The Name of the Game (Will Eisner Library) [Hardcover]

Will Eisner (Author)

Book Description

Series: Will Eisner Library | Publication Date: January 1, 2002

Four extraordinary autobiographical stories from a legend in American comics.

Loosely based on the story of Eisner's wife's family, this epic tale spanning three generations of power and privilege explores wealth, marriage, and jealousy in a sprawling American dynasty.

--This text refers to the Paperback edition.

Editorial Reviews

From Library Journal

The legendary Eisner (b. 1917) created one of the most celebrated and enduring series of comics' Golden Age, The Spirit (1940-52); wrote an important analysis of the medium, Comics and Sequential Art; and is credited with coining the term graphic novel to describe his 1977 book A Contract with God (actually a book of four short stories). The Eisner Awards are named after him, and this book won him one-the 2002 Eisner for best new graphic album. It tells the story of the Arnheim family, German Jews who immigrated to America in the mid-1800s, through four generations of wealth, death, disaster, and marital strife. Eisner's vividly expressive characters show the reader the lives of immigrant families who suffer from "the uncertain feeling of being Jewish in a Christian world," as Eisner puts it. Mature situations and themes make this most suitable for adults, for whom it is highly recommended.
Copyright 2002 Reed Business Information, Inc.

From Booklist

Eisner, a comics creator since the 1930s (he is best known for the masked crimefighter the Spirit), has turned in recent years to depicting Jewish life in America in the first half of the twentieth century. This multigenerational saga follows the socially prominent Arnheim family for nearly a century as they parlay a corset-manufacturing firm into a lucrative stock brokerage. Boorish son Conrad marries the daughter of a wealthy Midwest banker, giving the Arnheims access to capital; in trade, the bride's family gets prestige. The characters are all one-dimensional, and there isn't much nuance in the story, which relies on such staples of melodrama as sudden heart attacks and a no-good, alcoholic younger son. This is pretty old-fashioned stuff, reflecting a sensibility somehow appropriate to the period and subject. Eisner's current drawing style is less illustrative than before but more expressive; he now achieves his greatest effects through eloquent facial expressions and dramatic body language. In addition to libraries' graphic novel collections, Eisner's recent work should be considered for Jewish-studies collections. Gordon Flagg
Copyright © American Library Association. All rights reserved

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Product Details

• Hardcover: 168 pages
• Publisher: DC Comics (January 1, 2002)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 1563898659
• ISBN-13: 978-1563898655
• Product Dimensions: 10.3 x 7.6 x 0.7 inches
• Shipping Weight: 1.3 pounds
• Average Customer Review: 3.8 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (6 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #617,771 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

2 of 2 people found the following review helpful:

3.0 out of 5 stars Interesting but cold., January 24, 2002

By 

Aaron Michael Severson (Los Angeles, CA United States) - See all my reviews

This review is from: The Name of the Game (Will Eisner Library) (Hardcover)

Eisner's latest graphic novel is a sweeping, episodic study of the rise and fall of a prominent German Jewish family over several generations. It focuses on the way that marriage and children serve to build, trade on, and maintain the family's social prominence. Reminiscent of Booth Tarkington's THE MAGNIFICENT AMBERSONS, it's an absorbing story, but it's difficult to feel any emotional connection to the characters. Eisner's artwork is slicker than ever, but the odd use of prose text segments that information that could and should've been conveyed either in art and dialogue or in conventional captions is jarring, and sometimes makes the artwork (which could've used larger reproduction, in any case) feel squeezed. It's a peculiar choice for an author who's always been such a strong advocate of the storytelling potential of the medium. A richly observed drama, but not up to the high standards set by Eisner's best work.

1 of 1 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars Documenting the American experience, May 14, 2008

By 

wiredweird "wiredweird" (Earth, or somewhere nearby) - See all my reviews
(HALL OF FAME REVIEWER)    (TOP 500 REVIEWER)   

This review is from: The Name of the Game (Paperback)

Eisner continues his graphic studies of American culture. In this case, he traces the rising and falling fortunes of an immigrant family, generation by generation. This isn't a happy story - Helen, for example, lives out a heartbreaking episode. It examines the falsehoods the prop up so many images of American success; very few people act as a feeling reader might wish. And, in many cases, death comes much too easily.

Eisner focuses on the community of Jewish immigrants. A naive reader might think of this as anti-Semitic, because of the prejudices and bad behavior of so many Jewish characters in this story. Quite the opposite, I think Eisner has a deep fondness and respect for these characters, even when they're not acting very respectable. Bad behavior isn't unique to any one group in this country, or even that much worse in one group than in another, most times. The dark side of cultural history needs to be told too, so I'm glad it's told with Eisner's underlying sensitivity.

His iconic visual style works well in this story. I have to admit, I'm not a great fan of the look - it's a little "cartoony" for my taste. That doesn't get in the way of appreciating the strength of his style, or of the emotional and social complexity of Eisner's stories. I recommend this to anyone looking a bit beyond the bam-pow genre of graphic novels, and especially to readers who doubt that graphic novels represent real literature. Those latter readers are in for an eye-opening and enjoyable surprise.

-- wiredweird

1 of 1 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars An extraordinary piece of work -- and no superheroes!, October 19, 2003

By 

Michael K. Smith (South Louisiana) - See all my reviews
(TOP 500 REVIEWER)   

This review is from: The Name of the Game (Paperback)

What "A Contract with God" was to the New York Jewish short story, this is to the multigenerational family saga. The 19th century was a time of heavy immigration by Ashkenazic German Jewish tradesmen and merchants from Western Europe, successors to the semi-aristocratic Sephardim of the previous century and predecessors to the poor Eastern European Jews of the 20th century. The Arnheims were part of that influx and they made their fortune and entered the ranks of the elite. Conrad, in the third generation, grows up used to the good things and not happy to find he's expected to take his father's place in the business world, nor to marry and produce heirs for the sake of the family name. And he lets his wife die in childbirth rather than lose that heir. The glamorous but frigid girl he marries second turns out to be no prize, either. His mother is a cold, calculating woman (who pressured him in the matter of his first wife), his homely eldest daughter isn't really wanted, and his younger daughter (a rebel in the 1950s) certainly doesn't get what she thinks she wants in life. The characterization and the family relationships are complex and true-to-life and it's interesting to watch as people age. This may be Eisner's masterpiece.