La trilogía de contrato con Dios

The Contract With God Trilogy #1-3

by Will Eisner

LA OBRA MAESTRA QUE EMPEZÓ EL FENÓMENO DE LA NOVELA GRÁFICA

Después de haber alcanzado el éxito y la fama con THE SPIRIT, en 1978 y con 61 años, Will Eisner cambió el rumbo de la historia del cómic dando a luz a la novela gráfica, el punto de inflexión que ayudó a que el cómic entrara en el mundo adulto, con obras más maduras y profundas. LA VIDA EN LA AVENIDA DROPSIE reúne historias cotidianas que suceden en un barrio de la periferia de Nueva York. El día a día, conseguir tirar adelante a pesar de todas las dificultades, y por qué no, también las pequeñas alegrías, son retratadas con fidelidad por Eisner.

Este volumen recopila la revolucionaria obra que lo empezó todo, CONTRATO CON DIOS, y las dos secuelas que ayudaron a definir el nuevo género, ANSIA DE VIVIR y LA AVENIDA DROPSIE.

Genres: Graphic Novels, Comics, Fiction, Graphic Novels Comics, Historical Fiction, Comic Book, Classics

536 pages, Hardcover

First published December 6, 2005

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

[Brad · Rating 3 out of 5]

I can't get over Eisner's really weak characterization of women. Yes, he's a great artist and storyteller, but he doesn't really present a strong woman anywhere in these three stories.

[Hilary "Fox" · Rating 5 out of 5]

The Contract With God is arguably the first example of a true 'graphic novel' as it was Will Eisner who first coined the phrase. He sought to tell stories through the mixture of text and visuals, but rather than the superhero or adventure stories popular at the time, he wished to delve into deeper questions. Questions of meaning, of dealing with grief and life itself. What he did with the medium was absolutely astonishing for its time, and holds up well now. He touched upon universal truths, and didn't shy away from topics that are shocking to this day. It's a beautiful piece of art, and a worthy classic. Like Watchmen, The Contract with God Trilogy: Life on Dropsie Avenue could be called a graphic novel for people who generally don't like the medium. By defining the medium, it truly transcended it.

The Contract With God is a series of stories about tenement living in the 30s. The titular story is about a Jewish man who is believed to be so good as to be favored by God. When he escapes his small town of Germany to go to America, he writes himself a contract with God... only years later, God breaks the contract. How do you live with that? What do you do? Next is a story of a street singer who nearly makes it big, only to squander the chance. Then the super of 55 Dropsie Avenue is looked at, and used by the schemings of the person you'd least suspect...

The next volume in the trilogy is A Life Force. These stories follow the development of the Depression and its effect upon 55 Dropsie Avenue. The main thread that these stories follow is that of "Izzy the Cockroach and the Meaning of Life". Jacob, recently laid off after having helped build a shul, wonders what it is that separates man from the cockroach. We both feel the deep life force, the need for living. Are we better than the cockroach, or are we just living without purpose? Did Man create God or did God create Man? These threads are followed through the Depression as people's position rise and fall...

Finally, Dropsie Avenue is the beautiful biography of that block itself from inception to modern day. The neighborhood rises and falls, but it's the people who make it up and their connections are surprisingly beautiful. This story deals with the goodness in people, in spite of the troubles and ills that befall them.

It's a gorgeous trilogy, beautifully illustrated and lovingly written. A deserved classic strong as it was when first published even now.

[logankstewart · Rating 2 out of 5]

Will Eisner is a rather significant individual in the history of the graphic novel, as well as the comic world at large. He is, after all, sometimes referred to as the Father of the Graphic Novel. In fact, the Eisner Awards (the comics' equivalent to the Oscars) are named after him. Of course, any serious fan of graphic novels has read some Will Eisner. Well, color me red and call me a strawberry, I can finally say I have.

