As Google has stylishly noted, today would have been the late cartoonist Will Eisner's 94th birthday.
Eisner was a comics master and pioneer, a true genius and absolutely revered by his and every successive generation of cartoonists.
This past Thursday night, I went to a reception for the opening of an amazing exhibit, "Will Eisner’s New York: From The Spirit to the Modern Graphic Novel," at the Museum of Comics and Cartoon Art in NYC.
It's an astounding show, with many, many knee-buckling, historic originals on display. For example, it's got the originals for ALL SEVEN PAGES of one of Eisner's most famous works, his Spirit episode, "The Story of Gerhard Shnobble"! (At the reception, I had the thrill of walking through these pages with Jules Feiffer, himself a legendary cartoonist, for whom Eisner was a mentor, employer and collaborator. Wow.)
There's another part of the show, "In the Spirit of Will Eisner: Creators Influenced by the Legendary Cartoonist," that's also amazing. Cartoonists explain, often quite eloquently, how Eisner influenced them in a specific original piece shown. What a group:
Neal Adams, Sergio Aragones, Terry Beatty, Nick Cardy, Darwyn Cooke, Eric Drooker, Jules Feiffer, Michael T. Gilbert, Dean Haspiel, Al Jaffee, Klaus Janson, Jack Kirby, Denis Kitchen, Joe Kubert, Peter Kuper, Harvey Kurtzman, Batton Lash, Steve Leialoha, Michael Avon Oeming, Peter Poplaski, Joe Quesada, Paul Rivoche, Trina Robbins, Jerry Robinson, Stan Sakai, Mark Schultz, R. Sikoryak, Art Spiegelman, Wally Wood and Steve Ditko.
By the way, in addition to an Eisner-esque street scene, Neal Adams contributed the Eisner-irrelevant but awesome original to his 1970's insane masterpiece cover for Superman vs. Muhammad Ali comic book. It's worth the price of admission alone for its blend of kitsch and genuine artistry.
But this section of the exhibit brought to mind the power Eisner's work had over my own career. I discovered his work when I was just stating to draw comics in my school newspaper, and I was in awe of it. It truly was an inspiration, and his work not only permeates my career in countless subtle ways, but one of my very earliest school-based Tom the Dancing Bug comics was an explicit homage, although a very awkward one, to his style.
If you are in or near NYC from now through June 30, I'd highly recommend checking out this exhibit.
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