Will Eisner's Shop Talk [Paperback]

Will Eisner (Author), Jack Kirby (Author), Milton Caniff (Author), Harvey Kurtzman (Author)

Book Description

Series: Will Eisners Shop Talk | Publication Date: May 30, 2001

Awards: Will Eisner: Winner 2001 Harvey Award Best Graphic Album of Original Work for Last Day in Vietnam Will Eisner is a master of the comics medium, and when he got together to chat with other masters of the medium, what came of it was a collection of information vital to everyone working in the industry, and indispensable to anyone looking to get into it. Featuring interviews with Jack Kirby, Joe Simon, Gil Kane, Joe Kubert, Jack Davis, Neal Adams, C.C. Beck, Milton Caniff, Gill Fox, Harvey Kurtzman, and distribution guru Phil Seuling, Will Eisner's Shop Talk is chock full of golden tidbits of comics knowledge. Previously serialized in the now long out-of-print Spirit Magazine and Will Eisner's Quarterly, the interviews flow naturally into a compendium of technical secrets, light-hearted anecdotes, and informative history lessons.

Editorial Reviews

From the Publisher

New York native Will Eisner is universally acknowledged as one of the great masters of comic-book art. Born in 1917, he studied under anatomist George Bridgman and painter Robert Brachman before finding his true vocation as a cartoonist during the late 1930s. After a successful career as a packager of comic books for several publishers, Eisner concentrated his efforts on a weekly newspaper comic-book insert , The Spirit, which was syndicated worldwide for a dozen years and influenced a generation of young cartoonists. In 1952, Eisner devoted himself to the then-unique field of educational comics and produced P.S. Magazine, a monthly technical manual employing comics, which was published by the U.S. Army for over two decades. During the mid-1970s, Eisner returned to his first love: sequential art as a storytelling medium. In 1978 he wrote and drew the pioneering graphic novel A Contract With God. Since then, he has produced many other graphic novels, several of which have garnered awards both in the U.S. and abroad. Eisner's work for Dark Horse Comics includes the original graphic novel Last Day in Vietnam, and Shop Talk - a collection of Eisner's insightful interviews with his most celebrated peers in the comics industry. Eisner is now 84 years old and remains a prolific producer of great stories and phenomenal art.

Product Details

• Paperback: 250 pages
• Publisher: Dark Horse; 1 edition (May 30, 2001)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 156971536X
• ISBN-13: 978-1569715369
• Product Dimensions: 9.1 x 6.4 x 0.9 inches
• Shipping Weight: 1.2 pounds (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 5.0 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (1 customer review)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #1,123,542 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 9 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Interesting Insights of Old Comics Creators! No Hype., January 30, 2002

By 

Bryan E. Leed "Jesus says, 'Go and Sin No More!" (Dayton, OH USA) - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   

This review is from: Will Eisner's Shop Talk (Paperback)

Since Will Eisner is a such a respected figure in the comics industry, it seems that all of the interviewed gentlemen took their interview seriously. These are interesting interviews about how each artist got started in the comics business, and how they went about their work, as well as the ups and downs of their career struggles. Most of these interviews discuss events that occurred decades earlier. These are not interviews full of fluff and hype, as would appear in contemporary trade magazines that are trying to promote some upcoming comic book product line.

Since Will Eisner is the interviewer, each interviewee seems to be taking him seriously, and respectfully as either a peer or an inspiration. Thus, these comics creators are willing to go a little deeper with their insights and experiences of their careers.

All of the interviews occurred in the early 1980's, so many of the interviewed people have since passed away. But since the subject of conversation is usually about events of the Golden and Silver Age of comics (1935-1975 ROUGHLY), these interviews read like new interviews anyway. Each interview reads like a transcript of two guys sitting around, casually talking about the good old days. So if your idea of the good old days is the Golden Age of comic books, then you will thoroughly enjoy this book.

I picked up this book to read about Gil Kane, Jack Kirby, and Joe Kubert; but I ended up being introduced to the careers of Milton Caniff, Neal Adams, Harvey Kurtzman, and others, folks who I had heard of but had never followed their works before.

So this book gave me many insights and new attitudes about the field of comics creation.

It's also nice that all of the interviews are sprinkled with many b/w photos, pictures and drawings of each interview subject, so reading this book really does become a nice introduction to artists whose work you may not be familiar with.

If you're a serious, adult comics fan, then you will probably enjoy this book!