Eisner wasn't mainstream. The marketplace was completely different in Eisners day. Eisner didn't have a DC or Marvel behind him. And the audience was different. Comics are for kids etc. Eisner was ahead of his time. Eisner's 'Contract With God' is probably the first attempt at a mature graphic novel employing some really damn good storytelling techniques.
Whoa, Eisner wasn't mainstream?
Eisner's "Spirit" was in hundreds of Sunday papers through the 40's and 50's, reaching an audience that comics couldn't dream of, even then. He then went to work for PS Magazine which was given to every serviceman for his entire run on the magazine. You can't GET more mainstream than that. In the 70's, Warren reprinted The Spirit in magazines that reached the same mainstream audience as Creepy, Eerie and Famous Monsters Of Filmland and ran for much longer than a reprint from the 40's should have.
He was often pointed to in the same way as Walt Kelly or Crockett Johnson was, and his work was just as well known as L'il Abner and other big name comic strips of the time.
Maybe his graphic novels didn't get the same pull in the late 70's, but to say his groundbreaking work wasn't mainstream is just a mistake.
I sit corrected. But I still maintain Eisner is more influential on the medium than 'Watchmen'.
Eisner wasn't mainstream. The marketplace was completely different in Eisners day. Eisner didn't have a DC or Marvel behind him. And the audience was different. Comics are for kids etc. Eisner was ahead of his time. Eisner's 'Contract With God' is probably the first attempt at a mature graphic novel employing some really damn good storytelling techniques.
Whoa, Eisner wasn't mainstream?
Eisner's "Spirit" was in hundreds of Sunday papers through the 40's and 50's, reaching an audience that comics couldn't dream of, even then. He then went to work for PS Magazine which was given to every serviceman for his entire run on the magazine. You can't GET more mainstream than that. In the 70's, Warren reprinted The Spirit in magazines that reached the same mainstream audience as Creepy, Eerie and Famous Monsters Of Filmland and ran for much longer than a reprint from the 40's should have.
He was often pointed to in the same way as Walt Kelly or Crockett Johnson was, and his work was just as well known as L'il Abner and other big name comic strips of the time.
Maybe his graphic novels didn't get the same pull in the late 70's, but to say his groundbreaking work wasn't mainstream is just a mistake.
I sit corrected. But I still maintain Eisner is more influential on the medium than 'Watchmen'.
Overall, yes, but the "grim and gritty" movement of the late 80s/early 90's was very much a bunch of less talented people trying very hard to write like Moore and Miller without understanding what their influences were.
Miller's entire first run of Daredevil was a love letter to Eisner, and his later works like Dark Knight and Sin City were Bad Raymond Chandler (which is also known as Mickey Spillane).
Bad Raymond Chandler has always been my description as well actually, and I've heard the same analogy many times over the years so I think it must be true :)
There have always been bad-asses and rebels in every artistic field and most often the names we know best still weren't the first or best. I'm always amazed how many times in art/novels/etc. when someone blows my mind by showing me someone that was doing what seems new or current hundreds of years ago with little to no recognition. I think that is also why I try to judge each work on its own merit and not in so much comparisons. It's hard to always capture an era or time or specific event after the fact when reading or viewing things and I often read/view things the first time without trying to put too much of that into it (which can be hard) and then usually again or a few times taking all of it into account. Sometimes the works stand perfectly fine on their own and that always fascinates me and makes stuff really stand out. I think The Watchmen is somewhere in the middle of that. It succeeds on its own quite well but in context and time it fares a bit better. It is a book that I have never really been able to view without being in context though so I think it is tied pretty tightly even in more subtle ways.
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Miller's entire first run of Daredevil was a love letter to Eisner, and his later works like Dark Knight and Sin City were Bad Raymond Chandler (which is also known as Mickey Spillane).
There have always been bad-asses and rebels in every artistic field and most often the names we know best still weren't the first or best. I'm always amazed how many times in art/novels/etc. when someone blows my mind by showing me someone that was doing what seems new or current hundreds of years ago with little to no recognition. I think that is also why I try to judge each work on its own merit and not in so much comparisons. It's hard to always capture an era or time or specific event after the fact when reading or viewing things and I often read/view things the first time without trying to put too much of that into it (which can be hard) and then usually again or a few times taking all of it into account. Sometimes the works stand perfectly fine on their own and that always fascinates me and makes stuff really stand out. I think The Watchmen is somewhere in the middle of that. It succeeds on its own quite well but in context and time it fares a bit better. It is a book that I have never really been able to view without being in context though so I think it is tied pretty tightly even in more subtle ways.
O:-)