The Contract with God trilogy is one large collection of three individual graphic novels: A Contract with God and Other Tenement Stories, A Life Force, and Dropsie Avenue. Each volume tells a complete story, though the three are interwoven and related. The stories largely deal with racism, religious bigotry, and hard life through the Great Depression. The colors are all muted sepia toned, seemingly from pencil. This medium choice adds a bleakness throughout the book, certainly fitting to the setting. Eisner's lines are sometimes rushed and simple, befitting of a comic creator of Old, but I think anything fancier (i.e., more Realistic) would detract from the story.

A Contract with God is composed of four smaller stories: "A Contract With God", "The Super", "The Street Singer", and "Cookalein". In it we read the tale of a Jewish Russian man who comes to America and settles down on Dropsie Avenue, taking up residence in a Bronx tenement. Life is hard and goes awry, and the story is grim and tragic.

A Life Force pretty much deals with man's goals in life, to love and be happy, and compares them to a cockroach. This one at least has more characterization, and was easier to relate to than the first. It also seemed to have more of a plot, one that was more than halfway interesting. Still, the story was bleak.

Dropsie Avenue was probably my favorite of the three. Its main character is Dropsie Avenue itself. This story begins in the late 1800s and chronicles the development of the land and its Dutch settlers to where it is now. We see the land change, moving from farms to tenements and factories. We see the people change, phasing through Dutch, Irish, Jewish, Russian, Puerto Rican, African American, and many other races. We see how the society changes and how it affects Dropsie Avenue. I enjoyed this story quite a bit.

This review doesn't paint a pleasant picture of Eisner's acclaimed work, and that's probably because the story was so danged depressing. Eisner was born in 1917, so he lived through the Great Depression and through the changes he's created. In fact, he drew from his own experiences for many of these tales, and I suppose they're probably more autobiographical than we know. Reading tragedy is hard for me to "like," per se.

However, I can't really say that I enjoyed the read and thoroughly recommend you to all read it immediately, either. I can understand and appreciate the history of this book, how it is largely responsible for the creation of the graphic novel industry today, and I'm thankful for this. Still, the story is very complex and meticulous, weaving many threads through many characters and locations, and the book never rose above its potential.

So do I recommend Will Eisner's Contract with God trilogy? Yes, and no. Yes if you're a graphic novel fan and are interested in reading something by a legend. Yes if you enjoy stories told with a Great Depression setting, especially dealing with race, nationality, and religion. No if you're new to graphic novels and are curious about them (for that I'd recommend Craig Thompson's Blankets for something Real, or Alan Moore's Watchmen if you like super-heroes in your graphic novels). No if you're wanting something with color and something less depressing. In the end, I'm glad I've read it, but I don't plan to read any more by the man, either.

[paper0r0ss0 · Rating 5 out of 5]

Tutta una vita, piu' di una vita. Dalla seconda meta' dell'800 agli anni 70 del '900 la vita scorre in un quartiere di New York, nell'isolato di Dropsie avenue. Le esistenze, le speranze, le delusioni, le tragedie di generazioni di abitanti delle piu' disparate etnie e provenienze. Arrivati dai quattro angoli della Terra ognuno col proprio bagaglio fisico e morale. "Contratto con Dio" e' in effetti una somma di individualita', di vite al singolare che si affiancano. Lo sforzo di agni individuo muove inconsapevolmente l'ingranaggio generale sotto l'effetto di un' inspegabile volonta' di sopravvivenza, una volonta' che spinge in avanti anche quando non avrebbe piu' senso farlo viste le avversita'. Una inesauribile forza vitale che farebbe pensare a un disegno divino, anche quando il proprio dio, qualunque esso sia, parrebbe essersi distratto o addirittura messosi contro. Quanto ai disegni... beh e' Eisner!

[John Pistelli · Rating 4 out of 5]

Here is a landmark 2022 publication: the first Norton Critical Edition of a graphic novel. Even more than Penguin Classics's foray into early Marvel Comics, which also happened this year, Will Eisner's inclusion in a book series synonymous with the academic study of classic literature proves that the comics medium continues its march into the canon. As a bevy of culture-warriors will tell us, contemporary academe is as much in the business of canon-smashing as canon-building, and editor Jared Gardner deftly balances these competing priorities to make A Contract with God a model of the critical edition.

