Gil Kane
Gil Kane at the 1976 San Diego Comic-Con.
Born	April 6, 1926 Riga, Latvia
Died	January 31, 2000 Florida, United States
Nationality	American
Area(s)	Penciller
Pseudonym(s)	Scott Edward
Notable works	Atom Captain Marvel Detective Comics (Robin, Batgirl) Green Lantern
Awards	National Cartoonists Society Award, 1971, 1972, 1975, 1977 Shazam Award, 1971

Eli Katz (April 6, 1926 – January 31, 2000) who worked under the name Gil Kane and in one instance Scott Edward,^[1] was a comic book artist whose career spanned the 1940s to 1990s and every major comics company and character.

Kane co-created the modern-day versions of the superheroes Green Lantern and the Atom for DC Comics, and co-created Iron Fist with Roy Thomas for Marvel Comics. He was involved in such major storylines as that of The Amazing Spider-Man #96–98 (May–July 1971), which, at the behest of the U.S. Department of Health, Education, and Welfare, bucked the then-prevalent Comics Code Authority to depict drug abuse, and ultimately spurred an update of the Code. Kane additionally pioneered an early graphic novel prototype, His Name is...Savage, in 1968, and a seminal graphic novel, Blackmark, in 1971.

In 1997, he was inducted into both the Will Eisner Comic Book Hall of Fame and the Harvey Award Jack Kirby Hall of Fame.

Early life[link]

Gil Kane was born Eli Katz on April 6, 1926, in Latvia.^[2] Kane was born to a Jewish family that emigrated to the U.S. in 1929, settling in Brooklyn, New York City. His father was a struggling poultry merchant.^[3]

Career[link]

Beginnings[link]

Kane studied art at a vocational high school, but left school at age 15 when he saw an opportunity to to work at MLJ Comics (later Archie Comics).^[2][3] He worked there for three weeks before being fired. As Kane recalled, "Within a couple of days I got a job with Jack Binder's agency. Jack Binder had a loft on Fifth Avenue and it just looked like an internment camp. There must have been 50 or 60 guys up there, all at drawing tables. You had to account for the paper that you took". Kane began pencilling professionally there, but, "They weren't terribly happy with what I was doing. But when I was rehired by MLJ three weeks later, not only did they put me back into the production department and give me an increase, they gave me my first job, which was 'Inspector Bentley of Scotland Yard' in Pep Comics, and then they gave me a whole issue of The Shield and Dusty, one of their leading books".^[4] He would also do spot illustrations for other studios.^[3]

Silver Age[link]

During the next several years, Kane drew for about a dozen studios and publishers including Timely Comics, a predecessor of Marvel Comics, and learned from such prominent artists as Jack Kirby and Joe Simon. He interrupted his career briefly to enlist in the Army during World War II, where he served in the Pacific theater of operations.^[3] In the post-war years, on his return to comics, he used pseudonyms, including Pen Star and Gil Stack,^{[citation needed]} before settling on Gil Kane.^[3]

In the late 1950s, Kane freelanced for DC Comics. There he contributed to seminal works in what fans and historians call the Silver Age of comic books, when he illustrated a number of revitalized superhero titles (loosely based on 1940s characters) — most notably Green Lantern, for which he pencilled most of the first 75 issues, and also the Atom. Kane also drew the youthful superhero team the Teen Titans, and in the late 1960s tackled such short-lived titles such as Hawk and Dove, and the licensed-character comic Captain Action, based on the action figure. He briefly freelanced some Hulk stories in Marvel Comics' Tales to Astonish, under the pseudonym Scott Edward.

Due to financial setbacks at the time, Kane began accepting as many art assignments as possible, and with the increased workload often had to hire fellow artists to finish his rough pencil artwork.^{[citation needed]} Eschewing the Scott Edwards pseudonym, Kane freelanced in the 1960s for Tower Comics' T.H.U.N.D.E.R. Agents, a superhero/espionage title, as well as the "Tiger Boy" strip for Harvey Comics. Kane then found a home at Marvel, eventually becoming the regular penciller for The Amazing Spider-Man, succeeding John Romita, in the early 1970s, and becoming the company's preeminent cover artist through that decade, a position that helped him achieve financial stability.^{[citation needed]}

During that run, he and editor-writer Stan Lee produced in 1971 a landmark three-issue story arc in The Amazing Spider-Man #96-98) that marked the first challenge to the industry's self-regulating Comics Code Authority since its inception in 1954. The Code forbade mention of drugs, even in a negative context. However, Lee and Kane created an anti-drug storyline conceived at the behest of the U.S. Department of Health, Education, and Welfare, and upon not receiving Code Authority approval, Marvel published the issues without the Code seal on their covers. The comics met with such critical acclaim and high sales that the industry's self-censorship was undercut, and the Code was soon afterward revamped. Another landmark in Kane's Spider-Man run was the arc "The Night Gwen Stacy Died" in issues #121-122 (June–July 1973), in which Spider-Man's girlfriend Gwen Stacy, as well as the long-time villain Green Goblin were killed, an unusual occurrence at the time.

With writer Roy Thomas, Kane helped revise the Marvel Comics version of Captain Marvel, and revamped a preexisting character as Adam Warlock. Kane and Thomas co-created the martial arts superhero Iron Fist, and Morbius the Living Vampire.

Gerry Conway, Kane's collaborator on the death-of-Gwen-Stacy storyline and elsewhere, described Kane in 2009 as

...a marvelous draftsman and an idiosyncratic storyteller. I quickly learned that working with him Marvel-style (that's when a writer gives the artist a plot and the artist breaks down the story, panel by panel and page by page) could sometimes result in lopsided storytelling; the first two-thirds of a story would be leisurely paced, and the last third would be hellbent-for-leather as Gil tried to make up for loose storytelling in the first half [sic]. So after doing a few stories with him in my usual loosely plotted style, I began giving him tighter plots, indicating where the story had to be by such-and-such a page. He seemed to prefer this, and I'm generally happier with the later stories we did together than the first few.^[5]

Pioneering new formats[link]

Kane's side projects include two long works that he conceived, plotted and illustrated, with scripting by Archie Goodwin (writing under the pseudonym of Robert Franklin): His Name is... Savage (Adventure House Press, 1968), a self-published, 40-page, magazine-format comics novel; and Blackmark (1971), a science fiction/sword-and-sorcery paperback published by Bantam Books. Some historians^{[citation needed]} consider the latter, sold in bookstores and related outlets rather than newsstands, as arguably the first American graphic novel, a term not in general use at the time; the back-cover blurb of the 30th-anniversary edition (ISBN 1-56097-456-7) calls it, retroactively, "the very first American graphic novel." Whether or not this is so, Blackmark is, objectively, a 119-page story of comic-book art, with captions and word balloons, published in a traditional book format. It is also the first with an original heroic-adventure character, conceived expressly for this form.

