Will Eisner's Shop Talk
New York native Will Eisner is universally acknowledged as one of the great masters of comic-book art. Born in 1917, he studied under anatomist George Bridgman and painter Robert Brachman before finding his true vocation as a cartoonist during the late 1930s. After a successful career as a packager of comic books for several publishers, Eisner concentrated his efforts on a weekly newspaper comic-book insert , The Spirit, which was syndicated worldwide for a dozen years and influenced a generation of young cartoonists. In 1952, Eisner devoted himself to the then-unique field of educational comics and produced P.S. Magazine, a monthly technical manual employing comics, which was published by the U.S. Army for over two decades. During the mid-1970s, Eisner returned to his first love: sequential art as a storytelling medium. In 1978 he wrote and drew the pioneering graphic novel A Contract With God. Since then, he has produced many other graphic novels, several of which have garnered awards both in the U.S. and abroad. Eisner's work for Dark Horse Comics includes the original graphic novel Last Day in Vietnam, and Shop Talk - a collection of Eisner's insightful interviews with his most celebrated peers in the comics industry. Eisner is now 84 years old and remains a prolific producer of great stories and phenomenal art.