Gardner's comprehensive introduction to this volume, "A Life in Pictures," introduces readers to Eisner's biography. Eisner had one of the most storied careers in comics—albeit one bisected by a long absence from the public eye—and is probably the central figure in the American tradition, at least as a shaper and theorist of the medium's formal development. Later careers as divergent as those of Scott McCloud, Art Spiegelman, and Frank Miller are unimaginable without his example.

Born to immigrant parents in the Bronx in 1917, Eisner studied art and set out during the Depression to support his family as a cartoonist. His first innovation in the art form was a business one: he co-found a studio where artists worked to create pre-packaged material for the then-burgeoning comic-book business. His initial wave of influential productivity came later, in the 1940s, when signed a deal with a newspaper syndicate to create a weekly comic-book supplement to the comic strips. In this format, Eisner created his iconic detective character, The Spirit, though the series is less renowned for his heroic exploits than for Eisner's use of Spirit short stories to experiment with comics form and to explore the real life of New York City. Already in the years after World War II he was looking toward the formally inventive realist fiction he would enshrine, almost half a century later, as the "graphic novel." After ending The Spirit in 1952, Eisner turned away from commercial comics and founded a studio that created educational comics for a variety of institutions from the National Board of Fire Underwriters to the National Rifle Association to the U.S. Army. Most memorably, he was contracted by the Baltimore City Medical Society to create a comic illustrating the putative dangers of Harry Truman's push for universal healthcare: The Sad Case of Waiting Room Willie.

In the 1970s, a growing comics fandom, which remembered his innovative work on The Spirit, embraced Eisner; for his part, he was fascinated by the innovations in form, content, and commerce the Underground Comix movement was exploring with its often violently expressive and independently published autobiographical and slice-of-life stories. He began teaching at the School of Visual Arts in New York, theorizing the comics medium—or, as he called it, "sequential art"—and working on the stories that would become A Contract with God. He pitched the book as a "graphic novel" to mainstream book publishers, but they proved skeptical of the format, so he published it under his own imprint, Poorhouse Books, with a small press. He later stated that he himself coined the term "graphic novel," but he probably picked it up from cartoonist Jack Katz—a whole essay in the back of the Norton is devoted to their correspondence—and it had been in use in the comics press since the mid-1960s to describe a number of precursors that make Eisner's claim to "first" more than questionable.

A Contract with God wasn't an immediate success. But with the rise of the literary graphic novel over the next two decades—typified by Art Spiegelman's Maus—it was hailed as an honored precursor, and Eisner's steady productivity kept him in the forefront of comics's artistic development. As Gardner writes in his introduction:

Between A Contract with God in 1978 and The Plot in 2005, Eisner published more than twenty books. It would have been a remarkable period of productivity for a young man, but Eisner was in his sixties at its start and was still publishing the year he died, in his late eighties. It remains, in any medium, a remarkable late-career renaissance, one unlikely to be matched in the history of comics.

The Norton Critical Edition does not actually reprint in full Eisner's 1978 book, A Contract with God. That original book is not formally a novel but a collection of four stories centered on Jewish life in one Depression-era tenement building in the Bronx, 55 Dropsie Avenue. Eisner followed it over the next two decades with three sequels set in the same locale. This edition prints self-contained stories from each of these volumes, adding up to 200 pages of comics. And that is my single complaint about this otherwise admirable book. Surely, the vaunted "first graphic novel"—even if it wasn't first and isn't a novel—ought to be printed in its entirety, with or without accompanying material from later volumes. Moreover, Eisner shaped those volumes as integral wholes; excerpting them does a certain injustice to their design.

