It took me quite a few years to grok the greatness of The Spirit, the magnificent comic noir hero created by the late great Will Eisner. Eisner's work on The Spirit was mostly unavailable when I first dawdled into the comics world, save for the Undergrounds, a few Harvey comics, and a single story in the pages of The Great Comic Book Heroes, a story which left me somewhat cold.
Later when I was able to see prime Eisner artwork in the pages of the Warren's reprint magazine, I fell head-over-heels in love with the character and the world in which he operated. It was simply fascinating evocative, rich with characters, and truly at times funny.
I followed The Spirit around to Kitchen Sink and have put together a pretty complete collection of those comics over the decades. When DC started their archives volumes I was just not able to participate and regret it mightily. I'd love to have all twenty-six tomes in my library, handy to read and savor. And I still might try to get them -- the Spirit is worth the effort.
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Like you, it took me a bit to really "get" The Spirit. I found out about The Spirit during his Warren years. Then when I started reading Daredevil by Frank Miller, I was able to see what an influence Will Eisner was on Miller's style. I, too, would love to collect at least a couple of those DC Archives, but so far all I've picked up is their Best of The Spirit collection from years back.
ReplyDeleteI have the Best of sets from DC and they are juicy. I want to liquidate some of my comics and use that value to get the Spirit books, but I haven't figured out exactly how to make it click.
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