Sometime in the late 1960s, Kane temporarily acquired the publishing rights to Robert E. Howard's pulp magazine barbarian, Conan, with the intent of reviving the character in a magazine format, à la Savage.^{[citation needed]} However, he was unable to gain financing for the project, and the rights reverted to the Howard estate. When Marvel Comics licensed the character in 1970, writer Roy Thomas initially considered having either Kane or John Buscema draw the comic book, and Kane actively campaigned for the assignment,^{[citation needed]} but editor Lee considered Kane too valuable as the company's premiere cover artist to allow him to devote large amounts of time to a commercially uncertain project.^{[citation needed]} Kane would later provide art for the Conan comic book, which by then was one of Marvel's hits.

Later career[link]

During the 1970s and 1980s, Kane did character designs for various Hanna-Barbera^[6] and Ruby-Spears^{[citation needed]} animated TV series. In 1977, he created the newspaper comic strip Star Hawks with writer Ron Goulart. The daily strip, which ran through 1981,^[7] was known for its experimental use of a two-tier format during the first years. In the early 1980s, he shared regular art duties on Superman with Curt Swan, and also contributed to the 1988 Superman animated TV series.^[6] In 1989 Kane illustrated a comic-book adaptation of Richard Wagner's mythological opera epic The Ring of the Nibelung.^[7]

Death and legacy[link]

He remained active as an artist until his death on January 31, 2000, in Miami, Florida from complications of lymphoma.^[2] He was survived by his second wife, Elaine;^[8][9] children Scott, Eric and Beverly; and two granddaughters.^[2] His final home, where he was buried, was Aventura, Florida.

An homage to Kane and to writer John Broome appears in In Darkest Night, a novelization of the Justice League animated series. The book refers to the Kane/Broome Institute for Space Studies in Coast City. In the Superman The Animated Series episode "In Brightest Day", Gil's Resturantie is named for him.^{[citation needed]} The Broome Kane Galaxy in Green Lantern: Emerald Knights is named for him and John Broome.

Awards[link]

Kane received numerous awards over the years, including the 1971, 1972, and 1975 National Cartoonists Society Awards for Best Story Comic Book, and the group's Story Comic Strip Award for 1977 for Star Hawks. He also received the comic book industry's Shazam Award for Special Recognition in 1971 "for Blackmark, his paperback comics novel". Kane was named to both the Eisner Award Hall of Fame and the Harvey Award Jack Kirby Hall of Fame in 1997.^{[citation needed]}

Bibliography[link]

DC[link]

• Action Comics (Superman) #539-541, 544-546, 551-554 (1983–84), 642 (4-pages only) (1989), 715 (1995); (Green Lantern) #601-605 (1988)
• All-Star Western #3-4, 6, 8 (1970–71)
• Atari Force #3, 5 (1982–83)
• Atom #1-37 (1962–68)
• Batman #208 (1969)
• Batman: Legends of the Dark Knight #24-26 (1991–92)
• Blue Beetle #22 (1988)
• Captain Action #2-5 (1968–69)
• DC Challenge #4 (1986)
• DC Comics Presents (Rex the Wonder Dog) #35 (1981); (Superman & Shazam!) Annual #3 (1984)
• Detective Comics (Batman & Robin) #371, 374 (1968); (Elongated Man) #368, 370, 372-373 (1967–68); (Batgirl) #384-385, 388-389, 392-393, 396, 401, 406-407 (1969–71); (Robin) #390-391, 394, 398-399, 402-403 (1969–70); (Catwoman) #520 (1982)
• Doomsday Annual #1 (1995)
• Flash #195, 197-199 (1970)
• Forbidden Tales of Dark Mansion #13 (1973)
• Green Lantern, vol. 2, #1-61, 68-75 (1960–70), #156 (1982); (Green Lantern Corps) #177 (1984)
• Green Lantern Corps #223-224 (1988)
• Hawk and the Dove #3-5 (1968–69)
• House of Mystery #180, 184, 196 (1969–71); 253 (1977), 300 (1982)
• Justice League of America #200 (6-pages only)(1982)
• Legends of the DC Universe (Green Lantern & Atom) #28-29 (2000)
• Metal Men #30-31 (1968)
• Plastic Man #1 (1966)
• Power of Shazam! #14, 19 (this issue along with Joe Staton) (1996)
• Ring of the Nibelung #1-4 (miniseries) (1989–90)
• Secret Origins (Blue Beetle) #2; (Midnight) #28 (1986–88)
• Showcase (Green Lantern) #22-24; (Atom) #34-36 (1959–62)
• Static #31 (1996)
• Star Spangled War Stories #169 (1973)
• Strange Adventures (Adam Strange) #222 (1970)
• Superman, vol. 1, (Fabulous World of Krypton) #367, 375; (Superman 2021) #372 (1982)
• Superman, vol. 2, #99, 101-103 (1995)
• Superman: Blood of My Ancestors (along with John Buscema) (2003, posthumous)
• Superman: Distant Fires (1998)
• Superman: The Wedding Album (among other artists) (1996)
• Superman Special (annual series) #1-2 (1983–84)
• Sword of the Atom #1-4 (miniseries) (1983)
• Tales of the Green Lantern Corps Annual #1 (1985)
• Talos of the Wilderness Sea (1986)
• Teen Titans #19, 22-24 (1969)
• Time Warp #2 (1979)
• Vigilante #12-13 (1984)
• Weird Mystery Tales #10 (1974)
• Weird Western Tales #15, 20 (1972–73)
• Witching Hour #12 (1970)
• World's Finest Comics (Green Arrow & Black Canary) #282-283; (Shazam!) #282 (1982)

Marvel[link]