As both the early reviewers in the comics fan press and the later academic critics point out in articles collected in the back of this book, Eisner's stories qua stories fall into a recognizable tradition of Jewish-American literature: they treat the immigrant experience from European oppression and poverty through the hardships of the Depression to the later paradoxes of assimilation, blending shtetl fabulism with gritty social realism; critics regularly cite Isaac Bashevis Singer, Bernard Malamud, Saul Bellow, and Philip Roth as comparable authors. Despite Eisner's ambition to put comics on the same plane as literary fiction, however, his work will suffer if compared to these prose artists. He meant to signal literary seriousness with his adoption of the "novel" moniker, but he himself allowed that he was more influenced by theater than literature, especially the Yiddish theater where his immigrant father worked as a scene-painter in the 1920s. The sensational pictorialism and melodrama of vaudeville, as Greg M. Smith points out in an essay collected in the Norton, defines Eisner's aesthetic in these stories and must be appreciated on those grounds or not at all. He offers nothing like the subtle ironies of a Singer or Malamud, nor the philosophical sophistication of Bellow, nor the psychological acuity of Roth. His often writes bald-faced parables.

For example, "The Revolutionary" dramatizes a student torn between communist agitation and loyalty to his father, who owns a fur shop and is being shaken down by union thugs that Eisner represents as little better than a protection racket. After a visiting Soviet activist tells our young hero that in Russia there are no Jews because, "Under communism all religion is regarded as a social opiate," and that "the state will provide the guidance for all social thought," it's no surprise when he chooses his humble middle-class Jewish family, their apartment redolent with the smell of mother's cooking, over the revolution. This is the Eisner who propagandized for hire against socialized medicine. But other stories protest the loneliness and disposability of American life, most memorably in "Sanctum," where a shy man finds that his obituary has been printed by accident and that society hastens to treat him as dead so that his furniture and apartment can be repossessed and his replacement hired at his job. The story "Dropsie Avenue" itself narrates the neighborhood's whole life-cycle, from when 19th-century Dutch inhabitants claimed they were being driven out by English immigrants through later waves of immigration and nativism, development and decline.

But however we judge Eisner's politics—he seems like a moderate liberal; in a 1970s interview with publisher cat yronwode collected in this edition, she challenges his often sexually charged representations of women and he jocularly replies, "Well, I was brought up as a male chauvinist"—he is most interesting where he is least the social commenter or chronicler. The standout stories here are metaphysical in nature, tales rather than stories: "Izzy the Cockroach and the Meaning of Life," for example, with its callback to Kafka. In this tale, a carpenter who built a shul is outraged to learn that the project's funder—and not its architect—will get his name on the building, no doubt reflecting Eisner's own anxiety about the intersection of art and commerce. Prostrate with despair in the alley below his apartment, the builder finds himself in a philosophical if one-sided colloquy about the universal impulse to survive with a cockroach his wife has just shaken out of a carpet in the window above.

The semi-autobiographical title story—a "graphic novella," if you will—is the volume's main event. It is a parable about a kind and religious man who gives up his faith to become a greedy real-estate developer after his adopted daughter's sudden death. (Eisner's own daughter died of leukemia at age 16 in 1970.) It opens slowly: on page after page, the protagonist slouches home from the girl's funeral in such a soaking rain that the letters of the narrative themselves drip. These iconic images—cartoonist Harvey Kurtzman would famously call this hard rain "Eisenspritz"—exemplify Eisner's stark chiaroscuro and his lively and personal pen-drawing.

Critics like Gary Groth, founder of The Comics Journal and hanging-judge of comics criticism, whose 1988 dissent on Eisner's stellar reputation in the field the Norton volume reprints, complain of Eisner's simplicity and melodrama. They aren't wrong, but this too strictly mis-applies literary standards and undervalues the integrity and authority of his images. It's true that Eisner makes no philosophical innovation with his parabolic crossing of the The Book of Job with Silas Marner; the story just re-states the ancient problem of theodicy. But the power is in the statement itself. If A Contract with God can't compare to the intellectual sophistication of a Saul Bellow, Eisner's dense line work and dynamic compositions, his use of image as text and text as image, offer a visual correlate to Bellow's verbal richness. It's only aesthetically illegitimate if you don't take the visual seriously enough.

The political subtext of Groth's critique in particular is worth considering, however. Recalling Eisner's as a propagandist for various industries and for the U.S. Army, Groth finds Eisner to be a mercenary capable only of a perfunctory and ultimately commercial gesture toward "the literary" but no true literary achievement.

