Dropsie Avenue: The Neighborhood

The Contract With God Trilogy #3

by Will Eisner

"Eisner was not only ahead of his times; the present times are still catching up to him." – John Updike

In Dropsie Avenue: The Neighborhood, Eisner graphically traces the social trajectory of this mythic avenue over four centuries, creating a sweeping panorama of the city and its waves of new residents, whose stories present an unending "story of life, death, and resurrection."

Genres: Comics, Graphic Novels, Fiction, Graphic Novels Comics, Historical Fiction, American, Slice Of Life

170 pages, Paperback

First published January 1, 1995

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

[Alan · Rating 5 out of 5]

Final book from my reading challenge with Ted.

#12 - Read a trilogy.

Eisner does so much by doing so little. That’s the beauty of it. I am starting to get a sense of what I like in a graphic novel, perhaps even thinking of what is “good” in a graphic novel, and this is close to that. The film aspect comes into play a bit, this being a visual medium. Though it may feel frustrating in certain moments, I ultimately come to respect directors and screenplay writers who in turn respect their audience enough to trust that they will get the story. Eisner is that. You don’t need a speech bubble every single panel to tell you exactly what each character is thinking. You also don’t need someone to give you exposition when it’s not needed or smoothly provided, just like you don’t need someone to come in and explain everything that just happened at the end of a film scene.

Dropsie Avenue was much more moving than I could have expected, and it is certainly my favourite book in the trilogy. I read Richard McGuire’s Here earlier in the year, and I would not be surprised if this volume was a huge influence on it. Eisner describes this as “a story of life, death and resurrection” – you get to witness the rise and fall (and rise… and fall?) of Dropsie Avenue, a neighbourhood packed with hope and aspiration, filled with the best and worst of humanity all in one go. Any time an author gets existential about anything and decides to speed up the time knob, I am right there clapping and giving the book a high rating. What can I say? I have a type. I’m a sucker. Eisner has done that with a series of buildings on a strip.

“Oh yes, there’s memories! Memories of the things that make neighborhoods.”

[Abigail · Rating 2 out of 5]

Nic specjalnego, doceniam kilka rzeczy w tym komiksie, ale to nie dla mnie.

[Marika Oksa · Rating 4 out of 5]

Piirroksille täydet pisteet - Eisnerilla oli taito hallussaan. Dropsie Avenue vyöryttää kiehtovasti historian suuret tapahtumat yhdelle Bronxin kadulle.

[Dan · Rating 5 out of 5]

I read this book because I had read the first book in the Contract with God trilogy.

This graphic novel is the story of "Dropsie Avenue" a fictional neighborhood in the bronx that is also featured prominently in the other two books in the series A Contract with God and A Life Force. The story follows the neighborhood from when it was a farm owned by a Dutch Family, till it became an English, then predominantly Irish, Italian, Jewish, Hispanic, and Black. Changin with each wave of immigration or migration. The story is told as a series of vignettes of people who live on the block, and as their lives intertwine with each other, they either set off or witness events that change the character of the neighborhood. This shows the birth, life, death, and rebirth of a neighborhood. My special lady friend is an urban planner and the sort of issues discussed in this book are exactly the sort of stuff that she studied in school.

This book shows many aspects of life in a neighborhood: Prejudice based on ethnicity, religion, or race, prostitution, drug addition, and other crimes. It shows ethnic and religious intermarriages. Assimilation of immigrants and many other aspects of life. All these personal events leave their indelible mark on the city.

Will Eisner is the father of the graphic novel style. This novel excellently showcases his abilities and work. The writing and art are truly superb.

[ComicNerdSam · Rating 4 out of 5]

Eisner mixes short character anecdotes into a larger framework about the life, death, and rebirth of a neighborhood. This one's a little rough around the edges. Eisner's "paneless" storytelling works most of the time, but there are still pages where I get a little lost. There's also something kind of off about his portrayal of race and ethnic disputes. A lot of the characters are well rounded, but some of them also come off as stereotypical. All that said, this is still masterfully done. Eisner had me hooked from the beginning, and by the end I felt myself getting emotionally swept up by his story. His books have a tendency to be overly sentimental, but sometimes that just works.

