Will Eisner, Storytelling, And The City That Once Was
Comics often get compared to cinema.
It’s not uncommon for a cartoonist to be frustrated with this comparison since there are very unique things that comics can do that movies can’t, such as communicating the passage of time through still images and requiring the active engagement of the reader’s imagination, in a way movies don’t. But I do understand the comparison and I really don’t mind when non-comic readers use it as a way of comparing it to other media.
If we’re going to accept that comparisons will be made when describing comics as a form of storytelling, than the work of Will Eisner wouldn’t be compared to cinema, but rather that of live theater. I say this because the characters in a Will Eisner story often use their body language as a storytelling device within itself. The over acting characters communicate their emotion and motivation through their large and undeniable expressions, similar to that of early stage actors.
I first became aware of Will Eisner’s work by reading a book of short stories called, New York The Big City. I was introduced to this book by a teacher at art school, where I was studying cartooning and storytelling. This was early on in my education at a time where it seemed every week I was being introduced to a world of comic art that I had no idea existed. I was drawn to this particular collection because as a native New Yorker myself, I’m often partial to stories and art that have to do with the city I grew up in. What I found to be unique about this collection of stories was that the city of New York was really the main character, quite literally. Smells, sounds and infrastructure were some of the themes that Will Eisner would center a one page story around. A one page piece of storytelling that seemed to tap into my own experiences of living in the big city. Will Eisner was a fellow New York native and so I found his observations about life in New York very relatable.
Where the relatability ended and the fascination began was the way he captured the city through drawing. Will Eisner’s version of the city was of a period long before I was old enough to have experienced. There’s a romanticism there, I suppose, about life in the big city, before the distractions of our modern technological era. Interestingly, although these stories take place in a time before mine, the themes have proved themselves to be timeless in many ways. Various classes of people living within close proximity of one another, loneliness in sea of people, the plight of the working man. In many ways, these stories continue to speak to life in the big city today. Perhaps that’s part of Eisner’s genius, to tell comic stories that have to do with the human condition and basic struggles that we’ve all experienced in one way or another.
As I write this today, the future of big cities is unknown.
The loud, over crowded hustle and bustle of the city that Eisner so accurately captured has figuratively been put on mute. Many have already left the city and many more are projected to follow. Current life in New York City has been compared to a ghost town or a wasteland. So if you’re not familiar with the work of Will Eisner, perhaps now more than ever, I recommend to you this book, New York The Big City as a way of romanticizing and reminiscing about a way of life that currently doesn’t exist. As you flip through the pages, you might hear the sounds of construction and endless foot traffic. The subway tumbling underneath your feet and over your head. Neighbors shouting to each other from their windows and fire escapes. Let it be the time machine that takes you back to a city that had energy and life, let the storytelling be the nozzle that turns the volume of the city back up, at least momentarily.
And while we wait to read what the next chapter of New York City will look like, let’s appreciate the New York that once was, the New York that was once the star character of a Will Einser work of art.
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