The 299th meeting of the NY Comics & Picture-story Symposium will be held on Tuesday,  March 2, 2021 at 7pm ET. ONLINE PRESENTATION VIA ZOOM. Please email comicssymposium@gmail.com to register for this event. Free and open to the public.

Video of this event.

WILL EISNER’S NEW YORK: The City In The Master’s Work

A 2021 Will Eisner Week Event

From the Golden Age of Comics through the modern graphic novel – a form that Will Eisner was instrumental in popularizing—you will find New York City at the heart of Will Eisner’s work. Whether thinly disguised as “Central City” in the pages of his legendary creation, The Spirit, or more directly presented in his graphic novels such as A Contract with God, New York: The Big City and City People Notebook, New York City was portrayed by Eisner as only he could show it. In this slideshow, presentation, and discussion, Dean Haspiel (The Red Hook; American Splendor), Karen Green (Columbia University Graphic Novel Librarian), N. C. Christopher Couch (UMass Amherst; The Will Eisner Companion) and Danny Fingeroth (A Marvelous Life: The Amazing Story of Stan Lee; chair of Will Eisner Week) reflect on the relationship between the artist, his work, and his city. 

About Will Eisner:

WILL EISNER (1917-2005) innovated and pioneered comics in three different eras: Eisner helped invent the comics industry in the 1930s and created The Spirit in the 40’s as a heroic crime-fighting figure who appeared in the Sunday newspapers. The Spirit walked through a world of noir-inflected urban drama, one suffused with humor and insight into the human condition, a world not afraid to essay the occasional Yiddish in-joke or Bronx social drama vignette. In the 60’s and 70’s, Eisner adapted comics for training and education. And in 1978, at an age many others were retiring, he re-invented himself again—as well as the comics medium—with his first graphic novel, A Contract with God. That was followed with many acclaimed graphic novels and textbooks until his death in 2005.

About the panelists:

Emmy and Ringo award winner, DEAN HASPIEL created Billy Dogma, The Red Hook, illustrated for HBO’s “Bored To Death,” was a Master Artist at the Atlantic Center for the Arts, is a Yaddo fellow, a playwright, and helped pioneer personal webcomics via ACT-I-VATE. Dino has written and drawn many comix for Marvel, DC, Image, Archie, IDW, Dark Horse, Heavy Metal, and LINE Webtoon and has collaborated on comics with Harvey Pekar, Jonathan Ames, Inverna Lockpez, Jonathan Lethem, Stoya, and Stan Lee.

KAREN GREEN founded the graphic novels collection in the Columbia University Libraries, while working as the Ancient and Medieval History librarian. She is Columbia’s first-ever Curator for Comics and Cartoons. Karen has acquired the papers of Chris Claremont, Wendy and Richard Pini, Al Jaffee, and the Kitchen Sink Press for Columbia’s Rare Book and Manuscript Library, as well as items from the estate of Jerry Robinson and research materials from Larry Tye’s history of Superman.

N. C. CHRISTOPHER COUCH holds a PhD in art history from Columbia University. He is the author of numerous books and articles on Latin American art and on graphic novels and comic art, including The Will Eisner Companion: The Pioneering Spirit of the Father of the Graphic Novel (with Stephen Weiner), Will Eisner: A Retrospective (with Peter Myer). He was senior editor at Kitchen Sink Press (Northampton), where he worked with Will Eisner, and editor in chief at CPM Manga (New York), and has taught at Amherst, Columbia, Hampshire, Haverford, Smith and Mount Holyoke Colleges, and the School of Visual Arts.

DANNY FINGEROTH is the Chair of Will Eisner Week and is an author and historian whose latest book is A Marvelous Life: The Amazing Story of Stan Lee, currently out in paperback from St. Martin’s Press. Legendary cartoonist/screenwriter (and Eisner collaborator) Jules Feiffer has said of the book: “Danny Fingeroth gives us, page after page, rapid and cogent insights into the Marvel world, the comics universe, and Stan Lee as innovator, ring master, high-stakes gambler, con man, and an indefatigable charmer. And visionary, as well.”  Fingeroth was a longtime writer and editor at Marvel, and is the author of Superman on the Couchand Disguised as Clark Kent.  For more info: www.dannyfingeroth.com

You can find out more about WILL EISNER WEEK at www.willeisner.com.