Saturday, June 18, 2011

The Spirit Jam!


Spirit Jam is a 1998 reprint of one of the more impressive artistic stunts of the Indy era. In the 30th issue of The Spirit Magazine from 1981, the guys at Kitchen Sink arranged for a host of artists and writers to try their hand at a few pages of a single shared Spirit story. The story was kicked off and wrapped up by Will Eisner but in between were all manner of renditions of the 40's comic icon by some of the most potent names of the era.


Pete Poplaski penciled the wraparound cover. It's gorgeous and features the inking of the following talents: Peter Poplaski, Will Eisner, Milton Caniff, John Pound, Denis Kitchen, Richard Corben, and Leslie Carbaga.

Will Eisner

Denis Kitchen

Fred Hembeck

Will Eisner

Pete Poplaski



Michael Gilbert



Trina Robbins



Steve Leialoa & Alan Weiss


Mike Barr & Joe Staton


Denny O'Neil, Frank Miller & Terry Austin


Archie Goodwin & Marshall Rogers


Alan Weiss


Cat Yronwode & Alan Kupperberg

Harvey Kurtzman & Howard Cruse

Len Wein & Ernie Colon

Peter Sanderson, Brent Anderson & Terry Austin


Peter Sanderson & Bob Wiacek

Max Allan Collins & Ken Steacy

Max Allan Collins & Dean Motter

Roger Stern, Jim Engel & Chuck Fiala

Chris Claremont, John Byrne, Brian Bolland & Bill Sienkiewicz


Rich Corben

Will Eisner

Also included in the square-bound reprint was the four-page Cerebus Jam story by Eisner and Dave Sim. Eisner handled the Spirit figures and Sim most everything else.






And to close things off here are two wonderful renderings of the Spirit with some iconic heroes.



Rip Off

2 comments:

  1. The Spirit Jam is a lot of fun, isn't it? There are some creators in the issue that I wouldn't have thought of as "natural" Spirit artists, like Trina Robbins and Richard Corben, who do a wonderful job with the character. And I love John Byrne's "Phoenix" gag...

    ReplyDelete
  2. Rich Corben in particular stands out. I am also impressed by Alan Kupperberg, not an artist I thought would do it that well. It's great.

    Rip Off

    ReplyDelete