Will Eisner’s “The Spirit” is one of the first quality comics involving a masked hero next to Batman and Superman. The Spirit is a detective story, similar to that of Batman. The similarities between Batman and the spirit stem from the competition at the time. The desire for a masked detective was very popular during the time so many comic creators sought to create just that.
Will Eisner drew inspiration from the film noir genre and cashed in on the popularity of it. This made his work stand out both in content and in style. I read the first issue and picked up on this right away within the first few pages. The slightly fantastical nature of the comics added a sense of excitement and helped keep the story from being the stereotypical hero vigilante story.
Will’s other work, “A Contract With God” is considered one of the first graphic novels to be published by a major company. Although I never had the chance to read this I have heard how it deals with realistic and difficult subjects in a way that was never done before.
The difficulty to get his work published spoke to the censorship of comics at the time. Even today, the media still seeks to censor some works. The public was conditioned to think that comics were pure and innocent and for kids, but through his graphic novel, Eisner pushed through and set off the movement of adult topics in the graphic narrative.
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