Word: eisner
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Like a hand-knit sweater from a beloved aunt, Will Eisner's "The Name of the Game" arrives for the holidays. Eisner, possibly the most respected comix artist alive, has been producing sophisticated, progressive work since the 1930s. Back in 1977 he invented the term "graphic novel" to sell "A Contract with God" because book publishers would have run screaming from "comics." Each new work feels like a gift, created with the craft that only comes from a lifetime of experience. Yet, like the sweater, it breaks your heart that you don't love it more...
Continuing Eisner's exploration of the Jewish-American experience, "The Name of the Game," (DC Comics; 176pp; $29.95) means to be about how a "good" marriage used to be defined by what it did for you socially. Set in the world of New York's early-20th century German-Jewish elite, it focuses on Conrad Arnheim, a lazy, boorish lout who marries first for business and then for ego. The cover sums up the theme pretty accurately: a married couple, screaming at each other, with fists clenched, stand against a background of a stiff, older-generation, family portrait...
...September 11," due in January. Non-mainstream comix creators, alienated by the loss of SPX, spent that weekend putting together their own benefit comic with the help of publisher Alternative Comics. Titled "9-11: Emergency Relief," it has a release date of January and will include the work Will Eisner, Jessica Abel and Tony Millionaire. In all cases the proceeds will be donated to relief organizations...
...been some direct entertainment response to the tragedy. Michael Jackson and producer Nile Rodgers organized separate all-star tribute recordings to benefit the victims. Playwrights and actors in New York plan an evening of short plays written for the occasion to raise money. Comic-book artists, including Will Eisner, collaborated on a volume of stories about the attacks. And Friday night, every broadcast network and numerous cable channels aired the two-hour telethon America: A Tribute to Heroes. Surprisingly restrained, held on spare, candlelit stages, it featured elegiac performances from musicians including Bruce Springsteen, Neil Young, Sheryl Crow and Alicia...
...larger sense, the world political music of today is about markets, writ large. The business of rebel artists in the era of business is to figure out their focus in a period governed as much by hidden international market forces as by national political frontmen, when Michael Eisner wields as much power in their world as George W. Bush. Even on American politico folkie Ani DiFranco's latest album, Reckoning/Reveling, you see a global perspective creeping in: "I think in ancient China they kinda/figured out how the body works/but our culture is just a roughneck/teenage jerk/with a bottle of pills/and...