“I also learned to always start with the ending.”
- #wikipedia
- #quote
- #trusted-source
- #www.washingtonpost.com
- #corroborated
Figure timeline
Will Eisner
William Erwin Eisner was an American cartoonist, writer, and entrepreneur. He was one of the earliest cartoonists to work in the American comic book industry, and his series The Spirit (1940–1952) was noted for its experiments in content and form. In 1978, he popularized the term "graphic novel" with the publication of his book A Contract with God. He was an early contributor to formal comics stud…
Text from Wikipedia, available under CC BY-SA 4.0.
culture · American cartoonist, writer and entrepreneur (1917–2005) · comics artist · comics writer · writer · screenwriter · novelist · painter · publisher · draftsperson · illustrator · also Will Eisner, William Erwin Eisner, Willis Rensie, Willis B. Rensie, W. Morgan Thomas, Erwin Williams
Born 6 March 1917 · Died 3 January 2005 · Q309850
53 published statements · 0 followers
See & hear
Photos & media
3 photos
Media from Wikimedia Commons, hotlinked at the source under its own licence — see each file for author and terms.
Live now
In the news
Pulling headlines from trusted outlets — this usually takes a few seconds
Checking the wires…
Feed scan
These are live links, not archived citations — they only join the timeline once a collect run verifies and archives them.
Live pulse
Recent highlights
Most recent outstanding titles, awards, and quotes
- Quote
- Quote
2026· 11 entries
“were knocking on the door of middle age.”
- #wikipedia
- #quote
- #trusted-source
- #www.washingtonpost.com
- #corroborated
“The teens who had been my early readers for”
- #wikipedia
- #quote
- #trusted-source
- #www.washingtonpost.com
- #corroborated
“fanatic Islamic elements are reviving this long-discredited and fraudulent document today and are giving it wide circulation to fan anti-Jewish hatred.”
- #wikipedia
- #quote
- #trusted-source
- #www.washingtonpost.com
- #corroborated
“cityscapes are vertical as opposed to the horizontal views you have in an open, rural setting. In the city, you”
- #wikipedia
- #quote
- #trusted-source
- #www.washingtonpost.com
- #corroborated
“gives literary creativity the kind of boundless, anarchic freedom enjoyed by musicians in jazz.”
- #wikipedia
- #quote
- #trusted-source
- #www.washingtonpost.com
- #corroborated
“…To my great regret I learn that in the ‘Dearborn Independent’ there appeared articles which induced the Jews to regard me as their enemy promoting anti-Semitism!”
Text from Wikipedia, available under CC BY-SA 4.0.
- #wikipedia
- #quote
“You should hear me and Jules Feiffer going at it in a room.”
Text from Wikipedia, available under CC BY-SA 4.0.
- #wikipedia
- #quote
“a mob type straight out of Damon Runyon, complete with pinkie ring, broken nose, black shirt, and white tie, who claimed to have”
Text from Wikipedia, available under CC BY-SA 4.0.
- #wikipedia
- #quote
Artnet news: Will Eisner and Jack Cole The Spirit Daily Comic Strip Original Art dated 7-22-42 (Register & Tribune Syndicate, 1
- #news
- #headline
bleedingcool: Will Eisner's Rights Are For Sale Including Unpublished Spirit Comic
- #news
- #headline
2025· 1 entry
Yahoo: Will Eisner’s Lost Superhero John Law Returns in Titan Comics Collection
- #news
- #headline
2024· 1 entry
Artnet news: Will Eisner The Spirit Complete 7-Page Story Original Art dated 12-18-49 (Register and Tribune Syndicate, 1949).... (Total: 7 Original Art)
- #news
- #headline
2022· 5 entries
Comicbook.com: Will Eisner’s A Contract With God Becoming a Broadway Show
- #news
- #headline
BroadwayWorld: Will Eisner's Graphic Novel A CONTRACT WITH GOD to be Developed Into a Stage Musical
- #news
- #headline
Variety: Will Eisner’s Graphic Novel ‘A Contract With God’ Being Adapted Into Broadway Musical (EXCLUSIVE)
- #news
- #headline
Deadline.com: Will Eisner Graphic Novel ‘A Contract With God’ Set For Stage Musical Adaptation
- #news
- #headline
bleedingcool: Will Eisner Channels Lauren Bacall for The Spirit #22, Up for Auction
- #news
- #headline
2017· 1 entry
Denis Kitchen and John Lind co-curated the largest retrospective exhibitions of Will Eisner's original artwork, shown simultaneously at The Society of Illustrators in New York City and Le Musée de la Bande Dessinée in An
Text from Wikipedia, available under CC BY-SA 4.0.
- #wikipedia
- #event
2015· 2 entries
Awarded Society of Illustrators Hall of Fame (2015).
Text from Wikipedia, available under CC BY-SA 4.0.
- #wikidata
- #award
- #achievement
Eisner was posthumously elected to the Society of Illustrators Hall of Fame
Text from Wikipedia, available under CC BY-SA 4.0.
- #wikipedia
- #event
2011· 1 entry
Google used an image featuring the Spirit as its logo
Text from Wikipedia, available under CC BY-SA 4.0.
- #wikipedia
- #event
2010· 1 entry
Indicates Eisner in fact supported Fox and claimed Wonder Man as an original Eisner creation
Text from Wikipedia, available under CC BY-SA 4.0.
- #wikipedia
- #event
2008· 1 entry
Will Eisner's The Spirit: A Pop-Up Graphic Novel was published, with Bruce Foster as paper engineer
Text from Wikipedia, available under CC BY-SA 4.0.
- #wikipedia
- #event
2005· 1 entry
Died 2005-01-03.
Text from Wikipedia, available under CC BY-SA 4.0.
