Customer Reviews

A Contract With God

5 star:		(10)
4 star:		(6)
3 star:		(1)
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1 star:		(1)

 

 

It is an accepted fact in the comic book world that Will Eisner is one of the giants. He has pushed the envelope, single-handedly transforming the medium from one only capable of churning out simplistic kid's fantasies into an accepted vehicle for Art (with a capitol "A!"). The comic book industries highest award, The Eisner, is named after him. All possible accolades are piled upon Will Eisner. Strange, then, that so few comics fans (myself included) have actually read his comics. I decided to change that by buying this book.

"A Contract with God" is a deliberate attempt, the first actually, of using the combination of words and pictures to relate a story of the human condition on par with any works of great literature. It is the first ever "Graphic Novel," printed solely in book form and not merely a collection of serialized stories. Eisner had lofty goals for this slim volume. Semi-autobiographical, he told stories of the Jewish slums of New York around the time of the Great Depression. Being neither Jewish, nor from the East Coast, nor alive during the Great Depression, I was not sure how well I would relate to the book.

Well, because he is one of the giants, Eisner uses words and pictures to bridge the gap between his experience and mine, finding common ground and understanding. "A Contract with God" is entertaining, addictive and enlightening. I can honestly say that I am better for having read it. Go ahead, give it a try.

Most of us think of Will Eisner as the creator of a terrific comic of the 1940s called The Spirit -- which he is. But we forget that in this book, first published in 1978, he also practically invented the modern "graphic novel." No superheroes here, just ordinary Jewish immigrant families in a tenement building in the Bronx. There actually are four stories here. "A Contract with God" is the story of Frimme Hersh, who made a deal with the Almighty when he was a boy in Poland, that he would do his best in life and God should look out for him in return. He comes to America, becomes quietly successful, is respected by his neighbors and his synagogue, and things are going okay. Then his adored adopted daughter dies suddenly. God has broken the contract, and Frimme is no longer bound by it, either. It's a very satisfying, Sholom Aleichem sort of story. "The Street Singer" tells of an out-of-work bookkeeper during the Depression who finds he can earn a few thrown pennies singing in the allies of tenement buildings. An ex-diva decides to promote him (for her own purposes), but the money she gives him goes for booze instead. This one is interesting -- there really were street singers in New York -- but I found it much less readable. "The Super," about an authoritarian German building superintendent, is a cautionary tale, sort of, about not messing with Lolitas when they come a-calling, and it's rather a lightweight piece. "Cookalein," however, is a superior work, about the escape of young city-dwellers to the Adirondacks in the summer, searching for social and financial advancement through marriage. There's some delicious irony here. Eisner is generally a very good storyteller of this milieu, and he does it all in black-and-white pen work. He's a master of characterization through facial expression and other detail, and there's a reason this volume has been reprinted so many times in the past quarter century.

Magnificent simplicity yet concentrated in humanistic mechanics. Will Eisner's creation delivers the 1930s in a single drop - the culture, the depression, human relations, the dynamism of emotions. The stories of Fremme Hersch, the Jew who had a contract with God, the saga of the street singer's ill fortune, the tale of emotions as chance intertwines people - all tied by the common element of tenement dwellers gives a glimpse of life in 1930s almost in its exactitude. As the first of its genre, you will be proud to own it and after reading it, you will be saddened to learn that not much has changed for relationships and delighted that not all needs to die.

Will Eisner is, unquestionably, the best comics artist in the world. This book is historically significant because it is called "the first graphic novel." Four stories, each with their own pacing, visual style, and themes.

This would make a great gift for anyone who likes comics or Jewish stories. There is, however, nudity and sex (which is treated with the utmost realism -- this isn't pornography!), so beware of that.

This and all other Eisner is highly, highly recommended. // koby c.

A Contract with God tells the stories of people living in a tenement in 1930's New York. The format is similar to comic book, but more like illustrated text, because there is about one frame per page. Maybe this is because the stories are more serious than the comic genre usually deals with, and altering it here is a way to get this to a different audience than the usual comic book crowd.

The stories: The Super tells about the super in a building and shows different kinds of monsters in society. A story about a street singer - in the 30's out of work people might go from block to block and sing in the streets in the hopes of money being tossed out the windows to them. A story following people's vacations. SIngle people pretend to be rich on vacation in the hopes of snagging a rich spouse. I particularly liked this one (and it ends happily).

Th stories here are not for kids since there is a lot of sex and desperation. However these are well done comic book stories, and would be good for someone who is into or new to the genre.

Contract with God shows Eisner at his best, putting together an excelent story with Eisner's great art. The book brings up the idea : if I'm a good person loyal to God, will He treat me alright ?

R. Crumb calls it comix. Jules Feiffer called it junk art. Will Eisner gives it the ugly-sounding title of sequential art. A popular name for it now is graphic fiction. What DOES one call the genre in which Eisner was such a pioneer?

Eisner tells us that his goal in A Contract with God, a book that has become famous for being the "first" graphic novel, was to create an art work in which there is "no interruption in the flow of narrative because the picture and the text are so totally dependent on each other as to be inseparable" (preface). This is a hard trick to pull off. Equally difficult is the task of telling a coherent story that many readers will (unfavorably) judge using the standards that they apply to novels or short stories. Whatever else a graphic novel is, it doesn't fall in either of those genres. The graphic novel is much more impressionistic, more minimalistic, than even a short short story can afford to be.

Eisner takes the bull by the horns in this ground-breaking book, and puts not one but four separate stories between one cover. His artwork truly is breathtaking, pretty nearly succeeding in the uninterrupted flow he's aiming at. The stories themselves are uneven in quality, and each of them, with the possible exception of the last one ("Cookalein"), tend toward the maudlin in places. Moreover, the most ambitious of them, the title story, seems especially underdeveloped. It may be that the potential depth of the story simply can't be expressed in this genre. At the same time, though, each of them captures, in a way reminiscent of the stories of Isaac Bashevis Singer, something of the flavor of Jewish city life in the 1930s.

All in all, Eisner's book is both an historical landmark in the evolution of junk art, sequential art, graphic fiction, or whatever we eventually call it, as well as a collection of stories that are still very readable and artistically commendable.

Looked forward to reading this but the low-res scan of black and white cross-hatching heavy art works against it on Kindle. It's only just readable on the Kindle reader for PC and even worse on the actual Kindle 3 device.

It's still a classic, but this digital format really fights it. Caveat emptor!

I was lucky enough to meet Will Eisner this summer and get my copy of A Contract With God autographed. It is one of the most amazing pieces of comic art I have ever read. His characters are amazingly real, the stories are everyday tales of life you can relate to. Even though the stories take place almost 70 years ago, they retain a timelessness that is unusual in today's pop culture.

Until now, I'd not been not all that familiar or appreciative of graphic novels. I gave this book a try because I was interested in its Jewish content. After reading it, I was surprised to learn that this was the first graphic novel in book form and that Will Eisner was a pioneer in his field.

Eisner's drawings are magnificent, and the book's content noteworthy and familiar. I like the idea of taking everyday characters and telling a story with pictures and dialogue. I especially like the tidbits of history that preceed each chapter and the amazing detail in the sketches of the tenement buildings and the scenery (especially the falling rain). Perhaps comics are not just for kids after all!