Will Eisner - Michael Schumacher [58]
“It made for an unusual story, and I was always after the unusual, anyway,” Eisner said of the entry, noting that the story had roots in an actual deadline problem.
When reflecting on the story nearly a quarter century after its appearance, Feiffer couldn’t remember whose idea it was to have a Feiffer look-alike shooting an Eisner look-alike. “Maybe I had me shooting Eisner, but my guess is I just had a guy shooting him, and Eisner turned it into me when he drew it. Or maybe I did have me killing him …
“We weren’t getting along very well with each other at the time,” he shrugged.
For all their bickering about politics, art, or anything else that came to the forefront in their discussions, Feiffer and Eisner never reached a point where their differences interfered with their work—or, for that matter, their friendship. “Our fights were always collegial,” Feiffer recalled. “Never once did he pull rank on me. I was always amazed by what he let me get away with. It shows how close and tight the relationship was, that he let me do that parody. He had great generosity of soul.”
Feiffer was absent from Eisner’s studio for much of 1947 while he attended the Pratt Institute. He loved the storytelling aspects of the comic book trade, but his struggles with comic book art convinced him that with formal training, he might be better suited to a career in advertising art. Fortunately for those who eventually enjoyed his Pulitzer Prize–winning cartoons, children’s books, plays, and films made from his screenplays, this didn’t turn out to be the case.
With Jules Feiffer in 1988. Eisner gave Feiffer his first illustration work when Feiffer was still a teenager, and then watched him blossom into a Pulitzer Prize–winning cartoonist. (Courtesy of Denis Kitchen)
By mid-1947, Eisner’s creativity was reaching another high-water mark. Much of his success could be credited to his small but supremely talented shop. Eisner had worked with gifted artists over the years, but the studio contributing to The Spirit from 1947 to 1949 was far and away his best group yet. When reflecting on the Spirit issues published during this period, Eisner reserved for these artists some of the highest praise he would ever bestow on collaborators. All were specialists in areas that Eisner wanted to improve.
Abe Kanegson, a Bronx native who attended the same high school as Jules Feiffer, did The Spirit’s lettering, as well as some backgrounds, from 1947 to 1950. A large, burly Russian Jew, Kanegson was, as Feiffer remembered, “the left intellectual of the office,” an opinionated presence with a heavy stutter that made his proclamations painfully slow to process. Eisner maintained that of all the letterers he employed over the years, Kanegson was one of the few who understood the nuances of lettering and who treated lettering as more than just a job. “Kanegson was brilliant,” Eisner said. “He added a dimension of quality that typesetting could never get. His lettering is clear and legible, and in addition it lends warmth to the visuals.”
Eisner used lettering to set tone or establish mood, and Kanegson’s range allowed him to use types of lettering not often seen in comics, like blackletter, to great effect. “To me, lettering contributes as much in the storytelling as the art itself,” he explained. “To my mind, there