Will Eisner's New York: Life in the Big City (Will Eisner Library) [Hardcover]

Will Eisner (Author), Neil Gaiman (Introduction)

Book Description

Publication Date: October 17, 2006 | Series: Will Eisner Library

"An American storyteller, like Ray Bradbury, like O. Henry."—Neil Gaiman

With an unparalleled eye for stories and expressive illustration, Will Eisner, the master and pioneer of American comics art, presents graphic fiction's greatest celebration of the Big Apple. No illustrator evoked the melancholy duskiness of New York City as expressively as Eisner, who knew the city from the bottom up. This new hardcover presents a quartet of graphic works (New York, The Building, City People Notebook, and Invisible People) and features what Neil Gaiman describes as "tales as brutal, as uncaring as the city itself." From ancient buildings "barnacled with laughter and stained with tears" to the subways, "humorless iron reptiles, clacking stupidly on a webbing of graceful steel rails," Will Eisner's New York includes cameo appearances by the author himself; several new illustrations sketched by Eisner, posthumously inked by Peter Poplaski; and three previously unpublished "out-takes"—a treasure for any Eisner fan, and sure to become a collectible. Introduction by Neil Gaiman.

Editorial Reviews

From Publishers Weekly

Collecting four of Eisner's later graphic novels—New York, The Building, City People Notebook and Invisible People—this volume takes as its subject the city Eisner lived in and drew for most of his life. Eisner treats the city like a lover; its flaws are on display, its cantankerous nature is well-known, but the abiding tenderness that comes from lifelong intimacy is evident on every page. In New York, people on trains fantasize about one another while never making eye contact in "An Affair on the BMT Local"; while in "Worm's Eye View," two pairs of feet come together and move apart in a wordless narrative. These little moments of witnessed connection are the heart of the collection, and Eisner's eye for humanity amid the grind of the city is always on target. In the vignettes of City People Notebook, time, smell, space and streets all have their own special sets of rules in this hectic city. Much of the collection touches on the slightly magical nature of cities, and Neil Gaiman's very personal introduction adds the context of Eisner's enormous influence on contemporary comics and graphic novels. (Oct.)
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From Booklist

The latest Eisner omnibus collects four graphic novels from 1986-92 that emphasize the lifelong New Yorker's take on his hometown. New York: The Big City (1986) and City People Notebook (1989) consist of well-observed vignettes of urban life. The others are more substantive. The Building (1987) traces the interconnected lives of four inhabitants of a now-demolished office building. Invisible People (1992) depicts a trio of anonymous souls who elicit scant notice from their fellow Manhattanites. Like all of Eisner's later works, these are marred by an outdated sentimentality but redeemed by his sage compassion and masterful storytelling. Gordon Flagg
Copyright © American Library Association. All rights reserved

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Product Details

• Hardcover: 448 pages
• Publisher: W. W. Norton & Company (October 17, 2006)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 039306106X
• ISBN-13: 978-0393061062
• Product Dimensions: 10.1 x 7.1 x 1.3 inches
• Shipping Weight: 2.3 pounds (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 4.8 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (6 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #539,157 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

9 of 10 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Start spreading the news., September 5, 2007

By 

Johnny Heering "trivia buff" (Bethel, CT United States) - See all my reviews
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This review is from: Will Eisner's New York: Life in the Big City (Will Eisner Library) (Hardcover)

This book collects four of Will Eisner's comic books. I hesitate to use the term "graphic novels" because these aren't novels, they are short stories. Some of them are very short, being one page vignettes. The books collected are New York: The Big City, The Building, City People Notebook and Invisible People. Will Eisner was truly one of the geniuses of the comic book artform. This book tells the stories of regular city dwellers. Some of their stories are funny, some of them are tragic. But they are all worth reading. Highly recommended.

5 of 5 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars A comic masterpiece about a masterpiece city, March 12, 2008

By 

Robert C. Ross (New Jersey) - See all my reviews
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This review is from: Will Eisner's New York: Life in the Big City (Will Eisner Library) (Hardcover)

Will Eisner (1917-2005) is considered one of the most influential writers establishing the graphic novel as an art form. This volume collects four of Eisner's major works about New York: New York: The Big City, The Building, City People Notebook, and Invisible People.