• Amazing Spider-Man #89-92; 96-105; 120-124; 150; Annual #10 (1970–75), Annual #24 (1990)
• Astonishing Tales (Ka-Zar) #11,15 (1972)
• Captain America #145 (along with John Romita, Sr) (1972)
• Captain Marvel #17-21 (1969–70)
• Conan the Barbarian #17-18 (1972); #127-134 (1981–82)
• Creatures on the Loose (Gullivar Jones) #16-17 (1972)
• Daredevil #141, 146-148, 151 (1977–78)
• Deadly Hands of Kung Fu (Sons of the Tiger) #23 (1976)
• Fear (Morbius) #12 (1973)
• Ghost Rider #21 (1976)
• Giant-Size Conan #1-4 (1974–75)
• Inhumans #5-7 (1976)
• John Carter, Warlord of Mars #1-10 (1977–78)
• Journey into Mystery, vol. 2, #1-2 (1972)
• Jungle Action, vol. 2 (Black Panther) #9 (1974)
• Marvel Comics Presents (Two-Gun Kid) #116 (1992)
• Marvel Fanfare (Mowgli) #9-11 (1983)
• Marvel: Heroes & Legends #2 (1997)
• Marvel Premiere (Adam Warlock) #1-2; (Iron Fist) #15 (1972–74)
• Marvel Preview (Blackmark) #17 (1979)
• Marvel Team-Up (Spider-Man team-ups) #4-6, 13-14, 16-19, 23 (1972–74)
• Marvel Two-in-One (The Thing team-ups) #1-2 (1974)
• Micronauts #38, 40-45 (1982)
• Monsters Unleashed #3 (1973)
• Savage Sword of Conan #8, 47, 63-65, 67, 85-86 (1975–83)
• Savage Tales (Conan) #4 (along with Neal Adams) (1974)
• Scarlet Spider #1 (1995)
• Spider-Man #63 (1995)
• Tales of Suspense (Captain America) #88-91 (1967)
• Tales to Astonish (Hulk) #89-91 (1967)
• Thor #318 (1982)
• Vampire Tales (Morbius) #5 (1974)
• Warlock #1-5 (1972–73)
• Web of Spider-Man Annual #6 (1990)
• Werewolf by Night #11-12 (1975)
• What If? (Avengers) #3, (Spider-Man) #24 (1977–80)

Footnotes[link]

References[link]

• Afterword, Blackmark 30th Anniversary Edition (Fantagraphics Books, 2002) ISBN 1-56097-456-7
• Comic Art Grafix Gallery: Gil Kane
• Secret Identities

Further reading[link]

• Herman, Daniel, Gil Kane: The Art of the Comics (Hermes Press, Neshannock, Pennsylvania, 2001), ISBN 0-9710311-1-8 (hardcover), ISBN 0-9710311-2-6 (trade paperback)
• Herman, Daniel,Gil Kane Art and Interviews (Hermes Press, Neshannock, Pennsylvania, 2002), ISBN 0-9710311-6-9, ISBN 978-0-9710311-6-6

External links[link]

Biography portal

• Radford, Bill. "Influence of Master Comic Illustrator Will Not Be Erased", The Gazette Colorado Springs, Colorado, February 13, 2000. Archive.org archive.
• Schenk, Ramon. "Gil Kane Index". Archived from the original on September 20, 2005. http://web.archive.org/web/20050920075707/http://www.ramonschenk.nl/gilkane/gilkanechecklist.htm. 

Will Eisner
Will Eisner, 1982
Born	(1917-03-06)March 6, 1917 Brooklyn, New York City, New York
Died	January 3, 2005(2005-01-03) (aged 87) Lauderdale Lakes, Florida
Nationality	American
Area(s)	Cartoonist, Publisher
Pseudonym(s)	William Erwin Maxwell[1]
Notable works	The Spirit A Contract with God
Awards	full list

William Erwin "Will" Eisner (March 6, 1917 – January 3, 2005) was an American comics writer, artist and entrepreneur. He is considered one of the most important contributors to the development of the medium and is known for the cartooning studio he founded; for his highly influential series The Spirit; for his use of comics as an instructional medium; for his leading role in establishing the graphic novel as a form of literature with his book A Contract with God and Other Tenement Stories.

The comics community paid tribute to Eisner by creating the Will Eisner Comic Industry Awards, more commonly known as "the Eisners", to recognize achievements each year in the comics medium. Eisner enthusiastically participated in the awards ceremony, congratulating each recipient. In 1987, with Carl Barks and Jack Kirby, he was one of the three inaugural inductees of the Will Eisner Comic Book Hall of Fame.

Early life and career[link]

Eisner was born in Brooklyn, New York City, the son of Jewish immigrants. His parents provided a modest life for their son. His mother was from Romania and served as the more practical and realistic parent, firmly believing that her son’s artistic tendencies would never amount to any kind of success in life. His father, an artist, was born in Vienna, Austria. He painted backdrops for vaudeville and the Jewish theater but was also a semi-successful entrepreneur and, at one point, a manufacturer in Manhattan's Seventh Avenue garment district. Believing his son should value creativity and art, the elder Eisners instilled in him a sense of duality, a balance between business and art.^[2][3] Eisner attended DeWitt Clinton High School. With influences that included the early 20th-century commercial artist J. C. Leyendecker,^[4] he drew for the school newspaper (The Clintonian), the literary magazine (The Magpie) and the yearbook, and did stage design, leading him to consider doing that kind of work for theater. Upon graduation, he studied under Canadian artist George Brandt Bridgman (1864–1943) for a year at the Art Students League of New York. Contacts made there led to a position as an advertising writer-cartoonist for the New York American newspaper. Eisner also drew $10-a-page illustrations for pulp magazines, including Western Sheriffs and Outlaws.

In 1936, high-school friend and fellow cartoonist Bob Kane, of future Batman fame, suggested that the 19-year-old Eisner try selling cartoons to the new comic book Wow, What A Magazine! "Comic books" at the time were tabloid-sized collections of comic strip reprints in color. In 1935, they had begun to include occasional new comic strip-like material. Wow editor Jerry Iger bought an Eisner adventure strip called Captain Scott Dalton, an H. Rider Haggard-styled hero who traveled the world after rare artifacts. Eisner subsequently wrote and drew the pirate strip "The Flame" and the secret agent strip "Harry Karry" for Wow as well.

