The Collected Will Eisner's John Law by Will Eisner and Gary Chaloner (a Hard Case Crime Graphic Novel, 20254)
Will Eisner (1917-2005) was a pioneering cartoonist in the comic book industry, from his early work at the Eisner-Iger Studio to his creation of The Spirit to such graphic novels as A Contract with God,(which popularized the term "graphic novel") Fagin the Jew, and The Plot: The Secret Story of the Protocols of the Elders of Zion. As a teenager, he began working as an advertiser-writer cartoonist for the New York American, while also providing illustrations for pulp magazines. High school friend and fellow cartoonist Bob Kane (of future Batman fame) suggested that Eisner try selling some cartoons to a new magazine, Wow, What a Magazine! Editor Bob Iger bought Eisner's cartoons and, following the death of Wow after only four issues, he and Eisner opened the Eisner-Iger Studio, packaging new material for comic books, which were moving away from reprints from newspapers to original material. At a profit of $1.50 a page, Eisner became very rich by the time he was 22. Among the characters that Eisner originated or co-created there were Doll Man and Blackhawk.
In late 1939, Quality Comics publisher "Busy" Arnold came to Eisner with a proposal that would allow the Sunday newspaper get into the comics book boom. Eisner, eager to produce comics for a more adult audience, sold his half of the partnership to Iger, and began to create The Spirit, about P.I. Denny Crane, who was pronounced dead after falling into suspended animation, and was interred in Wildwood Cemetery; when he revived, he put on a domino mask and became a crime fighter, one without supernatural powers. The Spirit became the main feature of a comic book insert in the Sunday papers of the Register and Tribune Syndicate; the insert, known as "The Spirit Section," ran from June 2, 1940 to October 5, 1942. From the 60s to the 80s, Eisner wrote a few additional stories about The Spirit. At its peak, The Spirit ran in twenty newspaper with a circulation of five million. In 2011, The Spirit was ranked as #21 in Top 100 Comic Book Heroes of All Time.
While in the military during World War II, Eisner began using comics to help train soldiers, creating the bumbling soldier Joe Dope to stress the importance of preventative maintenance. He later created PS, The Preventive Maintenance Monthly for the Army in 1951, and continued working on it until the 1970s. Ever the entrepreneur, Eisner created the American Visuals Corporation to provide instructions for the government and such businesses as RCA Records, the Baltimore Colts, and New York Telephone.
In the 1970s he became the "Godfather of the American Graphic Novel" with the publication of A Contract with God. Others. produced at the rate of about one year, include Moby Dick, Sundiata, The Last Knight, and The Princess and the Frog. Eisner also began teaching, publishing two books based on his lectures: Comics and Sequential Art and Graphic Storytelling and Visual Narrative.
Eisner received six annual National Cartoonist Society Awards, as well as its Reuben Award. Other awards include the Inkpot Award and the Grand Prix de la ville d'Angouleme. He has been inducted into the Academy of Comic Book Arts Hall of Fame and the Jack Kirby Hall of Fame. In 1998, the Will Eisner Comic Industry Awards were named in his honor. He was posthumously elected into the Society of Illustrators Hall of Fame in 2015. Not bad for a scrappy Jewish boy who grew up in impoverished Brooklyn.
But enough about Eisner (I hear you say), what about John Law? In 1949, Eisner decided to become a comic publisher, starting with four or five titles. The first two, Kewpies (designed for young children) and Baseball Comics, had disappointing early sales and Eisner pulled the plug on the venture. One of the proposed titles that were never published was John Law; others were Pirate Comics and (possibly) Nubbin the Shoeshine Boy (based on an early Eisner creation who had been repurposed for a role in the John Law comics). The three John Law stories that Eisner had written were then modified to become Spirit stories by replacing John Law's eyepatch with a domino mask, get rid of John Law's pipe, and place the Spirit's gloves on John Law's hands...easy peasy, with a few other alterations. Eventually the original John Law stories were published, some in 1983, and others in John Law: Dead Man Walking (2004), including some new stories by Tasmanian artist Gary Chaloner.
