Will Eisner: A Comics Biography

Explore the life of Will Eisner, one of the most influential artists in the history of comics through the most appropriate medium: a graphic novel! From his immigrant roots and childhood in New York, starting his own comics studio and business, and the creation and publication of his beloved comic, The Spirit, through inventing the term ＂ graphic novel＂ to convince a general trade publisher to publish the groundbreaking A Contract with God, you’ll follow along in Eisner’s life journey. With the most prestigious comics awards named after him, Will Eisner is forever celebrated not only in what he created but his unerring belief in comics’ capacity to be better, to reach higher, to be a full art form in its own right. This is the life of this man of vision who helped to put comics on the map.

Stephen Weiner has been writing about graphic novels since 1992 and spearheaded the movement to bring graphic novels into public libraries. His books include: 100 Graphic Novels for Public Libraries, The Will Eisner Companion, Will the Real Will Eisner Please Stand Up & Other Adventures in Comics, The 101 Best Graphic Novels, The Rise of the Graphic Novel (Introduction by Will Eisner), Analysis of BONE: a Closer Look at the Jeff Smith Graphic Novel Masterpiece, and Hellboy: the Companion. He is co-editor of the 7-volume series, Graphic Novels: A Critical Survey, and lives outside of Boston. Dan Mazur’s previous graphic novels are Lunatic (2020) and Hannabell Hobb and Her Horrible Heads (2021). His comics have appeared in numerous anthologies. His history book, Comics, A Global History: 1968 to the Present (2014, co-written with Alexander Danner) has been translated into seven languages. As a screenwriter, his credits include Brave New World (1998), Night of The Scarecrow (1995) and Virtual Nightmare (2000), as well as uncredited writing on John Carpenter’s Vampires and K-9. He is co-founder of MICE, the Massachusetts Independent Comics Expo and the Boston Comics Roundtable.