A single-volume edition of a classic Great Depression graphic novel series documents its role in launching the graphic novel as an art form, in a collection that fictionally depicts its creator's bittersweet struggles with a vengeful God within a tenement district. Reprint.
Will Eisner invented the term "graphic novel" to differentiate this serious work from the superhero exploits typically chronicled in comic books. As such, it served as a precursor to works in a similar vein by other author/artists, including Art Spiegelman's MAUS and Marjane Satrapi's PERSEPOLIS. Based on Eisner's childhood experiences, A CONTRACT WITH GOD collects four tales that illuminate the daily lives of the inhabitants of a Bronx tenement during the 1930s, illustrated by evocative, realistic sepia-toned art. The title story concerns a pious Jew who writes out a contract with God. When his adopted daughter Rachele dies suddenly, he considers the contract breached, repudiates his faith, and becomes a slumlord. The second concerns a street singer's brief chance at fame, the third is a glimpse at the desperately lonely and deeply misunderstood tenement super, and the fourth recounts various ****** dramas occurring during summer vacation in the Catskills. While the stories are somewhat grim, they are not entirely so, and there is definitely a strong sense of the poetic in the tragedies that he portrays.
- Publisher: W W Norton & Co Inc
- Pages: 182
- Edition: Reprint
- Language: English
- Format: paperback
- Release Date: December 1, 2006
- Date Published: December 1, 2006
- Author: Will Eisner