The Octopus Day!

Will Eisner was born on this date in 1917. Eisner was a transformative artist in the Golden Age of Comics in the 40's and 50's. He became a force in the Indy market with his graphic novels and before that worked for many years for the U.S. Military. He created an important figure for us all - the focus of today's Dojo celebration and my year-long reading -- The Spirit. 

Warren's The Spirit was one of those magazines which was a watershed for me as a reader, my first real introduction to the lush work of Will Eisner. Central City was inhabited by all manner of of folks, many recognizable and some not so much. But one denizen of its criminal depths and doughty nemesis of Denny Colt was the mucho mysterious Octopus. A master of disguise, his presence was often only revealed by the appearance of his notorious gloves, the one with three dramatic stripes.

When Harvey Comics revived The Spirit in the 60's they got Will Eisner to produce a few new stories to freshen the tales from earlier decades. One such tale was retelling of how Denny Colt became the Spirit and the other purported to tell of how The Octopus came to be. Below is that latter story from the original artwork of Eisner himself. Enjoy!

The last page asks, if this story was the end of the Octopus and of course it wasn't.

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