Eisner said that on one occasion a man who Eisner described as "a Mob type straight out of Damon Runyon, complete with pinkie ring, broken nose, black shirt, and white tie, who claimed to have 'exclusive distribution rights for all Brooklyn" asked Eisner to draw Tijuana bibles for $3 a page. Eisner said that he declined the offer; he described the decision as "one of the most difficult moral decisions of my life."^[5]

Eisner & Iger[link]

Wow lasted four issues (cover-dated July–September and November 1936). After it ended, Eisner and Iger worked together producing and selling original comics material, anticipating that the well of available reprints would soon run dry, though their accounts of how their partnership was founded differ. One of the first such comic-book "packagers", their partnership was an immediate success, and the two soon had a stable of comics creators supplying work to Fox Comics, Fiction House, Quality Comics (for whom Eisner co-created such characters as Doll Man and Blackhawk), and others. Turning a profit of $1.50 a page, Eisner claimed that he "got very rich before I was 22,"^[6] later detailing that in Depression-era 1939 alone, he and Iger "had split $25,000 between us",^[7] a considerable amount for the time. Among the studio's products was a self-syndicated Sunday comic strip, Hawks of the Sea, that initially reprinted Eisner's old strip Wow, What A Magazine! feature "The Flame" and then continued it with new material.^[8] Eisner's original work even crossed the Atlantic, with Eisner drawing the new cover of the October 16, 1937 issue of Boardman Books' comic-strip reprint tabloid Okay Comics Weekly.^{[citation needed]}

In 1939, Eisner was commissioned to create Wonder Man for Victor Fox, an accountant who had previously worked at DC Comics and was becoming a comic book publisher himself. Following Fox's instructions to create a Superman-type character, and using the pen name Willis, Eisner wrote and drew the first issue of Wonder Comics. Eisner said in interviews throughout his later life that he had protested the derivative nature of the character and story, and that when subpoenaed after National Periodical Publications, the company that would evolve into DC Comics, sued Fox, alleging Wonder Man was an illegal copy of Superman, Eisner testified that this was so, undermining Fox's case;^[9] Eisner even depicts himself doing so in his semi-autobiographical graphic novel The Dreamer.^[10] However, a transcript of the proceeding, uncovered by comics historian Ken Quattro in 2010, indicates Eisner in fact supported Fox and claimed Wonder Man as an original Eisner creation.^[11]

[edit] The Spirit

In "late '39, just before Christmas time," Eisner recalled in 1979,^[12] Quality Comics publisher Everett M. "Busy" Arnold "came to me and said that the Sunday newspapers were looking for a way of getting into this comic book boom," In a 2004 interview,^[13] he elaborated on that meeting:

"Busy" invited me up for lunch one day and introduced me to Henry Martin [sales manager of The Des Moines Register and Tribune Syndicate, who] said, "The newspapers in this country, particularly the Sunday papers, are looking to compete with comics books, and they would like to get a comic-book insert into the newspapers." ... Martin asked if I could do it. ... It meant that I'd have to leave Eisner & Iger [which] was making money; we were very profitable at that time and things were going very well. A hard decision. Anyway, I agreed to do the Sunday comic book and we started discussing the deal [which] was that we'd be partners in the 'Comic Book Section,' as they called it at that time. And also, I would produce two other magazines in partnership with Arnold.

Eisner negotiated an agreement with the syndicate in which Arnold would copyright The Spirit, but, "Written down in the contract I had with 'Busy' Arnold — and this contract exists today as the basis for my copyright ownership — Arnold agreed that it was my property. They agreed that if we had a split-up in any way, the property would revert to me on that day that happened. My attorney went to 'Busy' Arnold and his family, and they all signed a release agreeing that they would not pursue the question of ownership"^[13] This would include the eventual backup features "Mr. Mystic" and "Lady Luck".

Selling his share of their firm to Iger, who would continue to package comics as the S. M. Iger Studio and as Phoenix Features through 1955, for $20,000,^[14] Eisner left to create The Spirit. "They gave me an adult audience", Eisner said in 1997, "and I wanted to write better things than superheroes. Comic books were a ghetto. I sold my part of the enterprise to my associate and then began The Spirit. They wanted an heroic character, a costumed character. They asked me if he'd have a costume. And I put a mask on him and said, 'Yes, he has a costume!'"^[15]

The Spirit, an initially eight- and later seven-page urban-crimefighter series, ran with the initial backup features "Mr. Mystic" and "Lady Luck" in a 16-page Sunday supplement (colloquially called "The Spirit Section") that was eventually distributed in 20 newspapers with a combined circulation of as many as five million copies.^[16] It premiered June 2, 1940, and continued through 1952.^[17]

[edit] World War II and Joe Dope

Premiere issue of the U.S. Army publication PS (June 1951), designed to be a "postscript" to related publications. Art by Eisner.

Eisner was drafted into the U.S. Army in "late '41, early '42"^[18] and then "had about another half-year which the government gave me to clean up my affairs before going off" to fight in World War II.^[19] He was assigned to the camp newspaper in Aberdeen, where "there was also a big training program there, so I got involved in the use of comics for training. ... I finally became a warrant officer, which involved taking a test — that way you didn't have to go through Officer Candidate School."^[18] En route to Washington, D.C., he stopped at the Hollabird Depot in Baltimore, Maryland, where a mimeographed publication titled Army Motors was put together. "Together with the people there ... I helped develop its format. I began doing cartoons — and we began fashioning a magazine that had the ability to talk to the G.I.s in their language. So I began to use comics as a teaching tool, and when I got to Washington, they assigned me to the business of teaching — or selling — preventive maintenance."^[20] Eisner then created the educational comic strip and titular character Joe Dope for Army Motors, and spent four years working in The Pentagon editing the ordnance magazine Firepower and doing "all the general illustrations — that is, cartoons" for Army Motors. He continued to work on that and its 1950 successor magazine, PS, The Preventive Maintenance Monthly.^[20]

While Eisner's later graphic novels were entirely his own work, he had a studio working under his supervision on The Spirit. In particular, letterer Abe Kanegson came up with the distinctive lettering style which Eisner himself would later imitate in his book-length works, and Kanegson would often rewrite Eisner's dialogue.^[21]

Eisner's most trusted assistant on The Spirit, however, was Jules Feiffer, later a renowned cartoonist, playwright and screenwriter in his own right. Eisner later said of their working methods "You should hear me and Jules Feiffer going at it in a room. 'No, you designed the splash page for this one, then you wrote the ending — I came up with the idea for the story, and you did it up to this point, then I did the next page and this sequence here and...' And I'll be swearing up and down that 'he' wrote the ending on that one. We never agree".^[21]

So trusted were Eisner's assistants that Eisner allowed them to "ghost" The Spirit from the time that he was drafted into the U.S. Army in 1942 until his return to civilian life in 1945. The primary wartime artists were the uncredited Lou Fine and Jack Cole, with future Kid Colt, Outlaw artist Jack Keller drawing backgrounds. Ghost writers included Manly Wade Wellman and William Woolfolk. The wartime ghosted stories have been reprinted in DC Comics' hardcover collections The Spirit Archives Vols. 5 to 11 (2001–2003), spanning July 1942 - December 1944.

