The Spirit Archives, Volume 25 [Hardcover]

Will Eisner (Author)

Product Details

• Hardcover: 200 pages
• Publisher: DC Comics (October 21, 2008)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 1401218563
• ISBN-13: 978-1401218560
• Product Dimensions: 6.9 x 0.8 x 10.5 inches
• Shipping Weight: 1.7 pounds
• Average Customer Review: 3.2 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (4 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #336,665 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

11 of 11 people found the following review helpful:

3.0 out of 5 stars Great stuff, teeny package, November 23, 2008

By 

Germund von Wowern (Malmö, Sweden) - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   

This review is from: The Spirit Archives, Volume 25 (Hardcover)

Will Eisner's run of Spirit dailies has hitherto only been available in several incomplete reprint runs. This complete edition is easily one of the most interesting volumes in the Spirit Archives series and could have been a fitting tribute to Eisner's storytelling genius - as well as the other talented artists who helped him out and even took over the feature during the war years. True, daily strip adventures were not Eisner's preferred storytelling format and for obvious reasons these stories lack the stunning page layouts found in his comic book-sized Spirit stories. However, the introduced characters are intriguing and it's absolutely fascinating to see how Eisner & C:o struggle to use the limited space in each daily strip as effectively as possible. Tom Spurgeon makes some quite interesting points in his introduction and the reproduction of the artwork is, if not excellent at least very, very good. Sadly, this book has one unforgivable flaw: its size and proportions! Readability has been sacrificed to keep this volume the same size as previous volumes in the series. I have seen many comic strip editions where I've felt the strips were reprinted too small, but this is beyond reason even for such relatively young eyes as mine. I'll simply quote a comic book editor friend who recently pointed out that prioritizing form before function is never a good idea. This volume demonstrates just why!

By the way, my three stars are intended as an average of great stories, artwork and reproduction (4.5 stars) and the size of the strips (1 star).

11 of 12 people found the following review helpful:

1.0 out of 5 stars GET OUT YOUR MAGNIFYING GLASS!, October 29, 2008

By 

P. Wolske - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   

This review is from: The Spirit Archives, Volume 25 (Hardcover)

I was looking forward to these complete daily strips of The Spirit from 1941 to 1944. Well, I just received the book, and was disapointed to say the least.
For some reason, DC decided to keep the same 6.8 x 10.5 size as other Spirit Archives which was ok. But for these daily strips it means 4 daily strips within a frame of 6" x 8 1/2" or less! Strips are so small they're hard to read!!!
A thousand curses on DC Comics!

1 of 1 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars The penultimate edition, June 17, 2009

By 

john hoey "wolf 77" (australia) - See all my reviews
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This review is from: The Spirit Archives, Volume 25 (Hardcover)

The Spirit Archives are almost complete with Vol. 25. The size of the strips has been commented on already and while they are on the small size they are readable (although a magnifying glass does help).They are worth having just to complete the series and also there is really no other way to have them in your collection. Well worth it.