comics such as Pilgrim: Secrets and Lies for B7 Comics; “Crucible”, a creator-owned project with 2000AD artist Smuzz; and “Death Duty” and “Skow Dogs”, with Dave Hailwood.
Categories: Comics, Creating Comics, downthetubes Comics News, downthetubes News, Film, Other Worlds, US Comics
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Want one. The catalogue, I mean…