[Nicole · Rating 5 out of 5]

Wonderful. Amazing. It's not just that the illustrations are great or that the storyline is strong. It's more than that. In this book of the Contract with God trilogy, Eisner depicts the history of Dropsie Avenue over the years, beginning with 1870 and going well past the 60s. The depiction isn't just about how the land has changed but the rotation of people, memories and how that has affected a community a neighborhood. Reading book 3, reminded me of how I grew up, and where I am now. Not in the sense of this personal being but in the sense of place, location. We forget sometimes how land has its own memories of people and things. We forget how my neighborhood may have been yours, though our memories are not. It is easy to forget about place as a being, but on Dropsie Avenue Eisner magnifies it that it is hard to escape and easy to remember.

Book 3 doesn't bring a whole to the parts, it doesn't complete book 1 or book 2, in fact each novel stands on its own. But the idea is the place, the location, the transformation of how so many individuals who are connected and not connected intertwine because of a single entity. You start off becoming attached to these people, those people and their stories but it really is the story of a place of a building, a block, a neighborhood.

I am so glad that I stumbled upon these novels and I completely understand how a place, a physical aspect, a building, a street name, a block a town can carry so much more weight than our own minds and souls can hold. I am a sucker for the idea/concept of neighborhoods but because I know them and Eisner does such a wonderful job describing-explaining-stating, to be honest I can't even fully explain exactly how he has done what he has. I just know that he has, and the result is amazing.

[Topher · Rating 5 out of 5]

Man. I just could not decide how to grade this book at first. I almost didn't want to grade it because the philosophy vacillates between pretty liberal ideology of acceptance and looking at immigration/emigration anxiety to the point of almost preaching it. And the ending just left me so cold that I wondered for a moment if my copy was missing some pages or something.

But then I thought about it more. It's not about immigrants, though it sort of is. It's not about fear of the other, though it sort of is. It's not even about Dropsie Avenue, really, even though it tells the entire 100+ history of the eponymous neighborhood (a truly brilliant way to end a trilogy so geographically oriented).

It's about a thread touched on a bit in A Life Force, but really fleshed out here. The life cycle. It's birth and death and birth again. Once I realized that this whole thing is about the cyclical living/slowly dying nature of all things, I thought my chest was going to explode. You see so, so, so many lives go through those same cycles over the pages of these three books, so when this last book in the trilogy is dedicated entirely to the rich, painful, beautiful, difficult cycle of EVERYTHING (weighted a little too heavily on the male perspective, for sure, but what are you gonna do--it's crazy-progressive for his time), I'm a little floored.

This whole trilogy is a tome I want to have on my shelf forever, so I can go back and reread every few years. It goes right along with Fun Home, MAUS, Watchmen, and Blankets as graphic novels I need to always renew in my periphery every few years.

[Rui Alves de Sousa · Rating 5 out of 5]

Terceiro capítulo da trilogia iniciada com o magnífico "A Contract With God", "Dropsie Avenue: The Neighborhood" é um elaboradíssimo fresco ficcional sobre a evolução e simultânea decadência dessa avenida. Através de uma estrutura episódica onde convivem várias gerações (e muitas delas vão-se cruzando constantemente), Eisner cria um excepcional puzzle humano, demonstração maior da arte e génio deste grande autor. Do desenho aos diálogos extraordinários, não há nada imperfeito nesta graphic novel, que é provavelmente, uma das melhores BDs que já li até hoje.

[Aaron Broadwell · Rating 2 out of 5]

The art was terrific, but the storytelling quickly became repetitive. Okay, I get the idea — each group that lives in this part of the Bronx thinks that it is better than the newcomers and the neighborhood slowly gets worse and worse. But because we are going through decades, we don't have any characters to follow, and it quickly just becomes the same thing over and over again, with differently dressed ethnic types despising each other. Feh!

[D. · Rating 4 out of 5]

This graphic novel covers the life-cycle of a neighborhood. Eisner's art and words work together seamlessly to show vignettes about the changing people, ideas, and politics that shape the lives of the people in Dropsie Ave. Very thought-provoking, but Eisner makes the reader work to recognize recurring characters as they age and change. It's also highly symbolic at times. It's about as far from a "comic book" as you can get, but that's actually a compliment.

