shaxper
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Post by shaxper on Mar 6, 2016 21:59:13 GMT -5
Dropsie Avenue: The Neighborhood (1995)
I firmly believe this is Eisner's masterpiece, an extraordinarily complex narrative about the human struggle to overcome self-imposed cycles of tragedy and destruction, expressed in the form of a neighborhood. Some of my favorite authors in all of literature have done similar things -- Victor Hugo and Edward Rutherford most purposefully -- but, once more, Eisner raises the bar for "comic books" by infusing a graphic novel with a similar caliber of storytelling.
This is the first Eisner work to make me cry, and also the first to make me laugh. It gave me characters to love and hate while also firmly indicating that each held devils and angels within. Truly, I need to read this one twenty more times at least.
Really, the only thing I wish this volume had (and maybe an editor can attempt to add it in later editions) is a clear sense of family trees and of who resided at each lot when. Granted, when Eisner attempts to tell history, it's a very subjective kind of history that is rarely all too carefully rooted in fact, but I think an attempt could still be made to determine which families lived where when, as so much of the power of this story is in its sense of legacy, inheritance, and change.
I do take issue with the idea of this volume being considered part of a "Contract with God" or "Dropsie Avenue" trilogy. Beyond the glaring fact that 55 Dropsie Avenue is never referenced in this work, nor does Young Will Eisner make an appearance, this work belongs to Eisner's second body of graphic novel work, not his first.
Let me explain.
With the exception of Life on Another Planet (which was never intended to be a GN) and The Will Eisner Reader (again, a series of mixed stories never intended to be a GN), every graphic novel Eisner published falls under one of two themes: The story of Will Eisner, and the story of Will Eisner's city.
A Contract with God and A Life Force are stories that endeavor to explore the culture that shaped Eisner. Everything we learn about the struggles of the peoples living there is really the story of the culture they passed onto him, which explains the emphasis on Judaism as well as Young Will Eisner's obvious presence in both works. He continued to explore his life more directly with The Dreamer but ultimately learned that the secret to who he was didn't lie in his own life, but rather in going back further to explore the forces that shaped the forces that shaped him with To the Heart of the Storm, tracing events all the way back to the end of the 19th century.
Thus, he attempts to duplicate that success here, after having struggled to tell the story of the city he grew up in with New York: The Big City, The Building, and City People Notebook, he now instead decides to step back and chronicle the history and events that shaped the city. This is a story about urban neighborhoods, not exclusively Dropsie Avenue, and there's certainly no specific focus given to the Jewish culture there that was particularly important to the development of Eisner as an individual. The Jewish community is there, but no moreso than the African American, Hispanic, Italian, Irish, German, and Dutch. This is not their story, and it isn't Eisner's story; it's the story of Dropsie Avenue, of New York, of all cities, and of humanity itself.
A++
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shaxper
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Post by shaxper on Mar 7, 2016 4:48:21 GMT -5
A Family Matter (1998)
This was really the only Eisner volume for which I went in with a preconceived notion, as I'd read somewhere (likely here) that it dealt with abuse. I imagined a wife getting beaten, never guessing just how profound and wide-spread the abuse Eisner would depict could spread. Furthermore, this wasn't a simple sermon about abuse. It would have been bold enough for Eisner to depict one instance of it and moralize from there, but instead Eisner has reclaimed that ability to depict life with a harsh objectivity that was so critical to the power of A Contract with God, and thus he gives us a family that is rotten to the core, where no one has black eyes but everyone carries abuse of one kind or another in their core, and there's no attempt to moralize it or frame it into a tidy, easily dismissible lesson. Eisner simply depicts cruel reality as it might be for some, and leaves us to determine how to feel about it and what to do with it.
And yet, Eisner has evolved tremendously in the twenty years since Contract, as well. In Contract, he often felt the need to explicitly draw attention to the ugly things and shock us with them. Here, he implies far more than he outright shows, leaving so much of what has occurred to our own imaginations, and making it feel all the more real and authentic as a result. No one in A Family Matter has all the answers about what occurred in the past other than their mute father who lies at the center of this (and, actually, there's one implied instance of abuse even he wouldn't know about), so suggesting more than telling rings far more true.
