More A Sidenote Than A Postscript

Saturday Leftover Day.

After the Second World War, Will Eisner retunred to The Spirit and continued it for another seven years (with the help of growing crew of assistants). The format that was established before the war remained - ach Spirit Section had one 7 or 8 page Spirit story, one Lady Luck (by KLaus Nordling) and one Mr. Mystic (later to be replaced). The alure of the section was the fact that newspapers could ad a 'comic book' to their Sunday section. But one paper did not adopt that format. Instead the enlarged the Spirit story to tabloid size and inserted it into their own Fun Book (filled with gag strips and games), produced by Bill Keane (of later Family Circus fame). I have a couple of those oversized Spirit sections. Becaus eof the difference in size, there was a white strip underneath the pages, that was filled with a specially drawn banner, featuring The Spirit's new kid character PS. The banners were repeated and I don't know how many there were, but here are the four I could find.

I don't know if they are drawn by Eisner himself. They could be by Klaus Nordling as well, who did a lot of those cute kids.

I tried to cut one of them into a more readable format of two tiers. The otehrs are as they appeared on 1951-06-10.

A Ghost From The Past

Friday Comic Book Day.

I have a good selection of Spirit sections in Fine condition. I have been scanning them carefully and sending the scans to the guys at the Digital Comics Museum. I use alot of their scans and it's my way of paying them back. They handle them and turn them into downloadable .cbz files which you can find here (mine as well as many more by other scanners): https://digitalcomicmuseum.com/index.php?cid=663. The nice thing about these scans is the fact that we are doing the whole Spirit section, which means they contain Lady Luck and Mr. Mystic as well. In this early sample you get an iconic Spirit story, with a story in a story and a special art technique to represent ghosts, Lady Luck probaby not yet by Klaus Norling and Mr. Mystic by Bob Powell. All good.

Have Poster Wil Travel

Wednesday Advertising Day.

After the Spirit Will eisner created a company called American Visuals that used his expertise as a comic creator to make advertising comics, give-aways and learning tools. In the war he had served as the editor of Army motors and learned a lot about using comics and illustrations to get attention, make a point or sell a product (or idea). One of the things he used at the Ordnance unit that produced Army Motors was posters and he used them again in his later assignments. Like these for the Pennsylvania Games Commission somewhere in the fifties or sixties.

Hands Where I Can See 'M, Mister!

Friday comic book Day.

Enough already with the Jack Sparling! Only thing is, ever since I started showing some of his stuff from the early fifties I com eacross more and more interesting stories he did. After working on Hap Hopper and Claire Voyant for most of the forties he developed a very mature style. In fact, I find it hard to believe he didn't work with or for Will Eisner. His storytelling and panel to panel transitions are that good. Here are all three stories he did for Billy the Kid #9 with as a bonus the more often reprinted Pot-Shot Pete story by Harvey Kurtzman.