Comic Book Artist Will Eisner Dies at 87
RSSDebra Lau Whelan -- School Library Journal, 01/11/2005
Will Eisner, who created the first modern graphic novel, A Contract with God (DC Comics, 1978), died January 3 in Fort Lauderdale, FL, after complications from quadruple bypass surgery. He was 87. Eisner's groundbreaking graphic novel tells the story of a Jewish immigrant who becomes a slum lord in the Bronx.
Eisner also created the Spirit, a masked crime fighter without superpowers. The strip first appeared in June 1940 as part of a syndicated comics section and featured detective Denny Colt, who was killed and then reborn as the Spirit: At the height of its popularity, the Spirit appeared in 20 newspapers, reaching 5 million readers every Sunday, according to DC Comics.
Eisner, who was born in New York City on March 6, 1917, published his first comic in 1936 in a publication called Wow, What a Magazine! While there he met cartoonist Jerry Iger, and together they created the comic-book outfit Eisner & Iger, which employed, among other artists, Bob Kane, the creator of Batman, and Jack Kirby, one of the creators of the Fantastic Four.
