Number 1527: Spirit of the gun

Recently I presented a bloody tale from Desperado #1 narrated by a gun. Here I have another tale, this time from Will Eisner’s Spirit Section of March 4, 1951, also narrated by a gun. Is this a good gimmick or not, having stories narrated by inanimate objects? (To answer my own question, the esteemed Ray Bradbury used it when he had a rocket ship narrate “I, Rocket” in Amazing Stories, May 1944. Perhaps I should just shut up.)

Another thing about this Spirit story that caught my eye was the panel sequence I have used as a teaser above, and a similar sequence from Mad #12 (1954), when Harvey Kurtzman and Will Elder did their satire, “Starchie.”

I wonder if the Spirit had any inspiration on the Mad sequence, either consciously or unconsciously.

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Number 1493: Spirit of the haunted house

This Spirit episode was originally published in its newspaper Comic Book Section on December 12, 1940. It was reprinted in Police Comics #19 in 1943, which is the source of my scans. An interesting sidelight to this moody and effective story of an old dark house on a bleak and rainy night, is that the Grand Comics Database credits Joe Kubert with the coloring. Yes, that Joe Kubert. The GCD doesn't distinguish between the original and the reprint when reporting Kubert as colorist, but I’ll assume they mean the reprint. Joe was 16-years-old at the time.

Another item of interest for you Marvel Comics fans: Sam Rosen, a familiar name from countless comics of the 1960s, is credited with the lettering.

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Number 1138: Sex and the Spirit

The Spirit newspaper comic book never wanted for hot girls. Will Eisner, creator, knew the power of sex in comics. He had co-created Sheena a few years earlier, after all. There was a saying (I'm paraphrasing), "Kids read the comic strips, but their dads buy the newspaper." A comic strip creator had to provide something for Pop to make him plunk down his nickel. When the old man was done, Junior got his eyes full ogling comic strips with pretty girls.

This early Spirit, from November 10, 1940, is from the 24th issue of the weekly Comic Book Supplement, carried by several newspapers until it succumbed in 1952. The Black Queen is overtly sexy in her abbreviated costume. She also has the kiss of death; not the last Spirit female who was as deadly, or deadlier, than the male criminals who regularly whupped on the Spirit.

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Number 845

Getting into the Spirit of the thing

I recently read the 2007* DC trade paperback The Spirit Book One by Darwyn Cooke, J. Bone and Dave Stewart. I was pleasantly surprised that in updating the character of the Spirit they had stayed within the...errrr...no other word to use but spirit of the original. Kudos to this book's team for bringing the cast of the Spirit into the 21st Century with a new/old look.

Not that I didn't find some things to complain about, but they are relatively minor. Also, there were 22 pages per story. I wondered why Will Eisner could jam a whole plot into 7 pages but it takes modern guys three times the pages to tell their tales.

Here's the original art from a Spirit episode from February, 1947. Will Eisner employed other artists to do most of the drawing, but he gave it the final touch, a gloss that told us instantly he was the HHIC, Head Honcho In Charge. This story about race track touts uses several characters, but is told in a concise fashion. Even though art styles have changed in the 63 years since this was drawn, anyone who wants to draw comic books and tell stories would do well to get a bunch of Spirit stories and see why Eisner could do what he did so economically.

The artwork is from Heritage Auctions--thanks to them for posting it--and was sold for $11,950.

*Yes, I'm years behind in my reading.

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Number 688

Spirit of science fiction

I like Will Eisner's Spirit stories because they can be anything: detective, human interest, adventure, romance, film noir, fantasy or science fiction. Sometimes a combination of those elements. These stories, scanned from Police Comics #101 and #102, 1950, use science fiction as a sub-theme in the first (rocket to the moon as escape for a criminal), and the plot driver for the second (time travel). As usual, nothing in a Spirit story is strictly conventional. There are always surprises in the seven pages that fit outside normal expectations of 1940's comics.

We are in a science fiction week at Pappy's. Tomorrow, the Fox rocket men!

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Number 633


Stormy Weather is "just Fine..."


On October 30 I showed you a Spirit story by Will Eisner. This story, drawn by Lou Fine and probably written by author Manly Wade Wellman, is from an underappreciated era of the Spirit, from the World War II years when creator Will Eisner was in the armed services.

This Spirit story doesn't have the cinematic flair that Eisner brought to the strip, the film noir elements from the postwar period, but it's a well drawn story, nevertheless. All of the non-Eisner stories, I believe, have been reprinted in The Spirit Archives, but I don't own any of those books. I got this from The Spirit #3, 1945.

Hedging his bets that Eisner might not come back alive from the war, publisher Everett "Busy" Arnold had the character Midnight, visually a Spirit-clone, appearing in Smash Comics. How Eisner tolerated such an abuse, a blatant infringement on the Spirit, is beyond me. But Busy was his partner on the Spirit, so it was probably just a business decision. Early on, after the initial appearance of Superman, Victor Fox hired Eisner to make Wonder Man as much like Superman as possible, and Fox lost a lawsuit from Superman's publisher. Eisner knew about plagiarism.

The non-Eisner Spirit looks more to me like Midnight than Eisner's Spirit, but there was a time when they co-existed.

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