The Contract with God Trilogy: Life on Dropsie Avenue (A Contract With God, A Life Force, Dropsie Avenue) [Hardcover]

Will Eisner (Author)

Book Description

Publication Date: November 21, 2005

The legendary graphic novel and the sequels that launched an art form.

With graphic narrative that "was closer to the writing of Bernard Malamud or Isaac Bashevis Singer than any comic art which had preceded it" (The Economist),  Contract with God, originally published in 1978, was the first graphic novel: the prototype; along with A Life Force and Dropsie Avenue; for such seminal works as Maus and Persepolis. Set during the Great Depression, this literary trilogy, assembled in one volume for the first time, presents a treasure house of now near-mythic stories that fictionally illustrate the bittersweet tenement life of Eisner's youth. With nearly one dozen new illustrations and a revealing brand-new foreword, this book ultimately tells the epic story of life, death, and resurrection while exploring man's fractious relationship with an all-too-vengeful God. This mesmerizing, fictional chronicle of the universal American immigrant experience is Eisner's most poignant and enduring legacy.

Editorial Reviews

From Publishers Weekly

Starred Review. Famed innovator Eisner showed the creators of modern comics what a potentially rich medium they were working with. In particular, he used the term "graphic novel" to sell A Contract with God (1978), a collection of interrelated comics stories about residents in a Jewish tenement section of New York. He returned to that territory in A Life Force (1988), showing one man's uncertain progress, and in Dropsie Avenue (1995), an historical panorama of the whole neighborhood. Printed together for the first time in this volume, the works reinforce each other beautifully. Eisner's virtuoso art always has been admired, but his writing sometimes has been disparaged as thin and sentimental. Over the span of these three books, though, emotions jostle and balance each other; sometimes the stories seem upbeat, sometimes fatalistic. The characters frequently are defeated in the short term but always yearning for more than their surroundings offer. In any case, Eisner's illustrations are superb: water drenches a man walking alone at night in a thunderstorm; a fat housewife athletically performs a "heart attack" right after her husband has collapsed with a real one; aerial cityscapes expand; and every possible expression flickers over the characters' faces. This is an important, wonderful book. (Nov.)
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From Booklist

Comics veteran Eisner launched a second career with A Contract with God (1978), one that eclipsed his pioneering 1940s work featuring the masked crimefighter the Spirit and led the way for the contemporary graphic novel. Two further Depression-era books set on the same fictitious street in the Bronx followed. In the wake of Eisner's recent death, the three are here gathered into a single volume. Contract consists of four vignettes, each focusing on a resident of 55 Dropsie Avenue. More ambitious, A Life Force (1983) details the intertwining lives of a handful of the tenement's inhabitants. Dropsie Avenue (1995) portrays the neighborhood's history from 1870, when British immigrants displaced Dutch--descended farmers, to its improbable rebirth from the ruins of the Bronx at the close of the twentieth century. By this point, Eisner's drawing style, always slightly cartoonish, had become even looser and more exaggerated, while his storytelling remained masterful. Along with his other late-life graphic novels, also slated for collection, the trilogy compellingly if melodramatically portrays New York Jewish life. Gordon Flagg
Copyright © American Library Association. All rights reserved

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Product Details

• Hardcover: 544 pages
• Publisher: W. W. Norton & Company (November 21, 2005)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0393061051
• ISBN-13: 978-0393061055
• Product Dimensions: 10.2 x 7.3 x 1.3 inches
• Shipping Weight: 2.8 pounds (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 4.7 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (23 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #142,841 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

More About the Author

WILL EISNER was born William Erwin Eisner on March 6, 1917 in Brooklyn, New York. By the time of his death on January 3, 2005, Will Eisner was recognized internationally as one of the giants in the field of sequential art, a term he coined.

In a career that spanned nearly eight decades -- from the dawn of the comic book to the advent of digital comics - Will Eisner was truly the 'Orson Welles of comics' and the 'father of the Graphic Novel'. 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 II, 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" which is still being produced today. Will Eisner taught Sequential Arts at the New York School of Visual Arts. The textbooks that he wrote based on his course are still bestsellers. In 1978, Will Eisner wrote "A Contract with God," the first modern Graphic Novel. This was followed by almost 20 additional graphic novels over the following 25 years.

The "Oscars" of the Comic Industry are called The Eisner Awards, and named after Will Eisner. The Eisners are presented annually before a packed ballroom at Comi-Con International in San Diego, America's largest comics convention.

Wizard magazine named Eisner "the most influential comic artist of all time." Michael Chabon's Pulitzer-prize winning novel "Kavalier and Clay" is based in good part on Eisner. In 2002, Eisner received a Lifetime Achievement Award from the National Federation for Jewish Culture, only the second such honor in the organization's history, presented by Pulitzer-prize winning cartoonist Art Spiegelman.

