WILL EISNER was born William Erwin
Eisner on March 6, 1917 in Brooklyn, New York. By the time
of his death on January 3, 2005, following complications
from open heart surgery, Eisner was recognized internationally
as one of the giants in the field of sequential art, a term
he coined.
In a career that spanned nearly seventy
years and eight decades — from the dawn of the comic
book to the advent of digital comics — he truly was
the 'Orson Welles of comics' and the 'father of the Graphic
Novel'. He broke new ground in the development of visual
narrative and the language of comics and was the creator
of The Spirit, John Law, Lady Luck, Mr. Mystic, Uncle Sam,
Blackhawk, Sheena and countless others.
One of the comic industry's most prestigious
awards, The Eisner Award, is named after him. Recognized
as the 'Oscars' of the American comic book business, the
Eisners are presented annually before a packed
ballroom at Comi-Con
International in San Diego, America's largest comics
convention.
Wizard magazine named Eisner
"the most influential comic artist of all time."
Michael Chabon's Pulitzer-prize winning novel Kavalier
and Clay is based in good part on Eisner. Also in 2002,
Eisner received a Lifetime Achievement Award from
the National Federation for Jewish Culture, only
the second such honor in the organization's history, presented
by Pulitzer-prize winning cartoonist Art Spiegelman.
An authorized biography, Will
Eisner: A Spirited Life by Bob
Andelman, was published in 2005.
A film documentary about Eisner's career,
"Will Eisner: Portrait of a Sequential Artist"
from Montilla
Pictures (Andrew and Jon B. Cooke), premiered
at the 2007 Tribeca Film Festival.
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