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The Spirit

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For the religious or spiritual meaning of The Spirit, see Spirit.

The Spirit (real name Denny Colt) is a fictional masked crime-fighter, created by Will Eisner in 1940, who starred in a Sunday-newspaper comic-book insert. His namesake, seven-page weekly series is considered one of the comic-art medium's most significant and classic works, with writer-artist Eisner creating or popularizing many of the styles, techniques, and storytelling conventions used by comics professionals decades later.

The Spirit chronicled the adventures of an anonymous vigilante who fought crime with the blessing of the city's police commissioner, an old friend. The stories ranged through a wide variety of styles, from straightforward crime drama to lighthearted adventure, from mystery and horror to comedy and love stories, often with hybrid elements that twisted genre and expectations.

The feature was the lead item of a 16-page, tabloid-sized, newsprint comic book sold as part of eventually 20 Sunday newspapers with a combined circulation of as many as five million copies. "The Spirit Section", as it was colloquially called, premiered June 2, 1940, and continued through 1952. It generally included two other, four-page strips (initially Mr. Mystic and Lady Luck), plus filler material. Eisner worked as editor, but also wrote and drew most entries — generally, after the first few months, with such uncredited "ghost" collaborators as writer Jules Feiffer and artists Jack Cole and Wally Wood, though with Eisner's singular vision for the character as a unifying factor.

Contents

Publication history

In late 1939, Everett M. "Busy" Arnold, publisher of the Quality Comics comic-book line, began exploring an expansion into newspaper Sunday supplements, Aware that many newspapers felt they had to compete with the suddenly burgeoning new medium of American comic books. Arnold compiled a presentation piece with existing Quality Comics material. An editor of The Washington Star liked George Brenner's "The Clock", but not Brenner's art, and was favorably disposed toward a Lou Fine strip. Arnold, concerned over the meticulous Fine's slowness and his ability to meet deadlines, claimed it was the work of Eisner, Fine's boss at the Eisner & Iger studio, from which Arnold bought his outsourced comics work.

In "late '39, just before Christmas time," Eisner recalled in 1979,Panels #1 (Summer 1979), "Art & Commerce: An Oral Reminiscence by Will Eisner", pp. 5-21, quoted in ["Rare Eisner: Making of a Genius"] (see under References, below) Arnold "came to me and said that the Sunday newspapers were looking for a way of getting into this comic book boom". In a 2004 interview, he elaborated on that meeting:

"Busy" invited me up for lunch one day and introduced me to Henry Martin[, sales manager of the Des Moines Register and Tribune Syndicate, who] said, "The newspapers in this country, particularly the Sunday papers, are looking to compete with comics books, and they would like to get a comic-book insert into the newspapers". ... Martin asked if I could do it. ... It meant that I'd have to leave Eisner & Iger [which] was making money; we were very profitable at that time and things were going very well. A hard decision. Anyway, I agreed to do the Sunday comic book and we started discussing the deal [which] was that we'd be partners in the "Comic Book Section", as they called it at that time. Eisner interview, Alter Ego #48 (May 2005), p. 10

The new series "gave me an adult audience," Eisner said in 1997, "and I wanted to write better things than super-heroes. Comic books were a ghetto. I sold my part of the enterprise to my associate and then began The Spirit. They wanted an heroic character, a costumed character. They asked me if he'd have a costume. And I put a mask on him and said, 'Yes, he has a costume!'" Eisner interview, [The Jack Kirby Collector #16 (June 1997)]
During World War II, Eisner served in the U.S. Army. In his absence, the newspaper syndicate used ghost writers and artists to continue the strip, including Manly Wade Wellman, William Woolfolk, and Lou Fine.