On Eisner's return from service and resumption of his role in the studio, he created the bulk of the Spirit stories on which his reputation was solidified. The post-war years also saw him attempt to launch the comic-strip/comic-book series Baseball, John Law, Kewpies, and Nubbin the Shoeshine Boy; none succeeded, but some material was recycled into The Spirit.^{[citation needed]}

American Visuals Corporation[link]

This unreferenced section requires citations to ensure verifiability.

During his World War II military service, Eisner had introduced the use of comics for training personnel in the publication Army Motors, for which he created the cautionary bumbling soldier Joe Dope, who illustrated various methods of preventive maintenance of various military equipment and weapons. In 1948, while continuing to do The Spirit and seeing television and other post-war trends eat at the readership base of newspapers, he formed the American Visuals Corporation in order to produce instructional materials for the government, related agencies, and businesses. One of his longest-running jobs was PS, The Preventive Maintenance Monthly, a digest sized magazine with comic book elements that he started for the Army in 1951 and continued to work on until the 1970s with Klaus Nordling, Mike Ploog, and other artists.

Other clients of his Connecticut-based company included RCA Records, the Baltimore Colts NFL football team, and New York Telephone.

Graphic novels[link]

In the late 1970s, Eisner turned his attention to longer storytelling forms. A Contract with God, and Other Tenement Stories (Baronet Books, October 1978) is an early example of an American graphic novel, combining thematically linked short stories into a single square-bound volume. Eisner continued with a string of graphic novels that tell the history of New York's immigrant communities, particularly Jews, including The Building, A Life Force, Dropsie Avenue and To the Heart of the Storm. He continued producing new books into his seventies and eighties, at an average rate of nearly one a year. Each of these books was done twice — once as a rough version to show editor Dave Schreiner, then as a second, finished version incorporating suggested changes.^[22]

Some of his last work was the retelling in sequential art of novels and myths, including Moby-Dick. In 2002, at the age of 85, he published Sundiata, based on the part-historical, part-mythical stories of a West African king, "The Lion of Mali". Fagin the Jew is an account of the life of Dickens' character Fagin, in which Eisner tries to get past the stereotyped portrait of Fagin in Oliver Twist. His last graphic novel, The Plot: The Secret Story of The Protocols of the Elders of Zion , an account of the making of the anti-semitic hoax The Protocols of the Learned Elders of Zion, was completed shortly before his death and published in 2005 .

Academic work[link]

In his later years especially, Eisner was a frequent lecturer about the craft and uses of sequential art. He taught at the School of Visual Arts in New York City, where he published Will Eisner's Gallery, a collection of work by his students^{[citation needed]} and wrote two books based on these lectures, Comics and Sequential Art and Graphic Storytelling and Visual Narrative, which are widely used by students of cartooning. In 2002, Eisner participated in the Will Eisner Symposium of the 2002 University of Florida Conference on Comics and Graphic Novels.^[23]

Death[link]

Eisner died January 3, 2005, in Lauderdale Lakes, Florida, of complications from a quadruple bypass surgery performed December 22, 2004.^[24][25] DC Comics held a memorial service in Manhattan's Lower East Side, a neighborhood Eisner often visited in his work, at the Angel Orensanz Foundation on Norfolk Street.^[26]

Eisner was survived by his wife, Ann Weingarten Eisner, and their son, John.^[27][28][29] In the introduction to the 2001 reissue of A Contract with God, Eisner revealed that the inspiration for the title story grew out of the 1970 death of his leukemia-stricken teenaged daughter, Alice, next to whom he is buried. Until then, only Eisner's closest friends were aware of his daughter's life and death.

Awards and honors[link]

Eisner has been recognized for his work with the National Cartoonists Society Comic Book Award for 1967, 1968, 1969, 1987 and 1988, as well as its Story Comic Book Award in 1979, and its highest accolade, the Reuben Award, for 1998.

He was inducted into the Academy of Comic Book Arts Hall of Fame in 1971, and the Jack Kirby Hall of Fame in 1987. The following year, the Will Eisner Comic Industry Awards were established in his honor.

He received in 1975 the second Grand Prix de la ville d'Angoulême.

With Jack Kirby, Robert Crumb, Harvey Kurtzman, Gary Panter, and Chris Ware, Eisner was among the artists honored in the exhibition "Masters of American Comics" at the Jewish Museum in New York City, New York, from September 16, 2006 to January 28, 2007.^[30][31]

On the 94th anniversary of Eisner's birth, in 2011, Google used an image featuring the Spirit as its logo.^[32][33]

Books[link]

References[link]

Further reading[link]

• Feiffer, Jules, The Great Comic-Book Heroes, ISBN 1-56097-501-6
• Jones, Gerard, Men Of Tomorrow ISBN 0-434-01402-8
• Steranko, Jim, The Steranko History of Comics 2 (Supergraphics, 1972)

External links[link]

Biography portal

Wikimedia Commons has media related to: Will Eisner

This article's use of external links may not follow Wikipedia's policies or guidelines. Please improve this article by removing excessive or inappropriate external links, and converting useful links where appropriate into footnote references. (January 2011)

• Official website. WebCitation archive.
• Will Eisner at the Open Directory Project
• Tumulka, Wes, ed. Wildwood Cemetery: The Spirit Database. WebCitation archive.
• Archive of Heintjes, Tom. "Will Eisner's The Spirit", AdventureStrips.com, n.d.. Original page.
• Fitzgerald, Paul E. "Every Picture Tells A Story: His Pen and Wit Sharper Than Ever, Graphic Novelist Will Eisner Takes On Religious Intolerance", The Washington Post, June 3, 2004. WebCitation archive.
• Robinson, Tasha. "Interview: Will Eisner", The A.V. Club / The Onion, September 27, 2000. WebCitation archive.
• Will Eisner at the Comic Book DB
• Jacks, Brian. "Veterans Day Exclusive: 'The Spirit' Creator Will Eisner's Wartime Memories", MTV.com, November 11, 2000. WebCitation archive.
• Ohio State: Will Eisner Collection
• Benton, John (May 2005.). "Will Eisner: Having Something to Say". The Comics Journal (267). Archived from the original on March 19, 2011. http://www.tcj.com/will-eisner-having-something-to-say/.  Archive of material trimmed from print-magazine interview. Archive of interview excerpts originally posted online. Interview conducted September 10, 1968; originally published in Witzend #6 (Spring 1969).
• "Interview with Jerry Iger", Cubic Zirconia Reader, 1985. WebCitation archive.

