Will Eisner: A Comics Biography

by Steve Weiner, Dan Mazur (Illustrator)

Overview

Explore the life of Will Eisner, one of the most influential artists in the history of comics through the most appropriate medium: a graphic novel! From his immigrant roots and childhood in New York, starting his own comics studio and business, and the creation and publication of his beloved comic, The Spirit, through inventing the term “graphic novel” to convince a general trade publisher to publish the groundbreaking A Contract with God, you’ ll follow along in Eisner’s life journey. With the most prestigious comics awards named after him, Will Eisner is forever celebrated not only in what he created but his unerring belief in comics’ capacity to be better, to reach higher, to be a full art form in its own right. This is the life of this man of vision who helped to put comics on the map.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9781681123578
Publisher:	N B M Publishing Company
Publication date:	07/15/2025
Series:	NBM Comics Biographies
Pages:	300
Product dimensions:	6.50(w) x 9.50(h) x 1.00(d)

About the Author

Stephen Weiner has been writing about graphic novels since 1992 and spearheaded the movement to bring graphic novels into public libraries. His books include: 100 Graphic Novels for Public Libraries, The Will Eisner Companion, Will the Real Will Eisner Please Stand Up & Other Adventures in Comics, The 101 Best Graphic Novels, The Rise of the Graphic Novel (Introduction by Will Eisner), Analysis of BONE: a Closer Look at the Jeff Smith Graphic Novel Masterpiece, and Hellboy: the Companion. He is co-editor of the 7-volume series, Graphic Novels: A Critical Survey, and lives outside of Boston. Dan Mazur’s previous graphic novels are Lunatic (2020) and Hannabell Hobb and Her Horrible Heads (2021). His comics have appeared in numerous anthologies. His history book, Comics, A Global History: 1968 to the Present (2014, co-written with Alexander Danner) has been translated into seven languages. As a screenwriter, his credits include Brave New World (1998), Night of The Scarecrow (1995) and Virtual Nightmare (2000), as well as uncredited writing on John Carpenter’s Vampires and K-9. He is co-founder of MICE, the Massachusetts Independent Comics Expo and the Boston Comics Roundtable.

Editorial Reviews

"An epic origin story of one of the giants in the world of comics!" —Jeff Kinney, author of Diary of a Wimpy Kid series

"The art fits the period. The characters’ personalities are brought to life through the art." —Richard Vasseur, First Comics News

"Will Eisner is an absorbing graphic biography about the man most responsible for inventing the modern graphic novel." —Peter Dabbene, Foreword

"A heartfelt and absorbing biography of a master cartoonist, fittingly told in arresting images." —Kirkus Reviews

"…distill[s] decades of artistic evolution and cultural impact into an accessible and engaging narrative." —Thomas Batten, Library Journal

"Told in sharp, evocative panels, the book mirrors the very storytelling techniques Eisner helped invent: cinematic pacing, emotional depth, and a respect for the graphic novel reader’s intelligence." —Matt Robinson, Unpacked

"For anyone interested in comics, New York City, Jewish-American culture, or the evolution of American storytelling, this is essential reading." —Jonathan Sandler

From the Publisher

2025-05-16
A life portrait in panels.

Growing up poor in 1920s New York, harassed by Irish toughs for being Jewish, Will Eisner found refuge in books. “There are ways to escape,” read the words above cartoonist Mazur’s sepia-tone illustration of a New York Public Library bookmobile. “Places where the new kid is always welcome.” A youthful dreamer, Eisner soaked up classic adventure stories set in far-off lands. “And then there’s the kind of literature they don’t have at the library,” writes comics historian Weiner. “You want this old pulp book? I’m done with it,” says a neighbor in the Bronx, handing the boy a copy ofBlack Mask magazine, a man on the cover menacingly pointing a gun. Young Will was dazzled by the action. In little time, he fell in love with drawing, taking after his father, Sam, a set painter who worked at, among other venues, the Yiddish Art Theatre in Manhattan. Thus began a fascination with cartooning that ultimately made Eisner a legend in the field—the comic industry’s annual Eisner Awards are named in his honor. Not that Eisner didn’t struggle to achieve success. Early on, his mother, Fannie, wasn’t thrilled that there would be two struggling artists under one roof. “Can you buy groceries with art?” she asks. Eventually, the answer, for Eisner, was yes. He got a job at theNew York American newspaper, published his first professional work in 1936, opened a studio with Jerry Iger, and achieved great popularity with his masked detective hero the Spirit, whose dark style was inspired by German cinema. Comics aficionados also remember Eisner for Joe Dope, a character he created for the Army during World War II. The “bumbling private,” Weiner writes, taught soldiers proper procedure “by doing everything wrong.” There was little, it seems, that Eisner did wrong in his storied life, and fans of his—old and new—are all the richer for his captivating work.

A heartfelt and absorbing biography of a master cartoonist, fittingly told in arresting images.

Kirkus Reviews