Unpacked reports there’s a new biography published about the late cartoonist Will Eisner, the earliest artist to develop the graphic novel format:
Long before graphic novels lined bestseller lists and earned literary accolades, Will Eisner pioneered the form, treating comics not as pulp but as art. Now, a new biography in panels tells his story the way he told so many others — through ink and imagination.
“Will Eisner: A Comics Biography,” the new graphic novel by Boston-based artist Dan Mazur and writer Stephen Weiner, traces the Jewish writer’s life from his early days hustling in Depression-era New York to his groundbreaking work on his groundbreaking graphic novel “The Spirit,” and his later reinvention of comics as a literary form. […]
Eisner’s contributions to the comic book form are well documented, but what’s sometimes overlooked is how deeply his Jewish identity shaped his work. As Mazur and Weiner explain in the biography, Eisner didn’t just pioneer a new visual language; he used it to explore themes of diaspora, resilience, assimilation, and faith.
Yes, but will current or future generations appreciate his viewpoints, and potential politics? I vaguely recall reading he may have disapproved of the feminist movement, possibly due to how phony it actually is, and chances are there’s leftists out there who’ll sadly despise him for that. Including for what his last GN was inspired by, which isn’t actually mentioned here:
When asked directly about Eisner’s Judaism, Mazur suggested that while he was raised in an Orthodox household, Eisner was “always pretty much a secular guy” and became more “Jew-ish” as he got older. Weiner points to “A Contract with God” — widely considered the first modern graphic novel — as a pivotal example. The book, published in 1978, centers on the sorrows of a Jewish tenement community in the Bronx. Eisner’s final major work was “The Plot,” which tackled the notorious antisemitic hoax “Protocols of the Elders of Zion.”
What prompted Eisner to develop his last GN was the discovery the Protocols book was being promoted by Islamic antisemites on the web in the early 2000s, and unsurprisingly, that otherwise goes unmentioned here, like the editors at Unpacked and their interviewees don’t have the courage to bring it up. Which is really no shock. And nothing to admire either.
If the new GN by Mazur doesn’t clearly mention why Eisner thought to develop The Plot GN, then Mazur will be guilty of just what’s distressed many in the past decade – censorship of knowledge and fact. I’d like to appreciate that somebody thought of developing a biographical GN about Eisner himself, and that’s a great idea. But it won’t be good if Mazur succumbs to PC himself. In this era, that’s never helpful.
Originally published here
English (US) · 