[Jason · Rating 5 out of 5]

I have become a huge fan of Will Eisner. I loved this book as well. Good book for anyone who wants to have an experience with graphic novel medium. They will never think of it as just comics..

[Ken · Rating 4 out of 5]

I came across this book at one of the mini-libraries where folks in a drop off books in a slightly-bigger-than-a-birdhouse structure to exchange with their neighbors. Apparently, this is the graphic novel is the third in a series. I didn't read the first two but I might have to go back and do so now because I enjoyed this graphic novel. Eisner tells tells a story of how a street in New York City evolved from humble beginnings in the 1800's to it's current state. It captures immigration, political maneuverings, criminal elements, and a human touch.

It's not really a happy story, rather it recounts a cyclical nature of neighborhoods through growth, decline, rebirth., and another round of decline. I picked up on a rather depressing tone of either 1) immigration will always create challenges or 2) the way people react to immigration will always create challenges.

[Apa · Rating 5 out of 5]

Päähenkilönä naapurusto ja muutos yksittäisen ihmisen sijaan, upea ratkaisu. Yhteiskunnan muutosten syyt ja seuraukset ovat piilossa tarinan ja tapahtumien takana: erilaiset ihmiset ja muutos Bronxissa eivät olleet syy, vaan kapitalismin seuraus. Tarinassa on hieno kehärakenne, joka muuttaa lopetuksen sävyn ihan toiseen suuntaan viime metreillä. Piirrosjälki on jännästi lähes strippisarjismaista, mutta samalla realistista.

Tästä voisi tehdä TV-sarjan suoraan Emmy-ehdokkaaksi.

[Bucciali · Rating 4 out of 5]

Another great read from Eisner. Interesting story presenting the life cycle of buildings.

[Dolceluna ♡ · Rating 4 out of 5]

Dropsie Avenue prende il titolo dall'omonima fittizia strada del Bronx che dà poi vita a un intero quartiere del quale Eisner tratteggia la vita, dalla nascita, intorno al 1870, sino quasi ai giorni nostri. Un angolo pulsante di esistenze, luoghi, fatti e sensazioni, un microcosmo specchio dell'umanità intera, parallelamente a quello che Eisner ci mostra in New York e in Contratto con Dio. Tuttavia, rispetto alle due graphic novels appena menzionate, Dropsie Avenue appare un'opera più moderna, o meglio più odierna, più vicina ai libri e alle graphic novels dei giorni nostri sia per lo stile che per le tematiche trattate: rispetto alle vignette di New York e ai racconti di Contratto con Dio, Dropsie Avenue è infatti un'opera più "parlata", più ricca di dialoghi, parole, conversazioni, simili a quelle che caratterizzano la frenesia delle nostre città attuali; inoltre Eisner, nel tratteggiare la storia del quartiere si azzarda a esplorare importanti temi moderni, quali la corruzione politica, la speculazione edilizia, la violenza tipicamente metropolitana e, soprattutto, l'immigrazione e le difficoltà di integrazione nel disordinato "melting pot". Ci troviamo dunque fra le mani un graphic novel moderno ed elaborato, nel quale il tratto non perde incisività e fascino ma nel quale il quartiere protagonista diventa sempre più simile a uno che potremmo attraversare nella nostra quotidianità. Dropsie Avenue appare come una babele, caotica e confusionaria, ma in continua espansione e crescita. E in questo si dimostra perfettamente rappresentante dell'umanità nelle due facce opposte che segnano la sua crescita: da un lato appunto l'espansione e l'arricchimento, dall'altro il materialismo, la sopraffazione, la sete di ricchezza e potere che uccide la morale e gli ideali, insomma, tutto ciò che di negativo l'arricchimento porta con sè. Eisner rappresenta nè più nè meno il mondo e ancora una volta si dimostra un autore di grande genialità.