There's also some love to be found in this story; it comes from the most unexpected of places, but it's powerful and transformative by the close all the same. As always, Eisner is careful to remind us that no one is all evil and cruelty. We all possess demons and angels in equal degree.
It's amazing how nearly every Eisner GN makes me want to go out and be a better person without him ever once suggesting on the page that the reader should do this. He has a knack for depicting overwhelming ugliness and somehow (I still don't understand how) making it inspire the reader instead of deflate him/her. I don't know how he does it.
A
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shaxper
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Post by shaxper on Mar 7, 2016 20:39:22 GMT -5
Minor Miracles (2000)
Eisner delves into his past and the culture that raised him once more and, perhaps discovering that he'd used up all the best stuff already, produces a few neighborhood legends of sorts, though even calling them that is a stretch (as is calling them "miracles"). Like pizza, there's no such thing as bad Eisner, but these stories are mostly forgettable. The final one, "A Special Wedding Ring," stands out with emotional resonance, but it's also predictable and reads like a formulaic fairytale, something I hate to see from a writer who has been so amazing at chronicling realities unfettered by predictable plot structure. But, then again, this was a neighborhood legend of sorts, and thus Eisner is less the author and more the re-teller.
C+
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shaxper
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Post by shaxper on Mar 7, 2016 21:02:23 GMT -5
Last Day in Vietnam (2000)
Last time I read this volume, only a month or two ago, I was completely unfamiliar with Eisner's works aside from Contract with God. Now, with a twenty year bibliography as context, I can appreciate what's going on in this work beyond the simple humor and pathos.
Having finally and completely delivered upon the two big stories Eisner had essentially spent two decades trying to write (The story of his cultural background: achieved with To the Heart of the Storm, and the story of his city: achieved with Dropsie Avenue), Eisner has been seeking new directions. A Family Matter was bold stuff, and yet it wasn't such an extreme departure from the neighborhood and families Eisner had been writing about previously -- just darker. Minor Miracles, on the other hand, was an attempt to return to familiar ground only to find it thoroughly harvested.
So Last Day in Vietnam is truly the boldest, most different graphic novel Eisner had yet attempted to write. It's the first to land fully outside of his previous topics of choice, the first set in a vastly different location, and the first relying upon the memories of his more recent years as opposed to the formative ones.
I guess what makes this volume so interesting is both how familiar and how different it feels. So much of the humor and tragedy feels familiar, but the setting, scope, and theme are vastly different, and Eisner's usage of second person perspective for all but the final story gives the whole thing an almost Brechtian didacticism.
So I wouldn't exactly call this a favorite volume, but it's different, ambitious, and memorable.
B+
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Post by Deleted on Mar 8, 2016 11:27:18 GMT -5
The Signal/Life on Another Planet (1978-1980)I really struggled with whether to include this one and, if I did, when to include it, as it initially saw publication as a serial that preceded A Contract with God (what Eisner considered to be his first graphic novel), and then didn't get reprinted in graphic novel format until 1983. Even then, it generally escaped notice until DC reprinted it again in 1995. Not being intended as a graphic novel, it does not strive for the philosophy nor emotional depths we see in Eisner's other GNs, and yet it does share some common elements with the works I've read thus far. It tells the story of how an interconnected cast of characters responds to an event of historical importance (in this case, a radio signal from space), much as in A Life Force, and also like that work, it expends great energy in exposing the incompetence and self-interest that keeps a bureaucracy from responding quickly and appropriately to matters of tremendous import. And, not attempting to also wrestle matters of existentialism, it succeeds far more than A Life Force did in telling a compelling story with clear and incisive commentary about the society within which we reside. Heck, two works followed this one that both bear uncanny resemblances, suggesting influence: Carl Sagan's Contact (1985) And Alan Moore's Watchmen (1986). Yes, really. Don't get me wrong -- Moore does a lot with Watchmen that isn't done here, but the resemblances are hard to ignore. A+ I sought out a copy of this one because it'd never really been on my radar at all. It was very different from most of what I read on a weekly basis and very enjoyable. Thank you. |
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shaxper
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Post by shaxper on Mar 8, 2016 20:32:28 GMT -5
The Name of the Game (2001)
Still searching for new content after dredging the bottom of the family history barrel with Minor Miracles, Eisner tries borrowing from the story of his wife's family this time and hits absolute gold. He manages to flesh out his most compelling and realistic characters yet, free from the constraints of Eisner's own memories and biases since he did not grow up with these stories. These characters practically walked off the page with their complex histories, characterizations, and personal tragedies.
