Will Eisner life and biography

William Erwin "Will" Eisner was an American comics writer, artist and entrepreneur.

Will Eisner was the innovative and influential illustrator who is often referred to as the "grandfather" of the graphic novel. Eisner got his start drawing comic strips in New York in the 1930s. His greatest success was The Spirit (1940-52), a newspaper comic strip about a wisecracking, masked detective. After he ended the strip, Eisner became a publisher and illustrator of commercial and educational comics until the 1970s. His work on The Spirit had by then been rediscovered by a new generation of fans and artists, and Eisner left the world of publishing to focus on teaching and creative projects. He went to work on what he called "sequential art" and explored the boundaries of storytelling and traditional comics. His 1978 book A Contract With God is considered to be the first graphic novel, a genre Eisner worked in for the rest of his career. His other graphic novels include The Building (1987), Last Day in Vietnam (2000) and Fagin the Jew (2003); he also authored two non-fiction books, Comics and Sequential Art (1985) and Graphic Storytelling (1996). At the time of his death, Eisner was finishing another graphic novel, Plot: The Secret Story of The Protocols of the Elders of Zion.

In the late 1930s Eisner and Jerry Iger owned Eisner-Iger Studios, the early home of future legends Bob Kane (creator of Batman) and Jack Kirby (Stan Lee's partner and co-creator of Spider-Man)... While Eisner served in the U.S. Army (1942-45), artist Jules Feiffer was in charge of The Spirit... The Eisner Award, established in 1988 and given out at the annual comic art gathering known as the Comic-Con, is one of the most esteemed honors in the comics industry.

Author of books:

Odd Facts (1975, Tempo Star Books) ISBN 0-441-60918-X.
A Contract with God (1978, Baronet Books ISBN 0-89437-035-9; DC Comics' reissue ISBN 1-56389-674-5)
Will Eisner Color Treasury (1981, Kitchen Sink) (ISBN 0-87816-006-X)
Robert's Rules of Order (1982, Poor House Press) (ISBN 0-553-22598-7)
Spirit Color Album (1981, Kitchen Sink) (ISBN 0-87816-002-7)
Spirit Color Album, v2 (1983, Kitchen Sink) (ISBN 0-87816-010-8)
Spirit Color Album, v3 (1983, Kitchen Sink) (ISBN 0-87816-011-6)
Life on Another Planet (1983) (ISBN 0-87816-370-0)
Comics and Sequential Art (1985) (ISBN 0-9614728-0-4)
New York: The Big City (1986) (ISBN 0-87816-020-5 softcover and ISBN 0-87816-019-1 hardcover) (reprinted in 2000, ISBN 1-56389-682-6)
The Dreamer (1986) (ISBN 1-56389-678-8)
The Building (1987) (ISBN 0-87816-024-8)
A Life Force (1988) (ISBN 0-87816-038-8)
Art of Will Eisner (1989 2nd ed, Kitchen Sink) (ISBN 0-87816-076-0)
Outer Space Spirit (1989 Kitchen Sink) (ISBN 0-87816-012-4)
To the Heart of the Storm (1991) (ISBN 1-56389-679-6)
The Will Eisner Reader (1991) (ISBN 0-87816-129-5)
Invisible People (1993) (ISBN 0-87816-208-9)
Dropsie Avenue (1995) (ISBN 0-87816-348-4)
Will Eisner Sketchbook (1995, Kitchen Sink) (ISBN 0-87816-399-9 softcover and ISBN 0-87816-400-6 hardcover)
Christmas Spirit (1995 Kitchen Sink) (ISBN 0-87816-309-3)
Spirit Casebook (1990 Kitchen Sink) (ISBN 0-87816-094-9)
Graphic Storytelling and Visual Narrative (1996) (ISBN 0-9614728-3-9)
The Princess and the Frog (1996) (ISBN 1-56163-244-9)
All About P'Gell: Spirit Casebook II (1998 Kitchen Sink) (ISBN 0-87816-492-8)
A Family Matter (1998) (ISBN 0-87816-621-1)
Last Day in Vietnam (2000) (ISBN 1-56971-500-9)
The Last Knight (2000) (ISBN 1-56163-251-1)
Minor Miracles (2000) (ISBN 1-56389-751-2)
The Spirit Archives - series(2000-2007)
Will Eisner's Shop Talk (2001, Dark Horse Comics)Fagin the Jew (2003)Hawks of the Seas (2003, Dark Horse Comics) The Name of the Game (2003)Will Eisner's John Law: Dead Man Walking (2004, IDW) The Plot: The Secret Story of The Protocols of the Elders of Zion (2005, WW Norton)The Contract With God Trilogy: Life on Dropsie Avenue (2005, WW Norton)New York: Life In the Big City (2006, WW Norton)Life, In Pictures (2007, WW Norton)

Read more