This biographical article needs additional citations for verification. Please help by adding reliable sources. Contentious material about living persons that is unsourced or poorly sourced must be removed immediately, especially if potentially libelous or harmful. (February 2009)

Howard Victor Chaykin (born October 7, 1950)^[1] is an American comic book writer and artist famous for his innovative storytelling and sometimes controversial material. Chaykin’s main influences are the mid-20th Century book illustrators Robert Fawcett, Al Parker, and others, along with a love for jazz, which is often reflected in his work.

Biography[link]

1970s[link]

Howard Chaykin began his career in comics as an assistant to such artists as Gil Kane and Neal Adams before going solo. His first major work was for DC Comics drawing a comics adaptation of Fafhrd and the Gray Mouser in Sword of Sorcery.^[2] Although the title was well received, it lasted only five issues before cancellation. Chaykin also drew the character Ironwolf in the science fiction anthology title Weird Worlds^[3] for DC. Moving to Marvel Comics, he began work as co-artist with Neal Adams on the first Killraven story, seen in Amazing Adventures #18 in 1973.

After this, Chaykin was given various adventure strips to draw for Marvel, including his own creation, Dominic Fortune (inspired by his Scorpion character, originally drawn for Atlas Comics), now in the pages of Marvel Premiere. In 1978, he also wrote and drew his Cody Starbuck creation for the anthology title Star Reach, one of the first independent titles of the 1970s. These strips saw him explore more adult themes as best he could within the restrictions often imposed on him by editors and the Comics Code Authority. The same year, he produced for Schanes & Schanes a six-plate portfolio showcasing his character.

In 1976, Chaykin landed the job of drawing the Marvel Comics adaptation of the first Star Wars film, written by Roy Thomas.^[4] This proved to be a massive success for Marvel, but Chaykin left after ten issues to work in more adult and experimental comics, as well the more lucrative field of paperback book covers.

Chaykin penciled DC Comics' first miniseries, The World of Krypton (July–September 1979).^[5]

In the next few years he produced material for Heavy Metal, drew a graphic novel adaptation of Alfred Bester’s The Stars My Destination, and produced illustrations for works by Roger Zelazny. Chaykin also collaborated on two original graphic novels — Swords of Heaven, Flowers of Hell with writer Michael Moorcock, and Empire with Samuel R. Delany — and found time to move into film design with work on the movie version of Heavy Metal.

1980s[link]

Chaykin went back to Cody Starbuck with a story in Heavy Metal between May and September 1981, in the same painted art style he'd used for the Moorcock graphic novel.

[edit] American Flagg!

In 1983, Chaykin launched American Flagg! for First Comics. With Chaykin as both writer and artist, American Flagg! was successful for First and proved highly influential. Chaykin mixed all his previous ideas and interests—jazz, pulp adventure, science fiction and sex—into American Flagg!. For American Flagg!, Chaykin made wide use of Craftint Duoshade illustration boards, which in the period before computers, allowed him to add a shaded texture to the finished art.^[6]

After the first 26 issues of American Flagg!, Chaykin started work on new projects. Chaykin’s involvement in his original run of the series was that of writer for 29 issues, interior artist for issues 1-12 and 14-26, and cover artist for issues 1-33. He returned to full art and writing duties just for the American Flagg! Special one-shot in 1986. In 1989, a four-issue run was released, then the title was cancelled and relaunched as Howard Chaykin’s American Flagg!. This new rendition failed to recapture the glory days of the title’s early years and only lasted 12 issues before cancellation.

Upstart Associates[link]

In Fall 1978,^[7] Chaykin, Walt Simonson, Val Mayerik, and Jim Starlin formed Upstart Associates, a shared studio space on West 29th Street in New York City. The membership of the studio changed over time.^[8]

[edit] The Shadow

The first new project was a controversial revamp of The Shadow in a four-issue mini-series for DC Comics in 1986. Rather than setting the series in its traditional 1930s milieu, Chaykin updated it to a contemporary setting and included his own style of extreme violence. In a 2012 interview, Chaykin stated "The reason I pulled him out of the period was because I thought it would be commercial suicide to do a period character at that point."^[9]

[edit] Time²

The American Flagg! Special one-shot was designed to introduce Chaykin's next major work, a graphic novel series called Time². The work—combining semi-autobiographical elements with a heavy dose of jazz, film noir and a fantasy version of New York City—resulted in two graphic novels (Time²: The Epiphany (ISBN 0-915419-07-6) and Time²: The Satisfaction of Black Mariah (ISBN 0-915419-23-8)).

During a 1987 interview originally published in Amazing Heroes #132, Chaykin described plans for a third graphic novel. "It's probably going to be grossly different from the first two, because I'm taking things in another direction," Chaykin said at the time. "I want to do a story that is both very funny ... and at the same time very, very ugly. Really nasty and unpleasant. Because frankly, it's the place to do that sort of thing."^[10]

Although Chaykin hoped it would be available in summer 1988, the third book was never released.

Chaykin has described Time² as one of his favorites among his own output. "To tell you the truth, my first interest would be to do another Time² because that was a very personal product for me," he said in a 2008 interview. "It's a fantasia of my family's story."^[11]

[edit] Blackhawk

Before Chaykin returned to American Flagg!, he revamped another DC Comics character: Blackhawk was a three-issue mini-series that gave Chaykin another chance to indulge in the 1930s milieu, proving itself another successful revamping of a defunct DC character.

Chaykin also protested DC’s proposed system of labelling comics for violent or sexual content; Chaykin (with Alan Moore, and Frank Miller) boycotted DC and refused to work for the company. In Chaykin’s case, the boycott would only last until the early 1990s.

