Will Eisner - Michael Schumacher [74]
Norman Colton, the magazine’s single-minded editor, also presented a hurdle to contend with. Short, neatly groomed, and impeccably dressed, with a calm exterior that belied a scrappy personality, Colton could be a handful. He and Eisner had worked reasonably well together during the Army Motors days, first in Holabird, where Eisner saw him on an almost daily basis, and later, after Colton transferred to Detroit, when their working relationship was long-distance. Colton, Eisner determined, was a wheeler-dealer, capable of working all angles and, often enough, pitting one office against another. Army Motors had been Colton’s baby, and he wanted a better cut of P*S than just a position and salary. As it was set up, Eisner controlled the magazine’s cover art, the content in the middle of each issue, and other incidental art; Colton was responsible for the written material. Eisner got most of the attention and glory; Colton, for all his contributions, got very little.
Eisner didn’t trust him. As a civilian, Colton worked outside the military, and Eisner suspected that he had his own agenda, which turned out to be true enough when Colton approached Eisner and demanded part ownership in the magazine. A bitter debate ensued. P*S, Eisner pointed out, belonged to the army and wasn’t his to sell. Colton countered that Eisner could have set up an arrangement allowing him to hold stock in the publication, even though that wasn’t Eisner’s to sell, either. Colton insisted; Eisner refused. Finally, acting on his lawyer’s counsel, Eisner flatly refused to discuss it with him.
There were matters other than internal politics. Since the magazine was publicly funded, Eisner had to keep a close watch on a restricted budget—not the easiest task when you’re trying to print a color cover and a four-color, eight-page interior spread, which could be expensive. Any staff would have to be paid as well. Eisner, of course, was familiar with all this from his days of running a shop, but with so many people watching and demanding a say in the magazine’s production, he felt as if he were always under surveillance, with each issue being an audition for the magazine’s renewal.
Fortunately, he enjoyed a challenge.
Eisner’s private life was changing as well. He and Ann had a son, John, in April 1952; a daughter, Alice, was born a year and a half later, in October 1953. Ann Eisner would remember her husband as being a doting father—an easygoing, benevolent figure around the house, inclined to go along with his children’s wishes and leave the discipline to his wife. His work schedule, still very intense from Monday through Friday, kept him away from home much more than he would have liked, especially when he and Ann moved to suburban Westchester County, north of the city, first to a rented house in Harrison and then, a short time after John’s birth, to a large house that they bought at 8 Burling Avenue in White Plains. Eisner commuted to the city every day and often didn’t return home until late in the evening. Time with his children was precious.
It’s not coincidental that The Spirit was reaching its end during the period when Eisner was starting up P*S magazine, moving out of New York City, buying a house, and starting a family. His work for American Visuals had reached the point where he was delegating more of his Spirit duties to others, and it was beginning to show,