What's the name of that Eisner comic?

[scratchie]

The one about the funnybook industry.

[JKCarrier]

The Dreamer?

[MDG]

The Dreamer's a great little book. The page introducing the character based on Jack Kirby is worth the price of admission all by itself.

[scratchie]

Merci. Danke. Thanks.

[Slam_Bradley]

While not as "Weighty" as some of Eisner's other work, The Dreamer is by far my favorite of his graphic novels.

[dan bailey]

Geez ... I hesitate to post this, simply because my computer at home (I'm back at work now after 3 off days of shingles-filled fun) had a stroke or something when I tried to do so yesterday afternoon. (In brief, I'd responded with no problem to a friend's email a few minutes before, then logged on here to type what I'm about to type after the parentheses, only to keep getting a couple of numbers every time I typed "e," which is, y'know, an extremely common character. Turns out about one-third of my characters were screwed up, & hitting the backspace key resulted in the time & date popping up, & I couldn't space, & my CPU beeped whenver I touched the caps lock or shift or alt keys ... Same thing happened after rebooting. Then last night I couldn't type anything at all, though the beeping still occurred. I'm *hoping* my keyboard has simply gone bad, but I guess I'll find out at lunch when I drop my machine by the shop for testing.)

Where was I? Oh yeah ... Earlier this week I was reading some blog comments (from a Comics Reporter link, I'm pretty sure) wherein Eisner came in for a fair amount of criticism for the supposedly overly mawkish nature of his graphic novels. The only one I own is The Plot, which I've only barely glanced at, so I can't address that.

For that matter, I've read precious little Spirit, though off the top of my head the only objections I have there (well, in addition to the depiction of Ebony, though probably that goes without saying) are the absurdly contrived names of some of the characters (Sand Serif? Uhhhh ... yeah). Probably the latter just reflected some of the less clever aspects of popular culture of the time, though (as Ebony certainly did).

[MDG]

For that matter, I've read precious little Spirit, though off the top of my head the only objections I have there (well, in addition to the depiction of Ebony, though probably that goes without saying) are the absurdly contrived names of some of the characters (Sand Serif? Uhhhh ... yeah). Probably the latter just reflected some of the less clever aspects of popular culture of the time, though (as Ebony certainly did).[/
You better not read any Dick Tracy.

Contrived? The Spirit was a comic strip--a cartoon. Eisner used the "shorthand" of the medium as a starting point because he only had 50 panels (?-maybe less) to introduce characters and tell a story with a beginning, middle, and end every week.

Same with Ebony--he used a stereotype, just as he did with Irish cops, "sneaky foreigners," "middle-eastern traders", "loose women"--but only as a starting point. And a lot better than 90% of the people who ever worked in the medium.

My problem with Sand Serif is that her name doesn't link to her character--like P'gell's does.

[dan bailey]

You better not read any Dick Tracy.


Not really a temptation I have to resist, actually. (Nothing wrong with Dick Tracy, but as I've noted before, by & large crime comics -- whether created 70 years ago or last month -- just aren't my thing.)

[scratchie]

Where was I? Oh yeah ... Earlier this week I was reading some blog comments (from a Comics Reporter link, I'm pretty sure) wherein Eisner came in for a fair amount of criticism for the supposedly overly mawkish nature of his graphic novels. The only one I own is The Plot, which I've only barely glanced at, so I can't address that. I could see how his writing could strike someone as "mawkish". Let's just say that a lot of the depictions of human emotion are as cartoonish and exaggerated as his depictions of human anatomy. That's his style.

On the other hand, I almost cried at the end of Dropsie Avenue, and that book is about a friggen' building. I'm not usually a sucker for sap, so Eisner seems to be evoking some honest human emotions even if he's doing so with broad strokes.