It's also refreshing to see Eisner writing in a new context -- high society. In the past, wealthy characters had always been relatively two dimensional in their portrayals, but Eisner truly walks us through a new and alien world we've never known here with much the same impact and newness as the first time he led us down Dropsie Avenue with A Contract with God.
Another Eisner masterpiece.
A++
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shaxper
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Post by shaxper on Mar 8, 2016 21:56:36 GMT -5
Fagin the Jew (2003)
Still seeking new directions and also, perhaps, feeling increasingly compelled to push his message as he increased in age, Eisner delivers his most overt agenda yet in attempting to show readers that Jews have been unfairly discriminated against by telling the story of Oliver Twist from the point of view of Fagin, perhaps the best known negative Jewish stereotype in English-speaking culture.
The problems I experienced with this volume were two-fold:
1. I've never read Oliver Twist and am only vaguely aware of what transpires in the story, so walking us through the whole thing from a different perspective did little for me. I don't know these characters or the story, and this work is clearly written to an audience that does.
2. The agenda behind this story is far too forced. It reads like a bad alibi for an accused criminal, going out of its way to portray Fagan as practically eligible for sainthood, the bad stuff attributed to him by Dickens always being someone else's fault. The whole thing smacks of agenda, and that makes it hard for me to relax my guard and just enjoy it. Fagan was a miserable and damaging stereotype, but trying to defend him in such a desperate manner doesn't really help the cause.
Together, these elements ensure that the story loses pretty much everything that makes an Eisner GN an Eisner GN, both because it isn't Eisner's story and because Eisner is working so hard to push an agenda that he doesn't really permit himself room to tackle the story in the Eisner style. One of Eisner's greatest qualities is his ability to write balanced characters who have multiple sides to them, but this work tries far too hard to put Fagan in a positive light. It just isn't Eisner's style at all.
Still, the art was very strong, and the idea was at least an innovative one.
C-
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shaxper
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Post by shaxper on Mar 9, 2016 20:47:38 GMT -5
Temporary hiatus until tomorrow as Amazon Prime's "Two Day Shipping" is, apparently, actually three day shipping for some reason.
Hope to have my review of Eisner's final GN up tomorrow evening.
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Post by Deleted on Mar 10, 2016 0:28:33 GMT -5
Are you planning on doing his GN adaptations of the Sundiata, Moby Dick and the Princess and the Frog or only his original GN's?
-M
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shaxper
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Post by shaxper on Mar 10, 2016 7:42:20 GMT -5
Are you planning on doing his GN adaptations of the Sundiata, Moby Dick and the Princess and the Frog or only his original GN's? -M Only the original stuff. The Plot may prove interesting in that respect, though, as I get the sense it's less a novel and more a history. |
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Post by shaxper on Mar 10, 2016 17:27:41 GMT -5
The Plot: The Secret Story of The Elders of Zion (2005)
Eisner's final work feels more like a new beginning. Much as with Fagin the Jew, we see Eisner taking on two new foci with his work:
1. A greater sense of urgency in combating anti-Semitism
2. A desire to work outside of his traditional scope
So, whereas Fagin was a written reaction to / alternate telling of a famous work, The Plot is more like a scholarly text delivered as a graphic novel. But, as with any first attempt at an experiment, The Plot is hardly a success. Using a graphic novel format, Eisner is unable to get into the nitty gritty facts as easily and as plentifully as a traditional scholarly text, so he expects us to take a lot on faith and, with no room to develop characters or tell a real story, he's essentially drawing talking heads delivering information to one another for the sake of the reader, page after page. But, perhaps worst of all, he adheres to few of the trappings of a scholarly text, so while there is a bibliography at the end, as well as a brief notes section, nothing in the work itself is cited. Eisner expects us to treat this as a scholarly work but goes in with a clear agenda and then offers us talking heads who confirm that agenda while citing none of their information.
