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Will Eisner (born March 3, 1917, Brooklyn, New York City; died January 3, 2005, Lauderdale Lakes, Florida) was an acclaimed American comics writer, artist and entrepreneur. He is considered one of the most important contributors to the development of the medium and is known for the cartooning studio he founded; for his highly influential series ; for his use of comics as an instructional medium; for his leading role in establishing the graphic novel as a form of literature with his book .

In 1988, the comics community paid tribute to Eisner by creating the Will Eisner Awards, more commonly known as "the Eisners", to recognize achievements each year in the comics medium. Eisner enthusiastically participated in the awards ceremony, congratulating each recipient.

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The son of Jewish immigrants — his father a former painter, marginally successful entrepreneur, and one-time manufacturer in Manhattan's Seventh Avenue garment district — Eisner attended De Witt Clinton High School. There he drew for the school newspaper () and yearbook, and did stage design, leading him to consider doing that kind of work for theater. Upon graduation, he studied under Canadian artist George Brandt Bridgman (1864-1943) for a year at the Art Students League of New York. Contacts made there led to a position as an advertising writer-cartoonist for the

In 1936, high-school friend and fellow cartoonist Bob Kane, future creator of Batman, suggested that the 19-year-old Eisner try selling cartoons to the new comic book . "Comic books" at the time were tabloid-sized collections of comic strip reprints in color. In 1935, they began to include occasional new comic strip-like material. Editor Jerry Iger bought an Eisner adventure strip called "Captain Scott Dalton", an H. Rider Haggard-d hero who traveled the world after rare artifacts. Eisner subsequently wrote and drew the the pirate strip "The Flame" and the secret agent strip "Harry Karry" for Nov. 1936). After it ended, Eisner and Iger worked together producing and selling original comcs material, anticipating that the well of available reprints would soon run dry, though their accounts of how their partnership was founded differ. One of the first such comic-book "packagers", their partnership was an immediate success, and the two soon had a stable of comics creators supplying work to Fox Comics, Fiction House, Quality Comics (for whom Eisner co-created such characters as Doll Man and Blackhawk), and others. Turning a profit of $1.50 a page, Eisner claimed, "I got very rich before I was 22,"span later detailing that in Depression-era 1939 alone, he and Iger "had split $25,000 between us,"span , Quality Comics publisher Everett M. "Busy" Arnold "came to me and said that the Sunday newspapers were looking for a way of getting into this comic book boom". In a 2004 interviewspan

"Busy" invited me up for lunch one day and introduced me to Henry Martin[, sales manager of the Des Moines Register and Tribune Syndicate, who] said, "The newspapers in this country, particularly the Sunday papers, are looking to compete with comics books, and they would like to get a comic-book insert into the newspapers". ... Martin asked if I could do it. ... It meant that I'd have to leave Eisner Iger [which] was making money; we were very profitable at that time and things were going very well. A hard decision. Anyway, I agreed to do the Sunday comic book and we started discussing the deal [which] was that we'd be partners in the 'Comic Book Section', as they called it at that time. And also, I would produce two other magazines in partnership with Arnold.

, but, "Written down in the contract I had with 'Busy' Arnold — and this contract exists today as the basis for my copyright ownership — Arnold agreed that it was my property. They agreed that if we hade a split-up in any way, the property would revert to me on that day that happened. My attorney went to 'Busy' Arnold and his family, and they all signed a release agreeing that would not pursue the question of ownership"span "A classic Eisner cover for The Spirit, Oct. 6, 1946. Note the innovative use of title design, the mix of color and black-and-white, and the shadowing and texturing that combine for exotic noir effect. Other Spirit stories could be whimsical, gritty, folklorish, sentimental, horrific, or mystical, yet always humanistic." , Oct. 6, 1946. Note the innovative use of title design, the mix of color and black-and-white, and the shadowing and texturing that combine for exotic noir effect. Other stories could be whimsical, gritty, folklorish, sentimental, horrific, or mystical, yet always humanistic.

Selling his share of their firm to Iger, who would continue to package comics as the S. M. Iger Studio and as Phoenix Features through 1955, Eisner left to create . "They gave me an adult audience," Eisner said in 1997, "and I wanted to write better things than super-heroes. Comic books were a ghetto. I sold my part of the enterprise to my associate and then began The Spirit. They wanted an heroic character, a costumed character. They asked me if he'd have a costume. And I put a mask on him and said, 'Yes, he has a costume!'" [1]

, a seven-page, urban-crimefighter series, ran with such backup features as "Mr. Mystic" and "Lady Luck" in a 16-page Sunday supplement (colloquially called "The Spirit Section") eventually distributed in 20 newspapers with a combined circulation of as many as five million copies, premiering June 2, 1940, and continuing through 1952,

Eisner's rumpled, masked hero (with his headquarters under the tombstone of his supposedly deceased true identity, Denny Colt) and his gritty, detailed view of big-city life (based on Eisner's Jewish upbringing in New York City) both reflected and influenced the outlook of movies and fiction in the 1940s.

