Product Description

Culture-curious readers and life-long fans of comics are invited to read along as two of the medium's greatest contributors - legendary innovator and godfather of sequential art Will Eisner, and the modern master of cinematic comics storytelling, Frank Miller, discuss the ins-and-outs of this compelling and often controversial art form. Eisner/Miller is widely illustrated and features rare, behind-the-scenes photos of Eisner, Miller, and other notable creators.

Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #759211 in Books
• Published on: 2005-03-30
• Original language: English
• Number of items: 1
• Binding: Paperback
• 350 pages

Features

• ISBN13: 9781569717554
• Condition: NEW
• Notes: Brand New from Publisher. No Remainder Mark.
• Click here to view our Condition Guide and Shipping Prices

From School Library Journal
Adult/High School–In 2002, cartoonist Frank Miller visited with Will Eisner for a free-ranging discussion across several days. Brownstein provided shape to their encounters, giving the two artists a medium in which they could use words to explore the history of American graphic-novel expression, the business concerns of comics publishing, the relationship between art forms such as comics and film, and the meanings of success to each individual. Both men proved themselves thoughtful and agile speakers, engaging one another's ideas and building together a kind of oral history of the art form. Brownstein worked invisibly but successfully so that each man stepped out from time to time from the overarching wholeness of the discussions to be seen as unique. The volume is gracefully and carefully illustrated with work not only by Miller and Eisner, but also by those whom they called into the conversation: Johnny Craig, Neal Adams, and even Lynn Johnston. Photos show the distinctive ages of the two subjects and confirm the comfortable nature of this recorded interaction. This is a fine example of critical literary biography with no whiff of academic revisioning attached. As such, students will find it valuable both for curriculum support and casual reading.–Francisca Goldsmith, Berkeley Public Library, CA
Copyright © Reed Business Information, a division of Reed Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.

Customer Reviews

Interesting and Informative Thoughts from Eisner and Miller, Two Leaders of the Comics Industry!
If you like either Will Eisner or Frank Miller, you will likely enjoy this book. I have been a fan of Will Eisner since the 1970s Warren Magazine reprint series of THE SPIRIT! I am not a big fan of Frank Miller, (his work is too violent and raunchy for me), but Frank and Will together have plenty of interesting insights during this extended conversation between the two comics legends.

The book is nearly 350 pages of text and b/w photos and artwork! It is a real page-turner if you enjoy comics and/or Miller and Eisner! I read it all in a single weekend, well spent time and money.

In fact, the book itself was recorded over a weekend, in Florida, at Eisner's home and office, then went through a transcription and a couple of rounds of approvals, updates, corrections, and such.

The book came out after Will Eisner passed away. Frank Miller writes a nice 2005 Introduction, kidding about Eisner's love of argument, because supposedly that is what old Jewish men love to do, argue. It is a friendly, joking introduction, and Eisner would have enjoyed it, judging by other comments inside this book.

Throughout the book, they talk and argue about many topics: other friends and acquaintances from the comics industry and fun anecdotes, how the business started and evolved, how to break-in for a newcomer (or maybe not how anymore), art and page composition, color versus black & white, working methods of operation, inking, washes, character and story creation, who else's work they admire and why, zipatone, the Comics Code Authority and the 1950s witch hunts against EC and comics, the history of pre-comics and pre-comics characters, etc.

Eisner prefers to pencil and finish a completely inked page of a story, then on to the next page; while Miller likes to do mass quantities of penciled pages, then mass quantities of basic inked pages, then mass quantites of fine tuned, detailed inking to finish the pages.

Miller hates the size and shape format of standard comics, which we learn is derived from the size of standard press room sheets, from the 1930's, or so. Eisner discusses how THE SPIRIT format was based on the standard newspaper insert sizes of those times, way back then.

Actually, after reading this book, I found Frank Miller to be a little more substantial in my opinion, not just all about gratuitous sex and violence like his SIN CITY comics; while I was a little disappointed with Will Eisner's careless remarks about his religious viewpoint, which seems to come off as negligible, from my reading of this book.

It's a nice, intelligent read for any adult comics fan! It reminds me of the extremely long, in-depth interviews from Fantagraphics and their COMICS JOURNAL, (but without the overtly hostile, liberal overloadings that downgrade the COMIC JOURNAL, to me). This book is from Dark Horse Books, and I'd like to see more of this type of stuff from Dark Horse--in-depth but more balanced than the COMICS JOURNAL's stuff.

All and all, this is a worthy purchase and read for any grown up comics fans, and I would be interested in buying more of this type of book from Dark Horse, if and when they decide to do a similar book with different professionals featured.

Amazing book
Its a great book, interesting gossip. A complaint in some reviews is that it emphasizes too much the business of comics, but in the end, the oral history of comics is extremely illuminating on how the industry has developed into what it is. Its an intruiging read, well worth the $20 I spent at the comic shop!

very good collection of conversations
This collection of conversations between Frank Miller and Will Eisner is quite good they cover a lot of topics and present their views well. Clearly they are passionate about comics. A little more depth on comics aesthetics and maybe some more personal info or opinions on some non comics issues and this would be 5 stars. Charles Brownstein did a good job of organizing and editing for publication the original conversations probably lasted much longer nad would havetaken up many more pages