- #wikidata
- #death
2002· 2 entries
Eisner participated in the Will Eisner Symposium of the 2002 University of Florida Conference on Comics and Graphic Novels
Text from Wikipedia, available under CC BY-SA 4.0.
- #wikipedia
- #event
At the age of 85, he published Sundiata, based on the part-historical, part-mythical stories of a West African king, "The Lion of Mali"
Text from Wikipedia, available under CC BY-SA 4.0.
- #wikipedia
- #event
1998· 1 entry
Awarded Reuben Award (1998).
Text from Wikipedia, available under CC BY-SA 4.0.
- #wikidata
- #award
- #achievement
1997· 1 entry
"and I wanted to write better things than superheroes
Text from Wikipedia, available under CC BY-SA 4.0.
- #wikipedia
- #event
1994· 1 entry
Awarded Milton Caniff Lifetime Achievement Award (1994).
Text from Wikipedia, available under CC BY-SA 4.0.
- #wikidata
- #award
- #achievement
1993· 2 entries
Awarded Harvey Award for Best Writer (1993).
Text from Wikipedia, available under CC BY-SA 4.0.
- #wikidata
- #award
- #achievement
Awarded Harvey Award for Best Cartoonist (Writer/Artist) (1993).
Text from Wikipedia, available under CC BY-SA 4.0.
- #wikidata
- #award
- #achievement
1987· 1 entry
Awarded Jack Kirby Hall of Fame (1987).
Text from Wikipedia, available under CC BY-SA 4.0.
- #wikidata
- #award
- #achievement
1986· 1 entry
Awarded Yellow Kid Award (1986).
Text from Wikipedia, available under CC BY-SA 4.0.
- #wikidata
- #award
- #achievement
1983· 1 entry
“I came back into the field because of you. I remember you calling me in New London, where I was sitting there as chairman of the board of Croft Publishing Co. My secretary said,”
Text from Wikipedia, available under CC BY-SA 4.0.
- #wikipedia
- #quote
1978· 1 entry
Popularized the term "graphic novel" with the publication of his book A Contract with God
Text from Wikipedia, available under CC BY-SA 4.0.
- #wikipedia
- #event
1975· 3 entries
Awarded Inkpot Award (1975).
Text from Wikipedia, available under CC BY-SA 4.0.
- #wikidata
- #award
- #achievement
Awarded Grand prix de la ville d'Angoulême (1975).
Text from Wikipedia, available under CC BY-SA 4.0.
- #wikidata
- #award
- #achievement
Was awarded the Inkpot Award and the second Grand Prix de la ville d'Angoulême
Text from Wikipedia, available under CC BY-SA 4.0.
- #wikipedia
- #event
1969· 1 entry
The M-16A1 Rifle: Operation and Preventative Maintenance, which was distributed along with cleaning kits to address serious reliability concerns with the M16 rifle during the Vietnam War
Text from Wikipedia, available under CC BY-SA 4.0.
- #wikipedia
- #event
1968· 1 entry
And 1969 called The M16A1 Rifle specifically for troops in Vietnam to help minimize the M16 rifle's notorious early reliability problems with proper maintenance
Text from Wikipedia, available under CC BY-SA 4.0.
- #wikipedia
- #event
1955· 1 entry
“and I wanted to write better things than superheroes. Comic books were a ghetto. I sold my part of the enterprise to my associate and then began The Spirit. They wanted an heroic character, a costumed character. They asked me if he”
Text from Wikipedia, available under CC BY-SA 4.0.
- #wikipedia
- #quote
1951· 1 entry
And continued to work on until the 1970s with Klaus Nordling, Mike Ploog, and other artists
Text from Wikipedia, available under CC BY-SA 4.0.
- #wikipedia
- #event
1948· 1 entry
While continuing to do The Spirit and seeing television and other post-war trends eat away at the readership base of newspapers, he formed the American Visuals Corporation in order to produce instructional materials for
Text from Wikipedia, available under CC BY-SA 4.0.
- #wikipedia
- #event
1942· 1 entry
Until his return to civilian life in 1945
Text from Wikipedia, available under CC BY-SA 4.0.
- #wikipedia
- #event
1939· 1 entry
Eisner was commissioned to create Wonder Man for Victor Fox, an accountant who had previously worked at DC Comics and was becoming a comic book publisher himself
Text from Wikipedia, available under CC BY-SA 4.0.
- #wikipedia
- #event
1936· 2 entries
“one of the most difficult moral decisions of my life”
Text from Wikipedia, available under CC BY-SA 4.0.
- #wikipedia
- #quote
High-school friend and fellow cartoonist Bob Kane, of future Batman fame, suggested that the 19-year-old Eisner try selling cartoons to the new comic book Wow, What A Magazine
Text from Wikipedia, available under CC BY-SA 4.0.
- #wikipedia
- #event
1930· 1 entry
The situation was so desperate that Eisner's mother demanded that he, at thirteen, find some way to contribute to the family's income
Text from Wikipedia, available under CC BY-SA 4.0.
- #wikipedia
- #event
1921· 1 entry
“A series of articles in the Times of London in 1921 fully established this background,”
- #wikipedia
- #quote
- #trusted-source
- #www.washingtonpost.com
- #corroborated
1917· 2 entries
Born 1917-03-06.
Text from Wikipedia, available under CC BY-SA 4.0.
- #wikidata
- #birth
They had three children: son Will Erwin, born on his father's birthday in 1917; son Julian, born February 3, 1921; and daughter Rhoda, born November 2, 1929.
Text from Wikipedia, available under CC BY-SA 4.0.
- #wikipedia
- #life
- #family-background
1886· 1 entry
In Kolomyia, Austria-Hungary (present-day Ukraine), and was one of eleven children
Text from Wikipedia, available under CC BY-SA 4.0.
- #wikipedia
- #event