How I Spent Will Eisner Week



I guess last week was Will Eisner Week. I didn't know how to post about it -- the whole thing confused me. I was sort of hanging back to see how some of my peers dealt with it, but since none of them really did either I ended up not having anything of substance posted. I feel bad about that, but it's not like I'm any less confused as to what that event was all about. I liked Mr. Eisner and he's an industry giant, but I'm not sure why we needed a week to celebrate his life, works and interests. I'm not averse to someone making that case, but I don't feel anyone did, and I was waiting for it. My bad.

I did think about Will Eisner some last week while waiting for the heads-up that never came. I looked at his Expressive Anatomy for Comics and Narrative, which has to be one of the most overlooked comics-related works of the recent past. In general I like what Norton's done with his books. I don't get the sense that anyone I know is even reading them. I'm sure they sell because they're Norton. Still, it's odd how Eisner's presence has kind of shrunk from comics' core culture at the same time all these lovely editions of his later works are coming out.

The primary way Eisner danced across my mind the last seven days is that I recalled an impression of the man arising from my own brief encounters over the years. It's a purely selfish way of looking at things, one that comics people indulge in a lot -- "this is how my personal path crossed this person's path" becomes the primary mode for parsing a cartoonist's death, supplanting "this is what this person did" -- but I have to admit that's where my head went. One of the things I liked about Mr. Eisner is that he seemed to enjoy being around comics and comics folk more than most people, certainly more than the few of his peers you'd see at similar functions. He was always picking through stuff and talking to artists. He was good at greeting people. I guess there's a cynical way of looking at that, that it's hard not to enjoy an atmosphere where people are constantly reminding you how awesome you are, but I thought there was something instructive about how he took those things as they came to him and seemed pleased to be wherever he was. I remember some dopey panel I saw him on in one of those rooms at San Diego the size of a Tokyo apartment. He was up there with three academics I couldn't name to stop an alien invasion, all the time fighting to get to speak his piece with as much enthusiasm as any of them. We should all have such fun with our respective third acts, and a week where we take time to appreciate just where we are and the opportunity we have to interact with this great, emerging art form, that doesn't sound like such a bad thing.
 
posted 8:00 am PST | Permalink
 

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