Will Eisner - Michael Schumacher [56]
“For some reason or another, that long-elusive aspiration for human goodness, which we share in all cultures, is present during the Christmas holidays,” he explained. “It’s not the kind of thing you discuss in a pool hall, but I really believe—at the risk of being laughed at—that there really is, deep in the psyches of all human beings, a desire to be—and I put this in italics—good.”
That goodness, Eisner went on, was part of the phenomenon of gift giving and goodwill so prevalent during the holiday season, and that informed his annual feel-good Spirit stories more than the Christians’ celebration of the birth of Christ.
“As far as I’m concerned, any celebration of Christmas on my part is not a celebration of Christ, or even a discussion of whether it happened. Rather, it’s a celebration of a cultural phenomenon, if you will, that is unique and deserves support. That’s why I, as a Jew, have no trouble with, in effect, celebrating Christmas.”
Eisner plunged into his Spirit stories with a newfound vigor. After reintroducing readers to the Spirit’s origins in a January 13, 1946, entry entitled “Dolan’s Origin of the Spirit,” Eisner took readers down a new path, adding new villains and revisiting some of the old ones, establishing a continuity from week to week that had been absent during the war years, refining and strengthening the character of Ebony, and turning in some of the best stories he’d ever written for the feature. Early in 1946, he hired a secretary, Marilyn Mercer, who turned out to be something of a scriptwriter herself. She couldn’t draw, but some of her suggestions found their way into Spirit stories.
Comics had changed since Eisner left for the war. Comic book circulation was better than ever—about forty million per month in 1946—but interests were shifting as publishers pushed to satisfy all age groups on the market. The mid- to late forties saw not only a glut of new titles, but also a shift in the type of material being picked up by consumers. Interest in superheroes had declined, but detective and true-crime comic sales were jumping. Classics Illustrated, a new line of comics adapting classic literature to this new, easy-to-read, highly visual medium, took off. Joe Simon and Jack Kirby, whose macho Captain America had been fueled by patriotism during the war, created Young Romance, a new genre aimed at women, a previously untapped audience.
The Spirit waded through this building surf of new titles and comic book options, impervious to the changes and new interests. Eisner, while keeping his eye on the horizon for changes that might affect his work, never faltered in his belief that story, first and foremost, would direct his success. He saw signs of trouble ahead, from church and educational leaders who were beginning to complain that comics were corrupting the minds of young readers, protesting that the violence in comics had to be curtailed. But these issues didn’t yet affect The Spirit, which was still good family reading. For the time being, Eisner and his creation were safe.
One rainy afternoon in early 1946, a teenage kid named Jules Feiffer, carrying a portfolio of his work, arrived in Will Eisner’s office. The kid was thin, with a thick head of hair and glasses, and was barely out of high school. He’d looked up Eisner’s Wall Street studio address in the telephone book, and fearful that he might be rejected if he tried to make an appointment over the phone, he’d headed down to the studio without calling ahead. He wanted a job—any job.
Eisner, who’d been in a similar position a decade earlier, was sympathetic.
“I said, ‘What can you do?’” he recalled. “And he said, ‘I’ll do anything. I’ll do coloring, or clean-up, or anything, and I’d like to work for nothing.’”
This was an idea that Eisner, notorious for his frugality, could appreciate. Problem was, the kid wasn’t any good. He couldn’t draw; his lettering was poor. For the life of him, Eisner couldn’t think of anything he could do around the studio.
Eisner, in Feiffer