Non­fic­tion

Will Eis­ner: A Comics Biography

Stephen Wein­er; Dan Mazur, illus.

July 14, 2024

Explore the life of Will Eis­ner, one of the most influ­en­tial artists in the his­to­ry of comics through the most appro­pri­ate medi­um: a graph­ic novel!

From his immi­grant roots and child­hood in New York, start­ing his own comics stu­dio and busi­ness, and the cre­ation and pub­li­ca­tion of his beloved com­ic, The Spir­it, through invent­ing the term ” graph­ic nov­el” to con­vince a gen­er­al trade pub­lish­er to pub­lish the ground­break­ing A Con­tract with God, you’ll fol­low along in Eis­ner’s life journey.

With the most pres­ti­gious comics awards named after him, Will Eis­ner is for­ev­er cel­e­brat­ed not only in what he cre­at­ed but his unerr­ing belief in comics’ capac­i­ty to be bet­ter, to reach high­er, to be a full art form in its own right.

This is the life of this man of vision who helped to put comics on the map.

comics
new york
immi­gra­tion

Discussion Questions

Will Eis­ner was such a pio­neer of the comics indus­try that the comics Hall of Fame is named after him. It’s there­fore fit­ting that his biog­ra­phy has been cre­at­ed as a graph­ic nov­el, a term and a for­mat he cham­pi­oned. Will Eis­ner: A Comics Biog­ra­phy, writ­ten by Steve Wein­er and illus­trat­ed by Dan Mazur, cap­tures Eisner’s impov­er­ished upbring­ing; his encoun­ters with anti­semitism; his ground­break­ing ear­ly for­ays into the comics indus­try; his decades-long depar­ture from the indus­try; and his late-in-life return as a pro­lif­ic pro­duc­er of graph­ic nov­els, many of them with Jew­ish con­tent. It’s also a grip­ping and mov­ing read, demon­strat­ing the pow­er of graph­ic nov­els to expand the reach of seri­ous biogra­phies, as well as how much they owe to Jews — notably but cer­tain­ly not exclu­sive­ly Eis­ner, who helped bring the for­mat to life. 

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