Eisner's original John Law had the character's father, a has-been fighter who was a patsy for the crooks in the area, witness the death of his best friend, police officer Saref, a the hands of his accomplices. Devasted, he took his own life. Until that point, John law had been best friends with his playmate Sand, Saref's young daughter. Sand took her father's death hard and began to despise all police; she also blamed John Law's father, which caused a irreparable break between the two youngsters. Sand began hanging with with the wrong crowd and eventually ran off to Europe with a notorious gambling ring. In Europe, she became an adventuress, first betraying Nazis for money, then being seen in exotic areas of the globe with various international figures. Back in the U.S., one of Sand's accomplices shot and killed a policeman; Sand cu ties with the killer and sent the policeman's family $50,000 by way of John Law. Reunited with Sand, the two realize that too uch has passed since they last met, and any hopes for a romance were nonexistent.
The second story features Nubbin the Shoeshine Boy and his dog Tiger. A being claiming to be the ghost of murdered Garfield Lox shows up at police headquarters and is given the bum's rush by Sergeant O'Cork. It really was Lox, or at least part of him; Lox's body had been found missing his head and it was the head of the half-dead Mr. Lox that showed up at headquarters. It was rainy night and kindly Nubbin offered o put Lox up for the night at his room at Mr. Gibbet's house, not realizing 1) that Lox was a ghost, and 2) that Gibbet was the man who had murdered Lox. In the end, Nubbin is nearly drowned in a flooded basement but saves himself by using his shoeshine box as a bolo, trapping Gibbet. John Law comes through just in time to arrest the murderer.
The final original story has Ratt Gutt, a neighborhood psychopath bleeding businesses for protection money, take Nubbin's friend Tommy under his wing because stupid Tommy thinks crooks are cool. nubbin bravely faces off against Ratt Gutt...and loses. Then John Law arrives. Ratt Gutt realizes that he is our of ammo and runs in fear, but John Law easily defeat him without landing a punch; Ratt Gutt is such a coward that he faints in fear.
The stories by Gary Chaloner reimagine John Law, most significantly by killing off Nubbin, who is now a ghost whom John law cannot see but Tiger can. Also brought into the mix are two characters from The Spirit, Lady Luck and Mr. Mystic. Lady Luck is wealthy Brenda Banks, a vigilante who operated during World War II and now a motion picture star and film studio head; Mr. Mystic was originally Kenneth Yarkovski, who is embued with magical powers. Also created for the Chaloner series was mob boss Enzo D'Angelo, "The Angel," who was best friends with John Law when they were children -- Enzo's mother, Maria, was a surrogate mother for John; John unknowingly operates under Enzo's. protection. Because of Enzo's protection, crooked cop and Chief of Detectives Arnold Reznick cannot physically harm John Law, whom he fears because of his honesty and integrity, so he places John in charge of a new squad of crackpot detectives looking into strange and unexplained cases. The new squad include accident-prone Harry Carey, an Interpol liaison fresh off the boat, first created for Eisner's high school newspaper; trigger-happy, fist-happy, bigoted "Hammer" Donovan, first introduced by Eisner in 1937; Lieutenant Oren Grey, a dapper, educated black man; and Melba Chase P.I., originally meant to be a character in the Nubbin comic book, then retooled as a private detective in "Melba, Private Eye-ful" in 1947.
The artwork in this book is outstanding, incorporating Eisner's detailed experiments in content and form. Of particular interest is a an exquisite penciled sketch that Eisner had begun inking, a great example of the intricate work that Eisner brought to the page.
It's all here...humor, pathos, adventure, thrills, danger, and the Eisner magic. If the John Law had been allowed to see the light of day and if Eisner had not been burdened with so much other work, John Law could have been a contender.