The strip is especially notable in other areas. First, it was the story of people, often the little people overlooked in the city's maelstrom. In some episodes of the nominal hero makes a brief, almost incidental appearance while the story focuses on a real-life drama played out in streets, dilapidated tenements, and smoke-filled back rooms. Second, along with violence and pathos, lived on humor, both subtle and overt. He was machine-gunned, knocked silly, bruised, often amazed into near immobility and constantly confused by beautiful women.

Set in the Manhattan of Central City, the strip featured a big-hearted supporting cast that included the gruff Irish police commissioner, Dolan; his gorgeous blond daughter, Ellen, whose waifish manner belied the occasional vicious uppercut or scathing remark she could throw; and Ebony White, an orphaned African American child who served as the Spirit's sidekick, surrogate son, and kid-appeal comic relief, whom the other characters treated with a casual, inherent respect not always seen in the pop culture of the time.

While Eisner's later graphic novels were entirely his own work, he had a studio working under his supervision on which Eisner himself would later imitate in his book-length works, and Kanegson would often rewrite Eisner's dialogue. span , however, was Jules Feiffer, later a renowned cartoonist, playwright and screenwriter in his own right. Eisner later said of their working methods "You should hear me and Jules Feiffer going at it in a room. 'No, you designed the splash page for this one, then you wrote the ending — I came up with the idea for the story, and you did it up to this point, then I did the next page and this sequence here and...' And I'll be swearing up and down that HE wrote the ending on that one. We never agree". span from the time that he was drafted into the U.S. Army in 1942 until his return to civilian life in 1945. The primary wartime artists were the uncredited Lou Fine and Jack Cole, with future artist Jack Keller drawing backgrounds. These ghosted stories have been reprinted in DC Comics' hardcover collections Vols. 5 to 9 (2001-2003), spanning July 1942 - Dec. 1944.

On Eisner's return from service and resumption of his role in the studio, he created the bulk of the stories on which his reputation was solidified. The post-war years also saw him attempt to launch the comic-strip

Eisner is sometimes criticized for his depiction of Ebony White, the Spirit's African American sidekick. He later admitted to consciously stereotyping the character, but said he tried to do so with "responsibility", and argued that "at the time humor consisted in our society of bad English and physical difference in identity." [2] The character developed beyond the stereotype as the series progressed, and Eisner also introduced black characters (such as the plain-speaking Detective Grey) who defied popular stereotypes.

In a 1966 feature by his former office manager-turned-journalist, Marilyn Mercer wrote, "Ebony never drew criticism from Negro groups (in fact, Eisner was commended by some for using him), perhaps because, although his speech pattern was early Minstrel Show, he himself dervied from another literary tradition: he was a combination of Tom Sawyer and Penrod, with a touch of Horatio Alger hero, and color didn't really come into it." span

During his World War II military service, Eisner had introduced the use of comics for training personnel, in the publication and seeing television and other post-war trends eat at newspapers' readership base, he formed the American Visuals Corporation in order to produce instructional materials for the government, related agencies, and businesses. One of his longest-running jobs was , a digest-sized magazine with comic-book elements that he started for the Army in 1951 and continued to work on until the 1970s with Mike Ploog and other artists.

Other clients of his Connecticut-based company included RCA Records, the Baltimore Colts NFL football team, and New York Telephone.

In the late 1970s, he turned his attention to longer storytelling forms. (Baronet Books, Oct. 1978Will Eisner is one of the first American graphic novels, combining thematically linked short stories into a single square-bound volume. Eisner continued with a string of graphic novels that tell the history of New York's immigrant communities, particularly Jews, including . He continued producing new books into his seventies and eighties, at an average rate of nearly one a year. Remarkably, each of these books was done twice - once as a rough version to show editor Dave Schreiner, then as a second, finished version incorporating suggested changes. span , Eisner revealed that the inspiration for the title story grew out of the 1969 death of his leukemia-stricken teenaged daughter, Alice, next to whom he is buried. Until then, only Eisner's closest friends had even been aware that he and his wife, Ann Weingarten Eisner, had a daughter. They also have a son, John.

Some of his last work was the retelling in sequential art of novels and myths, including is an account to the life of Dickens's character Fagin, in which Eisner tries to get past the sterotyped portrait of Fagin in

In his later years especially, Eisner was a frequent lecturer about the craft and uses of sequential art. He taught at the School of Visual Arts in New York City, and wrote two books based on these lectures,

Eisner has been recognized for his work with the National Cartoonist Society Comic Book Award for 1967, 1968, 1969, 1987, and 1988, their Story Comic Book Award in 1979, and the Reuben Award for 1988. He was inducted into the Academy of Comic Book Arts Hall of Fame in 1971, and the Jack Kirby Hall of Fame in 1987. In 1988, the Will Eisner Awards were named in his honor.

Will Eisner died of complications from a quadruple bypass surgery performed on December 22, 2004 in Lauderdale Lakes, Florida.

"Trade paperback edition of A Contract with God; the concurrent 1,500-copy hardcover release did not use the term "graphic novel" on its cover." Commerce: An Oral Reminiscence by Will Eisner", pp. 5-21, quoted in "Rare Eisner: Making of a Genius" (see under "References", below) Consent: The Editing of Graphic Novels" (panel discussion with Eisner and Chester Brown) and Frank Miller interview, both , Eisner's keynote address at the 2002 University of Florida Conference on Comics and Graphic Novels' Will Eisner Symposium