After The Spirit, Eisner founded American Visuals, a commercial art house that went on to secure a contract with the U.S. Army to produce P.S. magazine, a monthly instructional periodical (propaganda organ) for Army personnel. Part of Eisner's contribution was to design strips that attempted, in Eisner's words, "to produce 'attitude conditioning''—a phrase that surely couldn't have existed before this century. […] Eisner continued to attempt to condition attitudes throughout the Viet Nam war; all such instruction had to cater to the (low) educational level and cultural prejudices of Army management's perception of the average GI.

And considering Eisner's theoretical writings on "sequential art" as collected in the Norton, which focus from a craft perspective on commanding and controlling the reader's attention and, more grandly, on designating comics the avatar of the new post-verbal literacy, we might even paranoiacally extend Groth's critique: was the graphic novel designed as a new form of mass psychological control by the military-industrial complex, in effect if not intent, in the same way that traditional high culture—Abstract Expressionism, the Iowa Writers Workshop—wittingly and un- fought the Cold War on behalf of the intelligence services? Too paranoid, I'm sure.

The recent academic work on Eisner as collected in the back of the book balance, as I said, the edition's own canon-making effect with academe's canonclastic tendencies. One essay by Paul Williams demystifies and debunks Eisner's invention of the graphic novel either as a form or as a term. Williams suggests that Eisner's claim to this distinction is unjustly premised on his works' literary, i.e., realist, subject matter in distinction to genre-fiction rivals to its primacy like Gil Kane's spy thriller His Name Is…Savage or Jack Katz's fantasy The First Kingdom. Yet despite this critique's featuring in the Norton Critical Edition of A Contract with God, it's still A Contract with God that got awarded the Norton Critical Edition—and not, say, Kane's violent suspense tale.

Jeremy Dauber, author of 2022's comprehensive history, American Comics, questions Eisner's use of stereotype and caricature, part of his "new literacy" program to invite ease of readerly comprehension and effectiveness of readerly immersion. Dauber argues that "Eisner's utilitarian approach, which attempts to maximize effective communication by appealing to universally recognizable images, can be seen to generate its own problems," and, moreover, that in some of his portrayals, Eisner "relies on stereotypical images of Jews" including "the typical antisemitic image of the Jewish capitalist." Here it is not only Eisner's literary stature that comes under critical scrutiny, but comics form itself, with what Eisner regards as its incorrigible tendency toward the typical and the symbolic. We may close the book wondering if a graphic novel ought to be in the canon at all.

Such is the paradox of criticism. Criticism prolongs the life of the aesthetic object by calling rational attention to it in the very process of undermining the not-wholly-rational aesthetic act that summoned it forth. Every major writer and artist we still care about endured this hazing process. Eisner can be congratulated for having weathered it well enough to sit now on the same shelf—or at least in the same academic book series—as precursors in the art of tale-telling like Hawthorne and Chekhov and Kafka. He and his medium have come an undeniably long way from 55 Dropsie Avenue.

[Agnė · Rating 4 out of 5]

WHAT IS IT ABOUT?

Will Eisner’s “The Contract With God Trilogy: Life on Dropsie Avenue” is a collection of three stand-alone graphic novels set on Dropsie Avenue, a fictional street in the Depression-era Bronx, one of the five boroughs of New York City. The first book in this trilogy, “A Contract With God,” consists of four audacious and cynical stories of Dropsie Avenue’s residents. In addition to being extremely entertaining, these stories probe such timeless issues as injustice and morality. In the second book, “A Life Force,” numerous stories of Dropsie Avenue’s residents intertwine with each other, drawing a vibrant and realistic picture of an urban life in America during the Great Depression as well as attempting to shine the light on the meaning of life. “Dropsie Avenue,” the final book in the trilogy, is a century-long biography of Dropsie Avenue itself, in which the birth, growth, decay and resurrection of the street is told through everyday lives of its inhabitants as well as the ethnic and social changes of the community throughout the decades.

