Spirit Archives, Volume 1

I was drawn to this book by a couple of things. Will Eisner’s standing as a pioneer of comic book art and storytelling make The Spirit a real landmark, worth having a look at, to rediscover the potential of the comic book. And, as a fan of 1940s’ noir, I looked at The Spirit as something different from the popular superhero comics that have pushed their way to the front since those days.

There are several introductory essays, the first by Eisner himself, explaining how he came up with the idea for The Spirit and how it got its start. Superman and Batman comics were out by then, and Eisner wanted to do something different. The Spirit is not a superhero. As a concession to his partners, Eisner did give The Spirit a mask, but, other show more than having survived a near-death experience, he’s a normal human being.

These comics are short by modern standards — Eisner, in his Introduction, says that they began as 16 pages, although here they are published as 7 book-sized pages, usually with 9 panels per page. They were distributed as inserts for Sunday newspapers, starting in June, 1940. The series itself lasted until 1952, although Eisner himself missed the war years while serving in the Army. This book includes all the stories from 1940.

Somewhat like Batman, The Spirit’s identity is secret, known only to Police Commissioner Dolan. And his “powers” are ingenuity, fighting skill, and technology (he even has a flying car!). But his personality is different — he has an irrepressible cool and sense of humor, even in the worst of circumstances.

The Spirit lives under a cemetery, where his secret identity, criminologist Denny Colt, is thought to have been buried. In reality he has survived — in an accident, he suffered temporary suspended animation and was thought to have died. He was buried, but escaped the grave. And now he’s back to fight crime.

The stories are not especially noirish, if by noir we mean that over-riding fatalistic doom familiar from noir novels and film. The stories are generally a bit light-hearted, with caricaturish bad guys, with bad guy accents and bumbling incompetence.

By contrast with current comics, the art is clear and simple, and so are the stories. No psychotic episodes, no disorienting, multi-layered stories wth confusing plots. Kind of a cross between a “just for fun” approach and a noirish urban culture.

It’s a quick, fun collection to read. It’s from another time and style, but I found myself wishing the current writers of mainstream popular comics would adopt some of the simplicity and clarity Eisner demonstrated with these. show less

The first six months of Eisner's The Spirit. An unlikely superhero who only rarely displays any superpowers and has a surprisingly strong moral streak. Maybe not all of the stories are top classics, but most of them are, and the rest are by association.