Will Eisner - Michael Schumacher [122]
In the early stages of its development, Eisner entitled his New York book The Big City Project, and, as would be the case throughout his life, he spoke very little about his work in progress, even to Denis Kitchen. The book, he’d say, would be different from the usual perception of New York City. Rather than present the city on a grand scale, as it was usually depicted in the movies, Eisner preferred to portray New York through a “worm’s-eye view” perspective—which, he explained, is how the city is seen by its inhabitants.
“We’re used to seeing it from the skyscrapers, and generally with a symphony in blue playing in the background as the camera pans in across the city and you see the tops. But no one ever sees the city the way I see it—the way all of us who live in it [see it]—with the sewers, the fire hydrants, the stoops, the grills, the grates, the fire escapes. That’s what the city people who live in the city see all day. That’s the city.”
Eisner, however, was not interested in producing realistic, picture-perfect renderings. He didn’t use photographs, and any research he conducted for the project was accomplished during his walks through the city, when, for the sake of accuracy, he would make notes on such details as how many steps there were to the average apartment building’s stoop. It was important, he told Dave Schreiner, that he rely on his memory rather than extensive research when sketching New York.
“Once you get too accurate in your art,” he stated, “something gets lost. Artists in Europe tend to do accurate renderings of city scenes. It’s brilliant and beautiful, but somehow or other, the art gets so strong and powerful that the mood is lost. To me, the important thing is mood. Ultra realistic art tends to draw attention to itself. That’s exactly the point I want to avoid.”
The vignettes in New York: The Big City, many only a single page in length, presented under such chapter headings as “Subways,” “Windows,” Stoops,” and “Walls,” offered the humor, irony, heartbreak, frustration, hope, and small victories often seen but overlooked in day-to-day city life, the images of people and events that rush by city dwellers too preoccupied in their own daily routines to realize that this is the fabric of urban life. Eisner thought of himself as a social reporter, and these vignettes, when originally published alongside Spirit stories in The Spirit Magazine, proved that for four decades Eisner could use environment as a critical element in his storytelling. The city, and the demands it placed on its inhabitants, changed and shaped fortunes in subtle yet all-important ways.
The different aspects of New York: The Big City never quite coalesced the way Eisner intended. After its serialization in The Spirit Magazine, the book was published by Kitchen Sink Press, in black and white only, without the originally planned color paintings; Kitchen Sink simply couldn’t afford the additional expenses. Nevertheless, Eisner was pleased with the results. New York, as he’d always known, was a great environment to use in graphic works, and The Big City, as it turned out, was only the beginning of his explorations of it.
As 1982 drew to a close, Eisner and Denis Kitchen both realized that The Spirit Magazine had run its course, at least in its current format. Eisner was set to begin yet another major project, an ambitious graphic novel set in Depression-era New York, and this, along with his “Shop Talk” interviews, the occasional instructional pieces, and other work, amounted to more non-Spirit material than the magazine could possibly manage. As it was, Spirit fans were complaining that the new material was inappropriate for the magazine.