[edit] Black Kiss

In 1988, Chaykin created perhaps his most controversial title: Black Kiss, a 12-issue series published by Vortex Comics which contained his most explicit depictions of sex and violence yet. Telling the story of sex-obsessed vampires in Hollywood, Black Kiss pushed the boundaries of what could be shown in mainstream comics. Even though Black Kiss shipped sealed in an "adults only" clear plastic bag, its content drew much criticism. This did not stop it from selling well enough for Chaykin to describe it as "probably, on a per-page basis, the most profitable book I've ever done."^[12]

1990s[link]

Chaykin returned to DC to write a three-issue prestige format mini-series called Twilight, drawn by José Luis García-López, in a style blending Chaykin's storytelling and García-López's elegant line art. This was another radical revamp of DC characters—this time, DC’s science fiction heroes from the 1950s and 1960s, such as Tommy Tomorrow and Space Cabby. He then co-created/designed Firearm for Malibu Comics in 1993. This was followed by the four-issue miniseries Power and Glory in 1994, a superhero-themed PR satire for Malibu Comics' creator-owned Bravura imprint. It was optioned for film production, but was never made into a movie.^{[citation needed]}

In 1996, DC’s Helix imprint published Cyberella, a cyberpunk dystopia written by Chaykin and drawn by Don Cameron. Although it was not intended as a limited series, Helix decided to end the relatively poor-selling title at twelve issues.^{[citation needed]}

Chaykin began to drift out of comics by the mid-1990s. With the exception of several Elseworlds stories he wrote for DC Comics, including Batman: Dark Allegiances which he wrote and drew in 1996, his comic output became minimal as he became more involved in film and television work. He was executive script consultant for The Flash television series on CBS,^[13] and later worked on action-adventure programs such as Viper,^[14] Earth: Final Conflict^[15] and Mutant X.^[16]

Near the end of the decade, Chaykin started to drift back into comics and co-wrote with David Tischman the three-issue mini-series Pulp Fantastic for the Vertigo imprint of DC, with art by Rick Burchett. Pulp Fantastic was part of Vertigo’s celebrations for the new Millennium, and although it never sold well,^{[citation needed]} it would see the start of Chaykin becoming more involved with comics over the next few years.

2000s[link]

Chaykin began co-writing American Century with David Tischmann for Vertigo.^[17] This story, set in post-war America, would be a pulp-adventure strip inspired by the likes of Terry and the Pirates as well as the EC Comics war stories created by Harvey Kurtzman. That year, Chaykin became part of the creative team on Mutant X, a television series inspired by the Marvel Comics series of mutant titles.

American Century was a critical hit but sold poorly^{[citation needed]} and was canceled after 27 issues. This was only the start of an intense period of work for Chaykin at DC Comics. He also quit his television and film work during the run on American Century.^{[citation needed]}

His next work was Mighty Love, a 96-page original graphic novel published in 2004 and described as "You’ve Got Mail with super-powers".^[18] This was acclaimed as a return to the type of work he did on American Flagg! and contained his first art in a title since the early 1990s.

That year, Chaykin and Tischmann revamped Challengers of the Unknown in a six-issue mini-series for DC, as well as writing a mini-series about gangster vampires called Bite Club for Vertigo.^[17] The pair also wrote Barnum!: In Secret Service to the USA, a graphic novel in which real-life showman P.T. Barnum comes to the aid of the U.S. government.

In 2005, Chaykin produced the six-part City of Tomorrow, a DC/Wildstorm production involving a futuristic city populated by gangster robots. Chaykin described the mini-series as "The Untouchables meets West World at Epcot."^[19] Also for Wildstorm that year, he wrote the four-issue mini-series Legend updating the character Hugo Danner.

He also illustrated 24 College Ave., a story serialized online in 54 chapters for ESPN.com’s Page 2 section. ESPN.com columnist Jim Caple wrote the text, each episode of which was accompanied by a single-panel Chaykin drawing.^[20]

In 2006, he began working on his first superhero title for DC Comics, pencilling Hawkgirl, with Walter Simonson writing, starting with issue 50.^[21] With issue 56, he stopped drawing the series, mainly to get time to work on Marvel’s Blade with Marc Guggenheim, although he continued to draw Hawkgirl covers for a few issues.

Also in 2006, DC Comics published a two-page Black Canary origin story drawn by Chaykin for the series 52. Later that year, DC released Guy Gardner: Collateral Damage. The two-issue series, written and drawn by Chaykin, revolves around the Green Lantern Corps' role in an interstellar war.

After Blade was cancelled with issue 12, he pencilled issue 50 of Punisher, Wolverine (vol. 3) #56-61, Punisher War Journal (vol. 2) (#16-24) and an issue of Immortal Iron Fist. Chaykin has also illustrated the 2008 Marvel MAX comic War Is Hell: The First Flight of the Phantom Eagle, scripted by Garth Ennis. He wrote Supreme Power #1-12 for Marvel. In 2009, he wrote and penciled Dominic Fortune.

In 2010 he wrote Die Hard: Year One, a comic about John McClane from the Die Hard series for Boom! Studios.^[22] Marvel in June 2010 published a Rawhide Kid mini-series drawn by Chaykin and written by Ron Zimmerman.^[23]

Marvel Comics in 2011 announced Chaykin would write and draw a five-part miniseries, Avengers 1959, a spinoff of a storyline first introduced in The New Avengers. The first issue is scheduled for an October 2011 release.^[24]

Chaykin serves on the Disbursement Committee of the comic-book industry charity The Hero Initiative.^[25]

Bibliography[link]

His work as an artist (interior pencil art, except where noted) includes:

DC[link]