[Jason Furman · Rating 5 out of 5]

This stunning historical panorama of one Bronx neighborhood--mostly focused on one lot on one street--is the culmination of Will Eisner's amazing trilogy (the first two are Contract with God and A Life Force). It begins with the English displacing the Dutch, skips rapidly through a few centuries, but then concentrates on the twentieth century as waves of immigrants and migrants move in and partially displace the previous waves--Irish, Italians, Jews, Puerto Ricans, Hasids--often with significant friction, bigotry, violence and corruption--and less often with the traditional melting pot of American imagination.

The characters are great too, many of them recurring over the course of fifty or more years, like Abie Gold who we first meet hitting a baseball through a window in the 1930s (or thereabouts) but then grows up to be a lawyer, city councilman, and then when his patron is killed a lawyer again helping in an attempt to revitalize the neighborhood. A number of other characters, including a boxer turned political boss and a succession of ethnically-appropriate priests make a number of reappearances throughout the book.

The story is one of constant change and motion but also stasis--as the same patterns occur over and over again. And just when you think the story has a redemptive ending, think again as a new set of immigrants come in, the older residents flee, and the neighborhood goes back into a downward spiral. The only thing Eisner misses in the story is gentrification, which clearly had not come to Dropsie in 1995. Maybe someone should write that sequel.

[Angela · Rating 4 out of 5]

"...How do we get the city to develop it?"

"You don't! Whites are pulling out!!"

Or as John Oliver would put it, "funding tends to follow white people around the way white people follow the band Phish around." lol

I preferred this one to the other two in the trilogy, but all in all, it was a interesting story of a neighborhood in New York City and its change in development, population, and political climate throughout the decades by following the lives of various different tenants. The more graphic novels I read the more I become aware of my artistic preferences. It varies but just like with Asterios Polyp, I've come to love more simpler artwork that's also deals with little or no color. I loved the sepia tones with this trilogy. However, I also love graphic novels like Saga that are teeming with color. Anyway, it was a good read and the nostalgic ending of Dropsie Avenue really wrapped up nicely and gave true meaning to everything comes full circle and the fact that humans do a great job of spouting out sayings like: Those who don't remember history are doomed to repeat it, but do a horrible job of actually heeding those words.

[Kelly Lynn Thomas · Rating 4 out of 5]

Dropsie Avenue is a made-up neighborhood, but it echoes many real neighborhoods and towns I've known. Many of the characters aren't likeable: they're racist and mean-spirited, but some of them are kind and loving. The book's true main character isn't any one of the people, although we do get to know some of them quite well. The true main character is Dropsie Avenue itself, in all its messy, gritty, dirty, glory. And even the racist, mean people love it and call it home. So you do feel something as the neighborhood grows and changes and ultimately dies and is reborn, the same way you might feel if a block of your own neighborhood were bulldozed for tenements or a playground or whatever. Not all real neighborhoods get a second chance the way this one does, but that's where the fiction of this story comes in, and without it, it would be a pretty depressing book. It's a good story. And it made me examine my own neighborhood a little more closely.

[Chris Andersen · Rating 4 out of 5]

Dropsie Avenue chronicles the life of a neighborhood in typical Eisner fashion, with economical and punchy storytelling. Isolated moments show the best and worst that people are capable of and how everyone is (justifiably) afraid of change. Due to it's sprawling nature (it covers over a hundred years in less than 200 pages) the characterization of individual players is a little thin, leaving them more as archetypes with flourishes of individuality rather than living, breathing characters, but none of them are the center of the tale. The center is Dropsie Ave itself. To say they weren't flushed out would be like complaining we didn't know enough about Philip Marlowe's leg or Scout Finch's left hand; they're only parts of the whole.

[Matt · Rating 4 out of 5]

Actually found the hardcover edition for fifteen bucks at Modern Myths in Northampton, MA. It was good, Eisner only gets better throughout his career. Great characters, and Eisner toys with a lot of comic art effects that I think I take for granted (see any scenes in this book where there's a traumatic fire), but because Eisner's plots are a bit less enthralling than your typical graphic novel nowadays these stick out more. Take that how you please, a special thanks to N.C. Christopher Couch's class at UMASS-Amherst, otherwise I don't think I could've appreciated this book to its fullest.

