Will Eisner - Michael Schumacher [133]
The idea for The Dreamer originated at the School of Visual Arts. His young student artists were all dreamers hoping to use their talents in one way or another to earn a living, but soon enough, they learned that there was quite a gulf between dreams and reality.
“At the end of the semester, students were always wringing their hands over having to get out into the field,” Eisner stated. “What would happen to them? Where were they going to go? And I thought, Gee, let me tell you my story. It’s to say to the kids who are growing up and going out into the field, ‘Look, it’s always been this way and if you stay with it, and remain the dreamer that you really are, you’ll prevail.’”
The Dreamer started out as a fictional tale, with Billy Eyron, the main character, stepping into a cafeteria and meeting a fortune-teller who offers to tell his fortune for a dime. It’s New York City, 1937, and like the young, post-Depression Will Eisner, Billy is lugging around a portfolio, hoping to find work. Billy laughs off the fortune-teller’s predictions of success, but he later stops at a fortune-telling machine on the street. Its message, too, is that he will be a success in his chosen career.
Eisner shifted at this point to his actual experiences in comics, using the real people and events. He reasoned that nonfiction was better than anything he could have invented; plus, in relating his experiences, he was giving the history of comics—or at least his part of it. Readers were introduced to such players of the Golden Age as Jerry Iger, Major Malcolm Wheeler-Nicholson, Harry Donenfeld, M. C. Gaines, Victor Fox, and Busy Arnold, as well as to such up-and-coming artists as Bob Kane, Lou Fine, Bob Powell, Jack Kirby, George Tuska, and others in the Eisner & Iger shop. Eisner discreetly changed their names, but to anyone familiar with comics, the name changes were more the source of a humorous “name the character” game than a way of disguising identities. Jack Kirby became “Jack King” in homage to Kirby’s “King of Comics” nickname; Lou Fine became “Lou Sharp.” Even the comics and their characters were given fictitious names: Superman translated to Bighero: Man of Iron, while Batman became Rodent Man. For Eisner, it was a playful exercise and a way to avoid potential litigation, but for aficionados like Dave Schreiner and Denis Kitchen, who were eager to see history played out in graphic form, it was a source of consternation.
At the drawing board, 1985. (Courtesy of Denis Kitchen)
“We were so frustrated that he didn’t just call people who they were,” Kitchen complained. “I remember saying to him, ‘Why must you disguise those people?’ He said, ‘Well, some of them are still alive, and I don’t want to embarrass them or their families.’ It was the gentleman in Will. And part of it was there was a clear implication that Donenfeld and Liebowitz, the guys who ran the early DC Comics, were crooks. I said, ‘Will, everybody knows those guys were crooks. What’s the problem?’ He said, ‘I don’t know firsthand that they were crooks.’ I said, ‘Well, is there anyone still around who even knows secondhand?’ He laughed but said, ‘No, I’m not going there. This is the way I want to do it.’ I wanted to have some annotations early on, but he said, ‘No, no. Let people figure it out. That’s part of the fun.’”
Eisner crafted his book in tight, compact episodes. He included the major moments of his development as a comics artist, including his early work with Wow, What a Magazine!, the formation of the Eisner & Iger studio, the Wonder Man fiasco with Victor Fox, and his initial meeting with Busy Arnold and Henry Martin. Colorful episodes such as Jack Kirby’s confrontation with the Mafia thug, George Tuska punching Bob Powell, and even Eisner’s brief fling with Toni Blum spiced the narrative. Through it all, Eisner never lost sight of his “dreamer” motif. The comic book world was a place