This was informative. I'm amazed that I've never heard of the Protocols of the Elders of Zion, especially being of Jewish descent myself, but this is an awkward half-formed work that stumbles more than it succeeds. Eisner may have been on the verge of redefining sequential art once again (I can't fairly call this a graphic NOVEL), but he hadn't quite gotten there yet when he died unexpectedly a month after completing this work. Still, sequential art as a medium for delivering scholarly research -- it's a vision I hope someone else will continue to work toward. I wonder if Scott McCloud has read this yet.
C
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shaxper
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Post by shaxper on Mar 10, 2016 17:35:36 GMT -5
I'm going to take a few hours to digest nine day's worth of marathon reading and then post some final thoughts on the works of Will Eisner later tonight. Then this thread will be a wrap. Thanks to everyone who tuned in.
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Post by shaxper on Mar 10, 2016 20:29:26 GMT -5
In Conclusion:
I'm still trying to wrap my head around the fact that Eisner was already in his sixties when he wrote the graphic novel that began this thread. To see such evolution since that time--Eisner turning in some of his most masterful work in his eighties--simply blows the mind. I can't help but wonder what the man would have produced had he lived to see one hundred. Having been creating comics since their very beginning in the 1930s, Eisner clearly didn't know the definition of the word stagnation.
And yet, while Eisner continued to pioneer new means of unfolding stories, conveying artistic expression, and exploring oneself through one's art, his general subjects of interest were surprisingly confined and mostly fit in thee camps:
Stories about Eisner's past and the culture/community that made him:
A Contract with God (1978)
A Life Force (1983)
The Dreamer (1986)
To the Heart of the Storm (1991)
Minor Miracles (2000)
Stories about New York and city life in general
New York: The Big City (1981-1983)
The Building (1987)
City People Notebook (1989)
Invisible People (1992)
Dropsie Avenue: The Neighborhood (1995)
Works that aimed to combat anti-Semitism:
Fagin the Jew (2003)
The Plot: The Secret Story of The Elders of Zion (2005)
Everything that doesn't fit in the first three categories:
The Signal/Life on Another Planet (1978-1980)
Will Eisner Reader (1985-1986)
A Family Matter (1998)
Last Day in Vietnam (2000)
The Name of the Game (2001)
It's interesting how ideas, places, and even certain character types repeat again and again in Eisner's stories. I'm quite sure that, even if drawing with a completely different style, I could immediately recognize an Eisner script I'd never read before from all the familiar trappings Eisner repeatedly employed without ever feeling tedious or repetitive. It almost feels more like sitting in the lap of a favorite grandfather telling all his favorite stories that often run together and get mixed up in his mind. The whole thing is absurdly endearing, quite touching, and often very thought provoking. Truly, there isn't a single story I read this week that I regretted wading through. This epic nine day reading marathon is likely to be a cherished classic comic memory I'll keep with me for a long time to come.
If you haven't sought out and read these works yet, what are you waiting for?
Happy belated birthday, Mr. Eisner.
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Post by Confessor on Aug 8, 2017 2:51:19 GMT -5
How the hell did I miss this thread? I really don't remember seeing it before. I'm a big fan of Will Eisner's semi-autobiographical stuff, which you've reviewed here -- although there are two or three that I'm missing, such as Last Day in Vietnam.
There's lots to read in this thread, so I'm gonna enjoy getting stuck into it.
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