Graphic Novel Review - Will Eisner: A Comics Biography by Stephen Weiner and Dan Mazur

 

Reviewed by Edward Whatley, Professor of Library Science, Russell Library, Georgia College & State University

Stephen Weiner and Dan Mazur. Will Eisner: A Comics Biography. NBM Graphic Novels, 2025. ISBN: 9781681123578. $29.99. https://nbmpub.com/products/will-eisner

 The early life and career of the late Will Eisner have been chronicled extensively in biographies such as Will Eisner: A Spirited Life and Will Eisner: A Dreamer’s Life in Comics.  Eisner himself discussed his formative years in numerous interviews and authored autobiographical graphic novels that portrayed his life and world during those times: specifically, The Dreamer (Princeton, Wisconsin: Kitchen Sink Press, 1986) and To the Heart of The Storm.  The title under review here, Will Eisner: A Comics Biography by Stephen Weiner and Dan Mazur, is also told via Eisner’s chosen medium of the graphic novel.  While Weiner and Mazur did not have the advantage of being present for the events they are portraying, their account of Eisner’s early life and career often seems more objective and honest than Eisner’s own idealized portrayal of himself and his times.

A brief prologue chronicles the early lives of Eisner’s immigrant parents Fannie and Sam, their marriage, and the births of their sons Will (1917) and Julian (1921).  Chapter one begins in 1925 with the Eisners engaged in what was becoming a familiar routine: moving out of their apartment in the middle of the night to avoid the landlord. In their depiction of the Will’s nomadic childhood, Weiner and Mazur effectively establish how the conflicting worldviews of his parents shaped Will own psyche. Sam encouraged Will’s creative inclinations but was not an effective breadwinner.  Fannie was constantly complaining that the family’s modest circumstances were the result of Sam’s lack of practicality. As a witness to this ongoing marital conflict, Will gradually internalized and reconciled these points of view, becoming both an accomplished creator and an astute businessman. Weiner and Mazur’s skillful and affectionate depiction of how this process played out in Will’s mind and in his actions and choices is what makes Will Eisner: A Comics Biography such an enjoyable story.

Weiner uses dialogue very efficiently to reveal much about a character in a few words while Mazur’s impressionistic drawing style also shows much about a character in a few lines. The characters all talk, move, and emote in ways that bring them to life on the page and would likely have impressed Eisner himself.  The creators also provide informative history lessons on topics such as pulp magazines, Superman, and even how comics were printed in the 1930s.  These interludes serve to give modern readers a better understanding of the early days of comics, an era that is now almost a full century in the past.

Longtime Eisner fans will already be familiar with many of the events in Will Eisner: A Comics Biography. As mentioned above, Eisner covered much of the same ground in his autobiographical graphic novels The Dreamer and To The Heart of the Storm. But while The Dreamer in particular suffered from a mawkish sentimentality, Weiner and Mazur are interested in providing a more honest portrayal of their subject and his world.  This is perhaps most evident in their handling of the court case of DC vs. Victor Fox.  Victor Fox was a publisher who wanted to cash in on the Superman craze by hiring the Eisner and Iger shop to create a similar character named Wonder Man.  Eisner designed the character and produced the story to Fox’s specifications.  DC Comics promptly sued Fox for copyright infringement. Fox instructed Eisner to claim under oath that Wonder Man was Eisner’s own idea.  In Eisner’s portrayal in The Dreamer of the events that followed, he took the stand and told the truth, thus losing the case for Fox (fig. 1). In the years since the publication of The Dreamer, transcripts of the court case have become available to the public and they reveal that Eisner did in fact comply with Victor Fox’s instructions to claim that Wonder Man was Eisner’s own creation.  Eisner even claimed to have never read Superman while working on Wonder Man (fig. 2).  Eisner made this claim despite having received a submission for Superman from Siegel and Schuster before the character appeared in Action Comics.  So at worst, Eisner’s telling of the story was untruthful.  At best, he was misremembering events.  But in either case, his account of the story was completely inaccurate.  Weiner and Mazur, however, used the court transcripts as the basis for their version and readers therefore get a more accurate account of events.

Fig. 1

 

Fig. 2

 

While Eisner’s portrayal of himself in The Dreamer is that of a rather guileless romantic, Will Eisner: A Comics Biography gives us a more believable (and probably more accurate) view of the young Eisner.  To his credit, he was an enthusiastic advocate for the potential of comics as a valid medium for the telling of mature stories. But in Weiner and Mazur’s hands, Eisner also harbored a somewhat peevish resentment for the superhero genre.  He displayed no reservations about working in other formulaic genres, reserving his disdain solely for costumed characters.  As Weiner and Mazur infer, this may have been the result of his declining to publish Superman (and forfeiting the potential financial windfall) when he had the chance.

Eisner is also shown to sidestep his self-professed commitment to comics as a true literary form and instead embrace some of the more unfortunate pop culture tropes of the time, specifically in his early portrayal of the Spirit’s African American assistant/sidekick Ebony White. When confronted with complaints that Ebony was a caricature, Eisner’s response is simply, “Well of course he’s a caricature – it’s a comic strip.  How else do they expect me to draw a Black sidekick?!”   Though Eisner began to portray Ebony with more sensitivity in the post-war Spirit stories, the character’s basic design and speech patterns remained the same, ensuring a strip which was visionary in many respects would always appear dated in its portrayal of one of the principal characters.

None of this is to say this Will Eisner biography reads like a hit piece or that Eisner is presented as an unlikable person.  Eisner was a tireless advocate for comics as a legitimate art form, a singularly innovative practitioner, and an ambitious but scrupulous businessman. All these qualities are present in Wiener and Mazor’s handling of their subject.  The book covers Eisner’s post Spirit life and work in a breezy manner, giving the most attention to the events leading to his creation of A Contract with God and his struggle to find a publisher.  Jeff smith provides an affectionate afterward that highlights how Eisner served as a source of encouragement and inspiration to younger creators.

Will Eisner A Comics Biography will be an enjoyable and informative reading experience for both longtime Eisner fans and those seeking an accessible introduction to the man and his work.