The Lost Work Of Will Eisner!

Like most all artists of the Golden Age, Eisner was at first filled with more zeal and talent than training. He learned to make comics by making comics. 

 Above you see one of his earliest fabrications, four panels from a strip entitled Uncle Otto. Uncle Otto was a strip in the silent tradition of The Little King and Henry.  All of the Uncle Otto strips are collected in The Lost Work of Will Eisner from Locust Moon Press. Eisner produced the Uncle Otto strips under the name of "Carl Heck". There's a distinct element of Chaplin's Little Tramp in these gags. 

Also included in the volume are the Harry Karry strips by Eisner which he produced under the name of "Willis R. Rensie", same name he used on his early Hawks of the Sea strip. Harry Karry begins as a somewhat lighthearted crime series but changes gears rather quickly and becomes exceedingly noir. Our hero even dons a mask not that different from one Denny Colt will put on a few years later. 
 

These early strips by Eisner helped fill the maw of what was the booming comics business in its earliest days. Not much in this volume to get too excited about, save that you get to see the earliest flowering of one of the comic book industry's finest talents. 

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