• Adventure Comics (Shining Knight) #438 (1975)
• Batgirl & Robin: Thrillkiller #1-3 (writer, 1997)
• Batman: Dark Allegiances (writer/artist, 1996)
• Batman Black and White, miniseries, #1 (writer/artist, 1996)
• Batman/Catwoman: Follow the Money (2010)
• Batman Family #14 (1977)
• Blackhawk #260 (1983)
• Blackhawk, miniseries, #1-3 (writer/artist, 1988)
• Challengers of the Unknown, miniseries, #1-6 (writer/artist, 2004)
• City of Tomorrow, miniseries, #2-3 (2005)
• Detective Comics (Batman & Robin) #441 (1974); (Human Target) #483 (1979)
• Forbidden Tales of Dark Mansion #7 (1972)
• DC Holiday Special '09 (Enemy Ace) #1 (2010)
• Guy Gardner: Collateral Damage, miniseries, #1-2 (2007)
• Hawkgirl #50-56 (2006)
• House of Mystery #277 (1980)
• JSA: All-Stars, miniseries, #5 (2003)
• Justice Society of America 80-Page Giant #1 (among other artists) (2011)
• Men of War (Enemy Ace) #9-10, 12-14, 19-20 (1978–79)
• Mighty Love, graphic novel (writer/artist, 2004)
• Orion #7 (co-writer/artist, 2000)
• The Shadow, miniseries, #1-4 (1985)
• Superboy and the Legion of Super-Heroes #240 (1978)
• Sword of Sorcery (Fafhrd and the Gray Mouser) #1-5 (1973)
• Tarzan (backup story) #216 (1973)
• Twilight, miniseries, #1-3 (writer, 1990)
• Weird War Tales #48, 61-62, 67, 69, 76, 82 (1976–79)
• Weird Western Tales (Cinnamon) #49 (1978)
• Weird Worlds (Ironwolf) #8-10 (1973–74)
• World of Krypton, miniseries, #1-3 (1979)

Marvel[link]

• Amazing Adventures, vol. 2, (Killraven) #18 (along with Neal Adams), 19 (1973)
• Avengers 1959, miniseries, #1- (2011)
• Blade #1-8 (2006–07)
• Captain America #600, 616 (among other artists) (2009–11)
• Captain America Theater of War: America First! (2009)
• Chamber of Chills #4 (1973)
• Conan the Barbarian #79-83 (1977–78)
• Hulk! (Dominic Fortune) #21-25 (1980–81)
• Immortal Iron Fist Annual #1 (among other artists) (2007)
• Iron Man, vol. 5, (Tony Stark) #503 (2011)
• James Bond for Your Eyes Only #2 (1981)
• Kull and the Barbarians (Red Sonja) #2-3 (1975)
• Magneto #1 (2010)
• Marvel Comics Super Special #9, 19 (1978–81)
• Marvel Preview (Dominic Fortune) #20 (1980)
• Marvel Spotlight (Nick Fury) #31 (1976)
• Marvel Team-Up (Spider-Man) #76-77 (1978)
• New Avengers #21 (2007)
• New Avengers, vol. 2, #9-on (along with Mike Deodato, doing "Avengers 1959" flashbacks) (2011)
• Punisher War Journal, vol. 2, #16-25 (2008–09)
• Star Wars #1-10 (1977–1978)
• X-Men vs. Vampires, miniseries, #2 (2010)

Other publishers[link]

• American Flagg! #1-12, 14-26 (writer/artist); #13, 27-29 (writer) (First, 1983–86)
• Black Kiss #1-12 (writer/artist) (Vortex, 1988–89)
• Creepy #64 (Warren, 1974)
• The Scorpion #1-2 (writer/artist) (Atlas/Seaboard)
• Star*Reach #1, 4-5 (1974–76) (Star*Reach)

Compilations[link]

• American Flagg! Volumes 1, 2, 3 (collect issues #1-9, First Comics)
• American Flagg! Volumes 1 and 2 (collect issues #1-14, Dynamic Forces and Image Comics, 2009, ISBN 1-58240-419-4)
• Batman: Thrillkiller DC, 1998, ISBN 1-56389-424-6
• American Century:
  • Scars & Stripes (collects issues #1-4, with David Tischman and Marc Laming, DC/Vertigo, 2001, ISBN 1-56389-791-1)
  • Hollywood Babylon (collects issues #5-9, with David Tischman, Marc Laming, John Stokes and Warren Pleece, DC/Vertigo, 2002, ISBN 1-56389-885-3)
• Thick Black Kiss (SC, Vortex, 1993), Big Black Kiss (SC, Eros Comics, 2002), Howard Chaykin's Black Kiss (HC, Dynamite, 2010, ISBN 1-60690-021-8)
• Challengers of the Unknown: Stolen Moments, Borrowed Time DC, 2006, ISBN 1-4012-0941-6
• City of Tomorrow (collects the mini-series, DC/Wildstorm, 2006, ISBN 1-4012-0945-9)
• Blade:
  • Undead Again (collects #1-6, with Marc Guggenheim, Marvel, May 2007, ISBN 0-7851-2364-4)
  • Sins of the Father (collects #7-12, with Marc Guggenheim, Marvel, October 2007, ISBN 0-7851-2365-2)
• Fafhrd and the Gray Mouser (collects the Marvel/Epic mini-series, with Mike Mignola and Al Williamson, Dark Horse, 2007, ISBN 1-59307-713-0)
• Dominic Fortune (Marvel, 2010, ISBN 0-7851-4042-5)

Notes[link]

References[link]

External links[link]

This section includes a list of references, but its sources remain unclear because it has insufficient inline citations. Please help to improve this article by introducing more precise citations. (April 2010)

• Howard Chaykin at sequart.com
• "Howard Chaykin’s Resources". Howtomakecomics.net. Archived from the original on 2008-04-08. http://replay.waybackmachine.org/20080408110813/http://www.howtomakecomics.net/people/Howard%20Chaykin. 
• Moran, David (August 1, 2008). "CCI: Spotlight on Howard Chaykin". Comic Book Resources. http://www.comicbookresources.com/?page=article&id=17544. 

Interviews[link]

• Howard Chaykin interview
• Lee, Jim (January 6, 2004). "Jim Lee-A-Rama: Howard Chaykin". Newsarama. Archived from the original on April 14, 2004. http://web.archive.org/web/20040414025018/http://www.newsarama.com/pages/JimLeeWeek/Leearama_3.htm. 
• "Howard Chaykin Interview". Westfield Comics. September 2001. http://westfieldcomics.com/wow/frm_int_053.html. 
• Doane, Alan David (2004). "The Comic Book Galaxy Interview: Howard Chaykin". Comic Book Galaxy. http://www.comicbookgalaxy.com/chaykin.html. 
• Schweier, Philip (March 13, 2006). "Howard Chaykin: Back to the Drawing Board". Comic Book Bin. http://www.comicbookbin.com/bubble072.html. 
• Anderson, Ho Che (December 18, 2009). "TCJ 300 Conversations: Howard Chaykin & Ho Che Anderson". The Comics Journal. http://www.tcj.com/tcj-300/tcj-300-conversations-howard-chaykin-ho-che-anderson. Retrieved April 21, 2010.