Documentary, 2007
Director: Andrew D. Cooke
USA/ English
96 minutes
This film is a portrait of the life, inspirations, and work of comic artist Will Eisner, one of the pioneering talents in the medium. The most fascinating thing about it is that as Eisner has been such an integral part of the medium since the 1930's, through his history we learn much about the development of comic art itself. We watch from its inception as cartoons mainly for children to an escape for adults as well during the terrible years of the great depression to a full-on art form, a bona fide means of self expression with a unique ability to capture, communicate, and preserve the social humor of a time.
Many of the most influential, founding members of the art form were Jewish (despite the anglicized pen names and the names of their characters), because at the time Jewish artists found it nearly impossible to get jobs in more "legitimate" forms of art like advertising.
In this documentary we see taped interviews with Eisner himself along with other pioneers in the field like Stan Lee, Art Spiegelman, and Frank Miller. We learn not only the history of the form but tricks of the trade, the art behind the story, like how to use shadows to tap into our psychological fear of the dark and increase a sense of suspense and threat. There were regrets, including Eisner's own in his depiction of African-American characters before the days of Civil Rights, but again, those were the times.
One of Eisner's most notable contributions is "The Spirit," an action, crime-fighting series created in 1939 and just released as a motion picture in December 2008.
Lucy Cruell