I never met Will Eisner, who died this week, but I know of him, and he, more than any other creator has made me a lifetime comix fan and reader. Now, it's not too hard to get children to read comic books, and I was enthusiastic from the start, aided by being raised in a rural area with almost no movie theatres, and only about two channels on the black and white teevee. But there were comic books everywhere there was a general store, gas station, and snack bar. Plus there was the pop bottle economy, on your walk to the general store if you couldn't find six pop bottles with a 2 cent refund, you just weren't trying, and that was one comic book. Combined with a couple of older cousins who had out-grown comic books, so I got their hand-me down DCs and some Marvels (though the Marvels were better) well, I was a happy comic book reader.

At the time, I didn't know how important Will Eisner was to comics until I did a school book report of a paper back I'd bought called "All In Color For A Dime" which introduced me to the Golden Age of comics. As I got into and through high school, I started to lose interest in comic books, I was growing, and they didn't seem to be. Then I discovered The Spirit. Originally, the reprints from Warren (who published Vampirella and other unsavory fare which wouldn't appeal to a young fella), found in used book stores and marginal ephemera shops, and then the Kitchen Sink reprints. Now all of these were reprints from the 40s and 50s, but these weren't what I had been raised to think of as comics. The Spirit had no super-powers, the art was like a movie from panel to panel, and the stories had real people with real, identifiable concerns. The Spirit was the bridge which allowed me to keep reading comics from a child to an adult, and made me aware comics were more than super-heroes.

I miss Will Eisner, but to have a solid, active career which defines almost all of comics as sustained narratives for more than 60 years, that is his monument, and that it was recognized in his lifetime is a true condolence. It's worth noting the most affecting stories in The Spirit didn't involve the title character.