Neil Gaiman who wrote the very good Introduction calls Eisner a "remarkable observer of life in the Big Apple". Gaiman adds that this is by no means a Valentine to the city. "Eisner's eyes are wide open to the tragedies of city living -- just as they are to its glories. It's no Valentine, but it is, perhaps, a love-song to a city that he loves for its ups and downs, its terrors and its wonders."

This is a book that rewards looking more than reading (the text is sometimes quite leaden). But the images! Delinquent teenagers pulling a fire alarm for kicks are caught in a building fire on the very next page. Eisner's human characters play exaggerated roles, but they seem alive. The buildings also seem to have a life of their own.

Eisner writes: "The big city as it is seen by its inhabitants is the real thing. The true picture is in the crevices on its floors and around the smaller pieces of its architecture, where daily life swirls."

In "The Building", Eisner describes a landmark building that is torn down, and a new structure that is erected in its place. He tells the stories of four people whose lives were linked to the old building; its demolition leaves "an ugly cavity and a residue of psychic debris". But, of course, the new building will accumulate its own stories in time.

A happy ending in Eisner's world. And, for me, an entirely different way to understand one of my favorite cities.

Robert C. Ross 2008

5.0 out of 5 stars Will Eisner's New York: Life in the Big City, November 10, 2010

By 

Cai Yixin Jeremy - See all my reviews
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This review is from: Will Eisner's New York: Life in the Big City (Will Eisner Library) (Hardcover)

Will Eisner's opus of modern and urban existence in New York possesses a certain thematic and also, in the simplest essence, artistic quality not present in his former work. While his more prominent cartoons (it would seem, the entire Spirit comic strip narrative) focuses more on the kinetic energy of an action movie-style plot, where there are overt heroes and villains. New York falls into more emotional territory, and in many ways possesses a higher polish, making this sprawling narrative about city life in New York a fresh new breath of creative genius.

That's not to say Eisner doesn't employ his brilliant mastery of sequential movement or doesn't bring forth pure storytelling dynamism into this book. Oh, no, he does bring those in a big way. New York quite simply is the epitome of how people tick in the Big Apple, and Eisner does not, if ever, hold back on the effort and drive to tell a sublime story.

Split into numerous vignettes and compiled from four previously published collections, one doesn't so much as read this book but get pulled into so many facets of the New York experience that it's not a laughing matter anymore. The treasure of Avenue C, the starting vignette of sorts, is a perfect example of how even a simple, unassuming thing like a gutter drain can be the basis for a recurring narrative. Eisner achieves this sweeping piece of adventure, told in bite-sized episodes (one especially poignant one involves a mugger who sees the convenience of disposing his knife into the drain) with such simplicity and greatness, that one would be amazed when the resultant panel, depicting the thorough search of the scene by the police, delivers the punch. And one doesn't even realize that The Weapon works on the New-York-has-a-high-crime-rate level, while still functioning as a perfect, almost to a science, standalone story.

A street band, The Pearly Buzzards, finds joy in playing at different locations, a young, attractive New York female experiences a mild bout of uncertainty as she takes a little too long to place an important letter into the mailbox, a metaphor of citizens within windowed apartments aptly named Prisons, and then the true meat of the collections appears with the latter material. The most interesting of the lot would be Mortal Combat, an unprecedented take on the prevalent invisibility of one's existence in the huge city. If you have not one, but a series of tightly wrought vignettes like this, complete with creative commentaries at some points, and each one as intriguing and professional as the last, it becomes a `museum' of how sequential art should be done.

Which is how Eisner establishes his legacy. The Spirit is how you should do a continuous mystery epic. Comics and Sequential Art is a How-To book for comics, perfected. New York, however, is the culmination, of storytelling in the sequential form. It is very much like weary Eisner waking up one morning and deciding to impose his craft upon the short story format. One can almost imagine him saying these imaginary words, "Lets see if I can create something that's never been done before...and thus create history."