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dr_hermes (dr_hermes) wrote in scans_daily,
@ 2009-08-19 00:27:00

Entry tags:

char: the spirit/denny colt, creator: will eisner, era: golden age

SPIRIT Splashes
Every now and then, I'd like to do a little gallery of splash pages from THE SPIRIT. The strip appeared as an insert in syndicated newspapers (and as such, the Spirit had an astonishing circulation; many thousands who never picked up a comic book read THE SPIRIT every week). This impromptu selection leaves out several of the types of stories Will Eisner did so well. There were his satires on advertising and consumerism and current fads; there were his whimsical fantasy or science-fiction romps, his tough gangster sagas and locked-room mysteries; the little misadventures that Ebony or Sammy went off on their own; and so many that are hard to classify. You just never knew what you would find when you opened your Sunday paper.

It flummoxes me how heartbreakingly good Sunday comics used to be. From the 1930s to around 1960, you might pick up a paper that had THE SPIRIT, POPEYE, PRINCE VALIANT, TERRY AND THE PIRATES, POGO, MANDRAKE THE MAGICIAN, GASOLINE ALLEY, KRAZY KAT... Then the size of the pages started to shrink faster and faster, the quality of the printing and coloring dropped, the era of high adventure and screwball humor faded away.

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jesidres
2009-08-19 02:08 pm UTC (link)

If you can find that link to Will's episode, it would be awesome.

And yeah, of course Will could draw elaborate circles around those tossers. He was able to tell some of the most riveting stories still unparalleled today...in eight pages. If not for the restrictions, I'd post some of my favorites here- the problem is that no a single panel is wasted, so you CAN'T post it without including all.

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	aaron_bourque 2009-08-19 05:21 pm UTC (link)
	http://www.youtube.com/view_play_list?p=04264E59AE7244CF&search_query=comic+book+greats+will+eisner Links to all 8 parts. (Reply to this) (Parent)

	dr_hermes 2009-08-19 10:29 pm UTC (link)
	This is true. I re-read a half dozen Spirit stories and gave up on trying to post just two pages out of an eight page story. It was too hard to select, the stories were too tightly written. The best I could see was a panel or sequence with a nice visual gag or portrait of a character, and the splash pages are good examples. (Reply to this) (Parent) (Thread)

	jesidres 2009-08-19 10:32 pm UTC (link)
	The only stories that one COULD post singular pages from are the Jack Cole or Jules Feiffer stories, and what's the point in that? (Reply to this) (Parent)

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