Will Eisner - Michael Schumacher [65]
“This was before the Comics Code, but there already was a big flap about comics being bad and naughty, destructive psychologically,” he said. “The critics were talking about comics in general. This was still a time when comics were regarded strictly as children’s literature. Comics are still regarded that way when you see them discussed in newspapers, but the idea that only children read comics was more prevalent than it is today.”
At a time when crime comics such as Crime Does Not Pay were reaching a height in popularity but were being scrutinized for their violent content, Eisner proved to be a master of combining action and violence without depicting the bloodshed. The opening page of this January 5, 1947 Spirit, which includes an Eisner quip about the mounting criticism of such comics, is an example. (© Will Eisner Studios, Inc., courtesy of Denis Kitchen)
But in the end, Eisner’s work wasn’t immune from criticism, nor did it escape the notice of a would-be censor’s watchful eye. In his ceaseless attempts to present stories that would appeal to older readers, he’d test the boundaries of the day’s standards, risking an editor’s ire, pulling back if necessary, and starting over again. Any suggestion of sex, of course, was adult content, and Eisner had to be careful when dealing with the Spirit’s relationships with women. The Spirit was handsome, single, virile, athletic, intelligent, mysterious, and sexy—the type of man who just might turn a woman’s head. In the Spirit, Eisner had created a character who was constantly attracted to beautiful women, and as with James Bond two decades later, that attraction could be dangerous. His relationship with Ellen Dolan, everybody’s favorite girl next door, was chaste and playful—although in one story he did give her a spanking that raised a few eyebrows—but in his villainous femmes fatales, he was dealing with something entirely different.
Rather than use a standard logo for his Spirit entries, Eisner preferred to work the title into a story’s artwork. This splash page from a June 26, 1949 story is one of Eisner’s most memorable. (© Will Eisner Studios, Inc., courtesy of Denis Kitchen)
Eisner had introduced these intriguing foils early in The Spirit’s history. They had catchy names—Black Queen, Sand Saref, Skinny Bones, Thorne Strand, Flaxen Weaver, Powder Pouf, Silk Satin, and, best known of the group, the indomitable P’Gell—and they had curvaceous forms, sharp minds, and past lives as mysterious as the Spirit’s. They were strongly independent and seductive. They traveled internationally, giving Eisner occasion to place his stories in exotic locations. Most important of all, they were the Spirit’s equals, capable of exposing his weaknesses and matching him in a battle of wits. In every respect, these women were more fully realized as characters than their male counterparts.
His femmes fatales, Eisner confessed, were precisely the kinds of women he himself found attractive.
“Every man who works in this field—whether he’s writing short stories or novels, working in this medium or doing paintings—responds to his personal ideal of what is an attractive woman,” he said. “I’m generally turned on by a very intelligent, self-contained, confident woman whose seduction represents a substantial action. As one writer once said, ‘To seduce the maid is not great trouble. But to seduce the duchess—that’s an accomplishment!’”
Each of these women attracted the Spirit in a different way. Sand Saref and Denny Colt had been childhood friends, and it’s clear that they would have been adult lovers if Colt’s uncle, a thief, hadn’t been unjustly accused of killing Saref’s father, a police officer pursuing him.
“I walked a tightrope with her,” Eisner said of Saref, who originally was cast in a John Law story, only to be recycled in a two-part Spirit episode when the proposed John Law comic book fell through. “I wanted her to be in command, tough and independent, yet I tried to get the reader