Customer Reviews

The Spirit Archives, Vol. 3: July 6 - December 28, 1941

5 star:		(3)
4 star:		(1)
3 star:		(1)
2 star:		(0)
1 star:		(0)

 

 

In the third volume of "Will Eisner's The Spirit Archive," the weekly Spirit stories from the "comic book section" newspaper supplements are almost at the point where they are truly masterpieces. In Vol. 4, we get to 1942 when all the elements finally congeal into the stories that still stand head and shoulders above most of the work being done in comics today, 60 years later. This volume is still not a 5-star effort, but it is an excellent read that is full of stories that holds up nicely six decades later

While Will Eisner's The Spirit has been reprinted multiple times over the decades, these DC volumes are the first time the series will be printed in proper order and in its entirety. It is fascinating to read these stories and watch as Eisner and his assistants find the format and styles that would make comic book history.

Although each 240-page volume sports a US$40 price tag, I think these are items that belong on the shelves of every aspiring comic book creator and any person who fancies themselves a serious fan of the artform. Will Eisner's 'Spirit' series is where much of what we consider the basics for good graphic story telling was first used.

What's so astonishing about these stories is how variegated and simulatneously superb they were week after week after week--it's astonishing to think of Eisner generating not only such sophisticated and variegated material (almost no single story reads like any other--he changes the tone again and again and again, from sentimental to suspenseful to humorous to scary), but that he did so on a weekly basis. This collection shows him already at top form, and collects some of the most famous of all the SPIRIT stories, including "The Oldest Man in the World" (justly celebrated by Maggie Thompson in ALL IN COLOR FOR A DIME) and "The Jewel of Death" (previously reprinted in Jules Feiffer's book on superhero comics).

Anyone interested in comics at all should buy these just to study Eisner's incredible storytelling technique: in just a few pages every week he could shorehorn in an amazing amount of material. His stories often show astonishing sophistication in narrative compression, and his use of sophiticated layouts and angles seems not just to be informed by film noir but actually to predate its greatest advances. Look, too, at how deftly he delineates character: the Spirit, Ellen, Commissioner Dolan, Satin, and Ebony (who is really the star of the strip at this point) are shown to have complex and multilayered personalities, far ahead of anything done before Eisner (or, some would even say, since).

This third volume in The Spirit Archives collects the comics from the second half of 1941. Despite what another reviewer says, Will Eisner was not yet in the army, and was still writing and drawing the feature. The Spirit would not reach it's peak until after World War II, but it was still head and shoulders above just about any other adventure strip at the time. Will Eisner, may he rest in peace, was one of the greatest cartoonists of all time. Highly recommended.

Some corrections need to be made to some of the other reviews of Spirit Archives. All the work in volume 3 is Eisner. There are some stories later in volume 4 that Eisner did not do the full finished art for but he wrote and did layouts for every one of those later stories as well as some penciling and perhaps a little inking. There are only 5 stories with substantial Eisner input in volumes 6 and 7 combined, none in 8-10, and Eisner didn't resume work on the strip continuously until the Christmas Spirit of 1945 at the end of volume 11. But every story in volume 3 is written and drawn by Eisner.

Will Eisner is the only comic book artist to ever have his work shown in a museum of art. His most important work is the Spirit. The Spirit Archives series has brought together all of his work, that was printed in a weekly newspaper insert. However, after the work found in volumes 1 and 2, Eisner was called to active duty and served in the army during World War II. The Spirit carried on, but it was drawn by other artists. Eisner's work does not pick up again until the stories found in Volume 12 of the Archives series. The work in Volumes 3-11 is fine, but it is not the work of Will Eisner.