Number 1472: Spirit of the thing...

We’re finishing up our Week of Quality with an early Spirit Section, the 16-page newspaper supplement that Will Eisner produced for Quality Comics publisher Everett “Busy” Arnold. At some point in its 12-year life the Spirit Section became copyright by Eisner, but in this early example Arnold held the copyright.

This section, dated July 14, 1940, was the seventh to appear. It’s early enough that the Spirit has his flying car. I think Eisner made a wise move when he dumped that silly gimmick.

Chuck Mazoujian drew ’Lady Luck.” According to some biographical information Mazoujian left comics when he went into the service during World War II. After the war he went into teaching painting and figure drawing at Pratt Institute. Later Mazoujian went into illustration and commercial art.

Bob Powell did “Mr. Mystic” and had a long career in comic books.

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Number 1428: The UFO Spirit

Orson Welles, the enfant terrible of theater, radio and the movies of his day, gets the Will Eisner treatment as “Awsum Bells” in this tale from the September 28, 1947 Spirit Section. I have scanned it from the blackline-and-graytone reprint in Warren’s The Spirit #2 (1974).

The update paragraph on the last page was new for the reprint version. The scripter (credited as Eisner by the Grand Comics Database) had been paying attention to the news stories that began appearing in June, 1947 about mysterious “flying disks” buzzing around in U.S. airspace.

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Number 1241: Eisner pre-war and postwar

This is the second of four postings this week with features from Quality Comics.

Will Eisner was one of the more accomplished artists in the comic book field, even from his very early days in the industry. And he joined the industry before it was an industry.

He had a distinctive style before World War II, and it grew into the style we all know and admire from after the war. (He also had several people helping him, but the overall look of his work is consistent with his layouts and inking.)

“Espionage Starring Black X” was a strip from early issues of Smash Comics. This episode is from #12 (1940). The Spirit story, reprinted in a 1950 issue of Police Comics, #100, originally appeared in the newspaper comic book section Eisner produced, dated April 28, 1946. “Black X,” who always wore a monocle (even when covering his face, as he does in this story), is a type of pre-war spy story where spies were gentlemen, and agents had numbers instead of names. The Spirit story is one of the types of Eisner stories I really like, whimsical and pure fantasy.

Less than two months ago I did another posting with Eisner's Black X, in Pappy's #1212.

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Number 1218: Capp slapped by the Spirit

Here are a couple of questions for knowledgeable Pappy readers. Some years ago I read an interview with Will Eisner where he told a story of being contacted by Al Capp. The Li’l Abner creator told Eisner he wanted to trade satires of each other’s strips. Eisner said Capp never followed up. So what I’m wondering is, where did I read that, and is this the strip Eisner used for his satire, or is this an Eisner “Slapp at Capp” after feeling betrayed?

Either way, this is Eisner going after the big boys of comic strip syndication. I would think either Harold Gray (Elmer Hay) or Chester Gould (Hector Ghoul) might feel insulted, not to mention Capp. As satire it seems more than just a friendly nod or gentle nudge in the ribs. A particular target of Eisner's satire is the Dick Tracy/Fearless Fosdick situation. Gould felt that Capp over-reached by making Fearless Fosdick — who began as a one-off caricature of the Dick Tracy comic strip — a semi-regular character in Li’l Abner. I assume he was further aggrieved when Fearless Fosdick got commercial endorsements like Wildroot Cream Oil, which made $$$ for Capp, none for Gould. As for Harold Gray, I have no idea what he thought of The Spirit.  Maybe Gray didn't care what Eisner did. Maybe he never saw it. Unlike Gray’s large following, there were only a few papers carrying the Spirit's Comic Book Section.

This is an interesting Spirit story, and I'd love to know the background of this particular episode.

Originally published July 20, 1947. This is scanned from The Spirit #1 (Warren, 1974):

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