[Asna · Rating 4 out of 5]

Menariknya isi komik ini menggambarkan pertumbuhan/ perkembangan pemukiman di Jalan Raya Dropsie yang terus mengalami pasang surut, dari pemukiman orang kaya perlahan menurun kelas sosialnya karena pembauran sampai akhirnya jadi pemukiman orang miskin (dan berbahaya?) lalu kembali naik kelas lagi.. Dan seiring perubahan tersebut, individu2 tertentu yang terikat dengan pemukiman di Dropsie juga berkembang, menetap, pindah lalu balik lagi karena kterikatan masa lalu mereka dengan pemukiman Dropsie.

[Sylvester · Rating 4 out of 5]

Dropsie Avenue takes a look at the chronology of a neighbourhood in New York (based on Brooklyn). How the different characters shared their lives her from the Irish migrant wave, German arrival, Italian domination to Jewish hike, Spanish drift and African roaming.

It started off with disconnected stories but it all comes together at the end. I really enjoyed the accuracy to the real history and colourful characters. I still consider A Life Force being the best of the trilogy but Dropsie Avenue was still fun to read.

[George Marshall · Rating 4 out of 5]

Like so much Eisner- awful sentimentality, melodrama (think of Chaplin at his worst) stereotyped characters and, even worse than usual, some truly clunking dialogue. Add to this the absurdity that the only ethnic group passing through Dropsie Avenue that is kindly and tolerant of others are the Jews...Oy vey!

It still gets four stars because Eisner is a genius of character drawing and storyline- I just wish he could have worked with someone else!

[Fransisca · Rating 4 out of 5]

Trilogi gila dari Will Eisner, buku terakhir.
Simpel namun rumit, sekelumit kisah dari berdirinya Dropsie avenue, masa puncak dan akhir dari Dropsie Avenue itu sendiri, dan awal dari kemungkinan Dropsie Avenue Mark II di akhir cerita.
Mengenaskan tapi memang kenyataannya seperti itulah hidup, akan ada masa-masa gemilang, dan akhirnya tergantung dari si empunya, akankah berakhir baik atau hancur sama sekali.
Brilliant

[Prctaxman · Rating 5 out of 5]

I do not save books; my library is limited because there are few things I really want to read, again - there's simply so much out there that I want to read rather than re-read something.

I give books away so that others can read them.

I save few books. Dropsie Avenue is one of them.....I'll loan it out to people but damn, I want it back to loan to others. This is BRILLIANT!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

It is a brilliant history of New York City.

[Earl · Rating 5 out of 5]

If one has to read a book on the development of communities, this is a good primer. Eisner continues his tradition of delivering significant points about human existence in a comic yet subtly profound manner. And again, we see in him a discontinuous way of telling the story but in the course of his narrative, bringing all things together into a single strand, seeing that this is a history of a neighborhood which existed for 90 years and has long taken different social forms.

[Roberta · Rating 4 out of 5]

I haven't been in New York yet, but reading Will Eisner makes me feel like I lived there for some decades. People move, people change, but the neighbourhood stands still. Movies and books usually tell us the story of one or few persons, not the story of one or few buildings. I love this changing in the point of view.
I definetly wanna read more.

[Todd Kornick · Rating 5 out of 5]

I've been bingeing on Eisner books in the last few days and my brain is in bloom. This one was hard to put down. A compelling saga of a South Bronx neighborhood from its birth in the Dutch colonial days through its rise and fall - and all the human drama in between. Eisner elevates both cartooning and storytelling into something more than the sum of the parts.

[Edmund Davis-Quinn · Rating 4 out of 5]

“Life on Dropsie Avenue” was a fast read. It’s about the rise, decline and fall, and rise and fall again of the Bronx. Tales of racism, and ethnic clashes. Of payoffs, and bribes. Of New York, wonderful and corrupt city that it is. The Bronx literally was burning in the 70s. ***1/2 (4 GR)

[Paulo Fernandes · Rating 5 out of 5]

My favorite Eisner so far. If you consider comics to be too childish and superficial, well, you've never read Will Eisner. "Dropsie Avenue" is pretty much a sociological study on human interactions. And all the themes brought to surface in this novel are treated with a genuine artistic sensibility.