By Will Eisner The Contract with God Trilogy: Life on Dropsie Avenue (A Contract With God, A Life Force, Dropsie Av

by Will Eisner

Very lovingly cared for copy

Genres: Comics

Unknown Binding

About the author

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 studies with his book Comics and Sequential Art (1985). The Eisner Award was named in his honor and is given to recognize achievements each year in the comics medium; he was one of the three inaugural inductees to the Will Eisner Comic Book Hall of Fame.

Reviews

[Steve Chisnell]

Eisner has rightfully been called a master of the craft, no small praise since he essentially invented the graphic novel with The Contract with God. Before him, no one had really considered the illustrated genre of books quite this way: a book-length comic?

Well, not exactly. Once Eisner settles in, his characters and situations--while occasionally in scenes predicted or now tropes--are rich in layers, in history, in motivations. What I admired most in reading this series in order is to witness his own development of how such stories might be told or framed. The neighborhood itself is his character, and Eisner's stories are first hyper-local, then expand to cultural life, the world at Dropsie's borders, the long life-history of space.

Many characters earn some degree of justice, but not in ways we might expect. And major and minor power figures are always at work behind the scenes while a woman wonders about her son who has not written or a man who seeks just another carpentry job. Across time, their anger and loyalties cycle and cycle around ethnicity, around birthright, around property and ownership.

There is nothing profound in any one story on Dropsie Avenue. But Eisner did not merely create the first graphic novel here; he also explored a new type of ambition in storytelling, something so many who followed him have failed to recognize.

[Hisham]

A collected edition for the three volumes of stories set on Dropsie Avenue by Will Eisnter.

A Contract With God:
My favorite volume is the series made up of a set of self contained stories.

A Life Force:
Set around the time of the Great Depression with several overlapping stories that are part of one narrative.

Dropsie Avenue:
A kind of biography of the neighborhood from it's early development in the 1870s to its final decline and restoration in the late 20th century. More of a reflection on place than the characters that come and go over time.

While Contract with God is the volume I consider a must read, the other sections are worth you time as well.

[Chris Howells]

Reading this incredible graphic novel taught me more about America and the ethnic, cultural and legal shifts in a nation's history than any text book I have read. I know now why Will Eisner is a illustrative legend and why there is a very prestigious award in his honour.
Beautifully drawn and written, Eisner gets to the heart of the immigrant's experience, something Donald Trump would do well to read, or at least have it read to him.
Brilliant.

[curtis]

Beautiful in every way--visually, conceptually, tonally. This collection demonstrates Eisner's unmatched skill as a storyteller. He manages to blend together so many unique elements (all of which are capable, intriguing standalone stories in their own right) into a deft and cohesive whole that's filled with vibrancy and pathos.

[Jorge Palacios Kindelan]

Beautiful artwork and short but poignant stories that really pulled at my emotions, from humor to tragedy to anger. One of the best graphic novels I’ve ever read

[Ollie]

**

each novel in the trilogy ranks with the very greatest graphic novels ever. all 3 are masterpieces.

while there's no real chronology and you can technically read them in any order, reading them in the order they were published is incredibly satisfying as you see how eisner's scope developed and deepened over time. rich, ambitious, funny, and bursting with life.