Will Eisner - Michael Schumacher [66]
The other femmes fatales were similarly strong characters. Silk Satin, a Katharine Hepburn look-alike, is also a reluctant criminal, a woman trapped by circumstance, deeply in love with the Spirit, and under other conditions, she might have wound up with him. Skinny Bones, a Lauren Bacall knockoff, works for the Mob, while Black Queen, the first of Eisner’s femmes fatales, is the Mob.
Eisner’s femmes fatales, one of his trademark Spirit features, were beautiful, intelligent, sexy—and potentially lethal. This January 23, 1949 splash page is an example of how Eisner tried to work humor into his story. (© Will Eisner Studios, Inc., courtesy of Denis Kitchen)
None, however, compared with P’Gell, the often married (and widowed), well-traveled villainess who appeared in more Spirit stories—seventeen in all—than any of these dangerous women. The ultimate foe, partly good but mostly naughty, P’Gell proved irresistible to the Spirit, who’s drawn to her repeatedly, only to barely escape with his life with each encounter.
“The stories with her were always special ones,” Eisner admitted. “I especially enjoyed these because it was always The Spirit’s wits against hers, and that’s an aspect of The Spirit that I’ve always enjoyed exploring—the way he can think his way through a situation.”
These seductive, pinup-perfect characters, more than any of their male counterparts, helped propel The Spirit into the adult market. Male villains such as the Octopus, Dr. Cobra, Mr. Carrion, and the Squid seemed as familiar and packaged as the villains in the superhero comics and required action, more than thought, for the Spirit to defeat them. Eisner not only recognized as much he enjoyed poking fun at men’s mistaken belief that they were the stronger sex. “The thing about women,” the Spirit says to Commissioner Dolan in a splash page for a Thorne Strand episode, “is y’gotta outthink them … Keep a firm grip on your emotions and keep your brain clear.”
The Spirit and Dolan’s perch? The palm of Thorne Strand’s hand.
On September 5, 1948, Eisner published a Spirit episode entitled “The Story of Gerhard Shnobble,” a seven-page story that, in time, would prove to be his most critically acclaimed and frequently reprinted work from the series. The story featured Eisner’s trademarks—a strong narrative, a memorable character, experimentation in form, interesting camera angles, and a powerful ending—and managed to do so with the Spirit being only an incidental presence in the story.
Of all his Spirit stories, this became Eisner’s personal favorite.
“When I did ‘Gerhard Shnobble,’” he told interviewer Tom Heintjes, “I found that I could take a simple theme and use it as a way of dealing with a philosophical point. The theme I was working with is that everyone, no matter how small they seem, has a moment of glory. I’m fascinated by the fact that the world has billions of people, each of whom does small things. And I’m convinced that small acts can have huge ramifications. I just can’t get out of my mind the belief that our existence is part of a larger scheme.”
Eisner would repeatedly return to this theme and expand upon it in his graphic novels, but “Gerhard Shnobble” stood out because of its combined intensity and brevity. This was clearly not kids’ play. In the past, Eisner had been able to disguise his own feelings in his characters, but as he admitted later, he put himself on the line in this fable about a little nebbish with the ability to fly.
“It was the first time that I was truly aware that I could do a story that I had great personal feelings about,” he said of the piece. “It proved to me that I could write something with a little more depth to it. Most of the stories I did up to this time were not as consciously personal as this.”
In the story, the title character discovers on his eighth birthday