Will Eisner - Michael Schumacher [158]
Eisner, who had begun work on the book that would become Name of the Game, only to suddenly find himself without a publisher or anyone to market his work, was delighted to have Kitchen and Hansen representing him. “As you know, we have a long 25 year relationship which I don’t want to abandon,” he wrote Dave Schreiner, referring to his business and personal relationship with Kitchen.
Eisner was equally concerned about retaining Dave Schreiner as an independent editor. “I see no reason why we cannot continue our editorial relationship on future works when & where appropriate,” he wrote Schreiner, who had remained in Wisconsin following the Massachusetts relocation of Kitchen Sink Press and taken a job with a publisher in Madison. Schreiner was happy to continue the relationship.
Not surprisingly, it didn’t take long for the new agents to find a new home for Eisner’s work. Paul Levitz at DC Comics, an admirer of Eisner’s work from the moment he’d seen his first Spirit comic, was immediately interested in adding Eisner to the DC roster. Hansen, however, was looking for more than a one-shot deal: She wanted DC to reprint his entire backlist of graphic novel titles. DC was open to this, and a deal was struck.
One of DC’s book publishing division’s highlights was its “Archives” series, featuring reprints of Superman, Batman, and other popular long-running features, all published in handsome hardcover volumes and featuring beautifully restored color artwork. The Spirit, Levitz figured, would be an ideal addition to the series. DC would start at the beginning, with the Spirit’s very first 1940 appearance in the Sunday comic book supplement, and present the full run of Eisner Spirits, running in chronological order, marking the first time the feature had been available in its entirety, in full color, in bound books. Each book would feature an introduction written specifically for that volume by a comics authority. To be complete, the company would have to publish more than two dozen volumes, at a hefty price tag of $49.95 each, but Levitz reasoned that there were enough libraries looking for bound copies of the legendary comics feature, as well as fans with discretionary cash, to make the series profitable. Eisner, quite naturally, was very pleased with the arrangement, especially when he learned that the first volume was outselling similar volumes featuring Superman and Batman.
Spirit bookplate, distributed in Europe, but unpublished in the United States. (© Will Eisner Studios, Inc., courtesy of Denis Kitchen)
Minor Miracles, Eisner’s first new book with DC, veered sharply away from A Family Matter, as if Eisner needed to cleanse his mind after the psychological brutality of his last graphic novel for Kitchen Sink. In Minor Miracles, Eisner returned to Dropsie Avenue, where anything was possible in the drudgery of everyday life. A wealthy merchant just might pass by a down-and-out cousin digging through the trash and offer to stake him the money needed to start a business and turn his life around. A quick-thinking kid might come up with an ingenious plan to avoid a beating at the hands of neighborhood bullies. A new kid of mysterious origins might appear out of nowhere and touch off a series of good fortune to everyone in the neighborhood. A crippled young man might meet and marry a young woman who, as the result of childhood trauma, is unable to hear or speak, and, with any luck, live happily ever after with her. The four stories in Minor Miracles sprang from these possibilities, and under Eisner’s writing and drawing, they became shards of magic glistening in the otherwise drab city streets. Ordinary occurrences had extraordinary consequences, becoming little miracles that no one seemed to notice.
“The stories in this work resemble the stories my parents referred to as ‘meinsas,’” Eisner wrote.
And while they are apocryphal, they were nevertheless distilled from my remembrance