The Spirit Archives, Vol. 6

The Spirit Archives #6

by Will Eisner

In the sixth installment of this hardcover collection of the Spirit Sunday strips, Will Eisner's gifted assistants carry on weaving tales of the masked adventurer feared by criminals of all stripes. With America's involvement in World War II intensifying, the Spirit continues to contribute to the war effort while dealing with domestic troublemakers at the same time. Included in this volume, which contains the strips from January 3 - June 27, 1943, is an introduction and gallery by Will Eisner, which details the work that the writer/artist did for the Army during the war.

Genres: Comics, Comic Strips, Thriller, Mystery, Crime, Adventure, Graphic Novels

224 pages, Hardcover

First published January 1, 1943

About the author

William Erwin Eisner was an American cartoonist, writer, and entrepreneur. He was one of the earliest cartoonists to work in the American comic book industry, and his series The Spirit (1940–1952) was noted for its experiments in content and form. In 1978, he popularized the term "graphic novel" with the publication of his book A Contract with God. He was an early contributor to formal comics studies with his book Comics and Sequential Art (1985). The Eisner Award was named in his honor and is given to recognize achievements each year in the comics medium; he was one of the three inaugural inductees to the Will Eisner Comic Book Hall of Fame.

Reviews

[Stewart Tame · Rating 3 out of 5]

This volume is at least a slight improvement over the previous one in that it contains material actually written and drawn by Will Eisner. The introduction reprints an assortment of material he did for various military publications. The Spirit stories in this volume are still, of course, by Lou Fine, et al. Not that Fine wasn't a capable artist or anything, but there's a certain cartoony solidity to Eisner's work that he never quite seemed able to capture. The writing seems slightly improved from the last volume, and is darned impressive by 1940's standards. See contemporary issues of Captain America or Superman or Detective Comics etc. for comparison. There are still lapses in story logic here and there, but they're pretty much par for the course. It's not easy to tell a complete story in only eight pages. Ebony White still makes me cringe every now and then. Yes, I know: product of the times and all that, and I would definitely agree that no malice was intended in his portrayal. Honestly, when it's just Ebony by himself, it's easy to ignore the casual racism. He reads as a comic relief sidekick, Woozy Winks in Plastic Man, for instance, or Doiby Dickles in Green Lantern. But when other negro characters appear in the strip and they ALL look and talk like Ebony (unless they're from Africa or somewhere exotic, as in the voodoo story), well, it gets a little hard for this modern reader to take. I've read worse, certainly, and it was, after all, more or less standard at the time these were written. And Eisner did much better later in his career. Sometimes you just have to sadly shake your head and move on ... Looking forward to the next volume and beyond ...

[Fraser Sherman · Rating 3 out of 5]

Just my luck, I stumble across a discount collection of Eisner's classic series and it turns out to be ghosted while he was in WW II (though when your ghosts include Manly Wade Wellman and artist Lou Fine, that's damn impressive).
This collection are mostly good, competent Spirit stories, but they average out to well below Eisner's level. And a couple of stories showing Ebony as less sidekick than servant are uncomfortable (I can't see anyone writing this way for a white sidekick).
Worth getting if you're a completist, but there are better volumes to buy first.

[Mark Stratton · Rating 3 out of 5]

Too uneven. Ham handed in places, sub-par in others. Quite apparent that Eisner wasn’t at the controls.

Well, on to the next one.