Character history

The Spirit, referred to in one newspaper article cited below as "the only real middle-class crimefighter", was the hero persona of young detective Denny Colt. Presumed killed in the first three pages of the premiere story, Colt later revealed to his friend, Central City Police Commissioner Dolan, that he had in fact gone into suspended animation caused by one of archvillain Dr. Cobra's experiments. When Colt awakened in Wildwood Cemetery, he established a base there and, using his newfound anonymity, began a life of fighting crime wearing only a small domino mask, blue business suit, fedora hat and gloves for a costume. The Spirit dispensed justice, funding his adventures with the rewards for capturing villains.

The Spirit was based in Central City, but his adventures took him around the globe. He met up with eccentrics, kooks, and beautiful but deadly femme fatales (most notably P'Gell), bringing his own form of justice to all of them. The story changed continually, but certain themes remained constant: the love between the Spirit and Dolan's feisty proto-feminist daughter Ellen; the annual "Christmas Spirit" stories; and the Octopus (a psycopathic criminal mastermind who was never seen, except for his distinctive gloves).

Ebony White in perspective

Eisner is sometimes criticized for his depiction of Ebony White, the Spirit's African American sidekick. He later admitted to consciously stereotyping the character, but said he tried to do so with "responsibility", and argued that "at the time humor consisted in our society of bad English and physical difference in identity." Time.com (Sept. 19, 2003): [Will Eisner interview] The character developed beyond the stereotype as the series progressed, and Eisner also introduced black characters (such as the plain-speaking Detective Grey) who defied popular stereotypes.

In a 1966 New York Herald Tribune feature by his former office manager-turned-journalist, Marilyn Mercer wrote, "Ebony never drew criticism from Negro groups (in fact, Eisner was commended by some for using him), perhaps because, although his speech pattern was early Minstrel Show, he himself derived from another literary tradition: he was a combination of Tom Sawyer and Penrod, with a touch of Horatio Alger hero, and color didn't really come into it".Mercer, Marilyn, "The Only Real Middle-Class Crimefighter", New York (Sunday supplement, New York Herald Tribune), Jan. 9, 1966; reprinted Alter Ego #48 (see under References below)

Modern-day Spirit comics

Harvey Comics' The Spirit #1 (Oct. 1966), art by Will Eisner
Enlarge
Harvey Comics' The Spirit #1 (Oct. 1966), art by Will Eisner

Harvey Comics reprinted several Spirit stories in two giant-size, 25-cent comic books published October 1966 and March 1967, each with new Eisner covers.

Warren Publishing and Denis Kitchen's Kitchen Sink Press published extensive reprints, first as large black-and-white magazines (the Warren part of the run eventually having a color section), then as trade paperbacks. Kitchen Sink later did a complete reprinting of the post-WWII Eisner work in a color comic series, and started another series, which lasted only 10 issues, then intended to reprint the stories from the beginning. The Warren magazines often featured new Eisner covers.

Kitchen Sink also published a series of original Spirit stories, with contributions from Alan Moore, Dave Gibbons, Paul Chadwick, and Paul Pope, among others.

DC Comics in the mid-2000s began reprinting The Spirit chronologically in the company's hardcover Archive series, in an approximately 8x10-inch format, smaller than the Kitchen Sink and Warren publications.

The final Spirit art by the late Eisner appeared in a year TK issue of The Escapist, from Dark Horse Comics.

DC announced in July 2005 that it plans to publish Batman/The Spirit, a one-shot crossover by writer Jeph Loeb and artist Darwyn Cooke, followed by a new The Spirit ongoing series by Cooke.

Legacy and influence

The Spirit in other media

Reprints of the Spirits adventures ran in Quality Comics and Fiction House publications shortly after their newspaper debuts.

The character was the subject of a 1986 television movie starring Sam Jones as The Spirit and Nana Visitor. Eisner disapproved of the movie's tone of camp parody, which resembled that of the 1960s Batman television series. Although produced as a pilot for a new series, none followed.

The Spirit was briefly mentioned in the animated film The Iron Giant.

Comics

Books

Footnotes

References

 

From Wikipedia, the Free Encyclopedia. Original article here. Support Wikipedia by contributing or donating.
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