You can always find more information about Will Eisner at www.willeisner.com.

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

15 of 16 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Who can mark the point at which neighborhoods start to die?, May 10, 2006

By 

Johnny Heering "trivia buff" (Bethel, CT United States) - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   

This review is from: The Contract with God Trilogy: Life on Dropsie Avenue (A Contract With God, A Life Force, Dropsie Avenue) (Hardcover)

This book collects three graphic novels by Will Eisner, one of the masters of the comic book format. The original "A Contract With God" book is often considered to be the first real graphic novel. It features four short stories about people who lived at 55 Dropsie Avenue in the Bronx during the Great Depression. The title story is about a devout Jew who loses his faith in God when his daughter dies. The other stories are about a street singer, the building superintendant and vacationers in the Catskills. Eisner returned to 55 Dropsie Avenue with "A Life Force", which is a longer story telling the interlocking stories of the building's residents. The final story here is "Dropsie Avenue (The Neighborhood)", which is an extended story about the history of Dropsie Avenue from 1870 to the present. All the stories are absolutely wonderful "slice of life" tales about "normal" people. The Contract With God Trilogy is a mesmerizing, fictional chronicle of a universal American experience as well as Eisner's most poignant and enduring literary legacy.

15 of 17 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Perhaps the Great American Graphic Novel, January 23, 2006

By 

Arthur C. Adams (Laurel, MD USA) - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   

This review is from: The Contract with God Trilogy: Life on Dropsie Avenue (A Contract With God, A Life Force, Dropsie Avenue) (Hardcover)

I tend to think the "Great American Novel" will never be written. But if there can be a Great American Graphic Novel, this may well be it.

This is basically a set of stories about life in a inner-city tenement, mostly set during the Depression, but with the final volume of the trilogy covering the building's entire history. It is a simple enthralling story.

This is not, of course, your typical comic book. It even far exceeds the standards of the best graphic novels. And there are no superheroes, no giant robots, none of the standard trappings of the form. Its just stories about life, many very poignant.

And Eisner's art is simply beautiful. Jack Kirby is called the King of Comics, and I don't dispute him that title. But if Kirby is "The King", then Will Wisner is the all-powerful, wise and benevolent Emperor of a tiny little land. His work certainly isn't as well-known to the public, even among comic fans, but the art is simply amazing.

To be fair, I found the middle chapter ("A Life Force") somewhat dull. But that's only because its less interesting than the other two -- its still makes for entertaining reading.

If there's one real criticism I have of the book, its that its printed with a brown ink, almost sepia tone in color. While I'd presume that was done to create a period feel for it, I would have preferred black ink.

12 of 14 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Forging a path of respect for future artists, January 9, 2007

By 

M. Dog (Everywhere and Nowhere) - See all my reviews
(VINE VOICE)   

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This review is from: The Contract with God Trilogy: Life on Dropsie Avenue (A Contract With God, A Life Force, Dropsie Avenue) (Hardcover)

Comic and cartoon artists are finally getting the respect they have deserved since the Yellow Kid wore his one piece pajama. Artists like Charles Burns and Frank Miller; Seth and Tony Millionaire, all work in a medium whose fan base is basically adult, literate and mainstream. In reading current book reviews of works like "Jimmy Corrigan, The Smartest Kid On Earth" by Chris Ware or "Blankets" by Craig Thompson, it is clear that the Graphic Novel as an art form no longer requires an asterisk.

All these artists and cartoonists owe this new environment of respect in no small part to the work of Will Eisner, specifically the work contained in this volume. While Eisner was not the first artist to tell a story with pictures, he without question hammered out a stylistic language that others could learn and understand. I don't think it is an exaggeration to say that he brought the concept of the graphic novel home and gave it a firm structure and a future. Also important was Eisner's unyielding believe in the graphic novel as a form of fine art, as legitimate a tool for storytelling as any of the traditional oral or written forms. All current artists working in comics owe Eisner in the same way that all Afro-American ballplayers owe a debt of gratitude to Jackie Robinson. Like Robinson, Eisner completely believed in what he was doing and refused to accept anything less than respect for his work, all done in a day when respect didn't come easily or automatically for them.

Now, about the work itself - what can one say? No one will ever replace or improve on Eisner's innate ability to tell a story with pictures. His work was absolutely gorgeous and fluid, the line and brushwork immaculate and dense without every looking fussy. He forged a unique and instantly recognizable style that is the true mark of a virtuoso in any artistic medium, and he was a very gifted storyteller into the bargain. There are certain panels in his best work, like "A Life Force" or "Droopsie Avenue," that are just jaw dropping in their beauty and absolutely unforgettable.

To this day his work is unmatched in its depth and sophistication of theme. Norton deserves much praise for reissueing these trailblazing works in a well bound and attractive hardcover. Recommended highly. -Mykal Banta