I recently finished reading Will Eisner's New York - Life in the big city. Along with being a superb artist Mr. Eisner was a unique story teller. His view of the world seemed straight forward at first glance but as you get into his work you see the ironic, the sardonic, the often funny and sometimes cruel workings of fate. Little vignettes of no more than a page or two tied together by things like a storm sewer grate or a window or a wall; sometimes just by the passage of time. One man's struggle to be invisible all his life works so well that when he is mistakenly listed among the newly deceased in the obituaries he can't make anyone believe he is still among the living. He loses his apartment, his job, all his money and possessions and eventually in an odd twist of misunderstanding his own life. The ironic part of the whole story; the woman who mistakenly listed him among the dead wins an award from the paper for her dedication and accuracy in her reporting.
The birth, life and death of a building and the ghosts of seemingly inconsequential pedestrians are the backdrop for the story, "The Building". Other stories chronicle the choices, good or bad, made by people we likely would not notice if we tripped over them.
The stories are not filled with explosions and super-fisticuffs and do not often take place on other worlds. So what makes them so fascinating is the way they are told. It's like watching a soap opera. The stories are only important to the people involved but you can't stop watching them anyway.
The hardcore reader of todays comics may not find Mr. Eisner's work worth his hard earned dollar because it doesn't contain enough action but the people who want to create comics would do themselves a disservice by not learning from the master of storytelling. Mr. Eisner's book "Comics and Sequential Art" is a must read for comic creators. You may not like his style of art and that doesn't matter. What you must heed is his pacing and layout of pages and the panels within them. Telling a story without dialog or captions as Mr. Eisner did so well is truly masterful.
Other books to read:
A Contract with God
Will Eisner Reader
Dropsie Avenue
Life on Another Planet
Fagin the Jew
Last Day in Vietnam
The Spirit Archives.
There are others but these are must reads as far as I'm concerned.
Have a great day.
The birth, life and death of a building and the ghosts of seemingly inconsequential pedestrians are the backdrop for the story, "The Building". Other stories chronicle the choices, good or bad, made by people we likely would not notice if we tripped over them.
The stories are not filled with explosions and super-fisticuffs and do not often take place on other worlds. So what makes them so fascinating is the way they are told. It's like watching a soap opera. The stories are only important to the people involved but you can't stop watching them anyway.
The hardcore reader of todays comics may not find Mr. Eisner's work worth his hard earned dollar because it doesn't contain enough action but the people who want to create comics would do themselves a disservice by not learning from the master of storytelling. Mr. Eisner's book "Comics and Sequential Art" is a must read for comic creators. You may not like his style of art and that doesn't matter. What you must heed is his pacing and layout of pages and the panels within them. Telling a story without dialog or captions as Mr. Eisner did so well is truly masterful.
Other books to read:
A Contract with God
Will Eisner Reader
Dropsie Avenue
Life on Another Planet
Fagin the Jew
Last Day in Vietnam
The Spirit Archives.
There are others but these are must reads as far as I'm concerned.
Have a great day.
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