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The Spirit Archives #14
The Spirit Archives, Vol. 14
Collects stories from classic Spirit adventures in which a murdered detective fights crime from beyond the grave.
192 pages, Hardcover
First published November 1, 2004
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About the author
Will Eisner
761 books534 followersWilliam 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.
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Displaying 1 - 4 of 4 reviews
June 2, 2019
[Note: The Five Star review is dependent on us ignoring the Ebony White problem. While I don't think we should ignore Ebony's problematic nature when reading The Spirit I want to convey that the storytelling in this volume of The Spirit is such that taken in a vacuum where Ebony is not a stereotypical (and racist) caricature of a black minstrel. If this diminishes your appraisal of my review, that is fair. However, I have a feeling I will be adding this disclaimer to every review of The Spirit Archives until I read the volumes from 1949 and on, when Ebony was removed from the series.]
There's a reason the comics awards are called the Eisners.
If Will Eisner spent 1946 reacquainting himself with the character he is most associated with as well as reminding himself of the possibilities of the comic medium, as 1947 began, Eisner started to cement his reputation as one of the true innovators of the comic medium. While the old (tired) adage of comics being "just for kids" was dispelled by the likes of Alan Moore, Frank Miller and Neil Gaiman in the mid 1980s, Eisner knew the possibilities of the medium nearly forty years earlier.
As with the earlier volume, Eisner does his best work when he doesn't focus on the character of the Spirit entirely. During the ghost-written years that Eisner spent in the army, The Spirit frankly became boring. Crime-fighters fight crimes, but the fact is you can only have some many crimes perpetrated and justice served before every story feels like it has literally been photocopied every week and the names changed to make it seem original. Eisner's Spirit is still a crime-fighter, but for Eisner, this is ultimately the least interesting thing about the Spirit and his supporting cast. For Eisner, story always came first, and if that meant his eponymous hero made a one panel appearance, then so be it. Highlights are stories like the one that announces on the first page that "There Will Be No Spirit Story This Week." Ostensibly a story about Eisner's comic going off the rails and his creations taking over, this story is an intriguing take on writer's block and effectively makes Eisner the star, even though he doesn't make an actual appearance (his shoes do.) Eisner's ability to not be trapped by the comic medium or the expectations of what a crime-fighter should be is what makes Eisner's work special.
In addition to Eisner's abilities as both an artist and a master storyteller (while I focus on the writing, Eisner is one of the great comic artists--the cover of this volume is a beautifully rendered drawing of his femme fatale P'Gell that I would put up against any modern comic artist) the innovations Eisner introduced in the previous volume are now par for the course in this one. In 1946, Eisner experimented with the idea of having continuing stories from week to week--by 1947 there are not only multi-part stories, but events from previous strips are referenced (the aforementioned P'Gell returns multiple times in the 26 weeks contained in this volume) indicating the first point in a strip where continuity mattered. This allows for Eisner to engage in richer storytelling--he no longer felt the need to get a story told in just 7 pages.
I think a lot of what we take for granted in good comics can be traced back to Eisner. I think that once someone makes the deep dive into The Spirit like I have, you can see how just ahead of his time Eisner was. Like I said above, there is a reason the awards are called the Eisners.
There's a reason the comics awards are called the Eisners.
If Will Eisner spent 1946 reacquainting himself with the character he is most associated with as well as reminding himself of the possibilities of the comic medium, as 1947 began, Eisner started to cement his reputation as one of the true innovators of the comic medium. While the old (tired) adage of comics being "just for kids" was dispelled by the likes of Alan Moore, Frank Miller and Neil Gaiman in the mid 1980s, Eisner knew the possibilities of the medium nearly forty years earlier.
As with the earlier volume, Eisner does his best work when he doesn't focus on the character of the Spirit entirely. During the ghost-written years that Eisner spent in the army, The Spirit frankly became boring. Crime-fighters fight crimes, but the fact is you can only have some many crimes perpetrated and justice served before every story feels like it has literally been photocopied every week and the names changed to make it seem original. Eisner's Spirit is still a crime-fighter, but for Eisner, this is ultimately the least interesting thing about the Spirit and his supporting cast. For Eisner, story always came first, and if that meant his eponymous hero made a one panel appearance, then so be it. Highlights are stories like the one that announces on the first page that "There Will Be No Spirit Story This Week." Ostensibly a story about Eisner's comic going off the rails and his creations taking over, this story is an intriguing take on writer's block and effectively makes Eisner the star, even though he doesn't make an actual appearance (his shoes do.) Eisner's ability to not be trapped by the comic medium or the expectations of what a crime-fighter should be is what makes Eisner's work special.
In addition to Eisner's abilities as both an artist and a master storyteller (while I focus on the writing, Eisner is one of the great comic artists--the cover of this volume is a beautifully rendered drawing of his femme fatale P'Gell that I would put up against any modern comic artist) the innovations Eisner introduced in the previous volume are now par for the course in this one. In 1946, Eisner experimented with the idea of having continuing stories from week to week--by 1947 there are not only multi-part stories, but events from previous strips are referenced (the aforementioned P'Gell returns multiple times in the 26 weeks contained in this volume) indicating the first point in a strip where continuity mattered. This allows for Eisner to engage in richer storytelling--he no longer felt the need to get a story told in just 7 pages.
I think a lot of what we take for granted in good comics can be traced back to Eisner. I think that once someone makes the deep dive into The Spirit like I have, you can see how just ahead of his time Eisner was. Like I said above, there is a reason the awards are called the Eisners.
March 20, 2018
The book rocks. Eisner defined the entire visual language of comics with these stories. The noir stories are timeless, and the femme fatales (there are many) remain enticing and alluring and dangerous. The humor stories are sometimes hard to stomach, as despite Eisner's many apologies over the years, Ebony is still a hard character to accept. Thankfully, in spite of his physicality, Ebony's sweet and resourceful personality is not without its charms.
August 29, 2008
Now these are classic comic stories. Eisner is the master, managing to pack more story into eight pages than most current comic book writers manage to fit into a six issue mini-series. His post World War II is superior to that before the war with much slicker art, but any of the Eisner issues is great. (Beware! Several volumes contain Spirit stories not written by Eisner. These are not worth reading at all.)
December 31, 2013
By this point Eisner was in classic Spirit stride. Awesome stuff.
Displaying 1 - 4 of 4 reviews