THUMBS UP:

1) Timeless specimen.
Written in 1978, the first book in the trilogy, “A Contract with God,” marks the birth of a modern graphic novel, and the whole trilogy sets high standards for the genre. In addition to being so historically important and well-crafted, Eisner’s book is also timeless as it deals with eternal issues and truly seems like it could have been published yesterday.

2) Realistic.
Although the stories and characters in “The Contact With God Trilogy” are fictional, the book is extremely realistic. On Dropsie Avenue, bad things happen to good people for no reason, bad guys prevail, and the boundaries between right and wrong are blurred. Yes, it might seem bleak, hopeless and unnecessarily violent at times, but so is life, especially during the Great Depression. What is more, the life cycle of the street in “Dropsie Avenue” is so well-thought-out and masterfully written that it seems more of a first-hand experience than a made-up story.

3) Thought-provoking.
Even though most of the time Eisner’s tone is humorous and seemingly lighthearted, most of the stories carry a deeper message. Both directly and indirectly, the author often makes the reader pause and ponder upon the meaning of existence, reexamine shared values or reevaluate social norms.

4) Gorgeous artwork.
I simply adored the illustrations. They are not terrible detailed, especially when it comes to faces, as many of the characters look alike, while the same person often looks quite different in different panels, but I just love Eisner’s style: so lively, so expressive and so… stylish! I wish I could draw like that. By the way, the illustrations are colorless, just pencil and ink, but I think such artwork fits the gloomy mood of the Depression-era perfectly.

COULD BE BETTER:

1) Wordy.
At times, especially in “A Life Force,” there is a little bit too much text for a graphic novel. On the other hand, the background stories or the newspaper clips really help to set the mood and understand the events better.

2) Long and effortful.
I loved the first book, but later my enthusiasm dwindled. However, it might be due to the fact that I read the book in a relatively short time. Although it is a graphic novel, I wouldn’t call it a light read as it makes you think A LOT, and it seems that the more I think about the stories and revisit certain pages, the more I understand and appreciate the gravity of this book.

VERDICT: 4 out of 5

If you are a fan of graphic novels, Will Eisner’s “The Contract With God Trilogy: Life on Dropsie Avenue” is a must-read as it has a historical importance in the world of graphic storytelling and is a fine example of what the genre has to offer. If possible though, don’t rush reading this trilogy and take time to think about what you’ve read as this might help to understand and appreciate the book more.

[Nancy · Rating 4 out of 5]

This epic book is considered the first graphic novel and was written by Will Eisner, whom the Eisner Awards are named after in honor of all his contributions to the world of comics.

Part I: A Contract With God– Four stories make up this Part I, all of which are linked thematically with recurring issues of disillusionment and classism issues. The namesake story A Contract with God is about a devout Jewish man who gives up his faith after the death of his young daughter and how he feels that all his good works and religious contract he had written earlier were in vain. The Street Singer and The Super detail repugnant people and the misfortune that befalls them both. Cookalein weaves the stories of several characters staying at a blue-collar resort in the Catskill Mountains, who are all striving to better themselves. This last story was fascinating and gives a peek into a forgotten chapter of how the lower middle class vacationed.

Part II: A Life Force– Much of the story centers around Jacob Shtarkah and his Jewish family as they all yearn for a better future. Within one family’s experiences, you see a microcosm of what was happening in the larger world during the Depression and the years leading up to WWII. Jacob wishes for more and struggles with an existential search as the eleven stories reveal the hopes and dreams of many in the Dropsie neighborhood.

Part III: Dropsie Avenue– My first thought on finishing this segment was that it was the classic children’s book The Little House, written by Virginia Lee Burton in 1942, on steroids. The story begins its 100-year arc in 1870 in the Bronx when there were still Dutch farms. After a few decades, the farms have given way to an elegant neighborhood on Dropsie Avenue. The neighborhood has some newly rich Irish immigrants move in, and then some German immigrants who both endure discrimination before leaving. The neighborhood begins a slow decline, with tenement building replacing the once larger family homes, until Dropsie Avenue is quite city-like. The Depression hit the area hard, and a new wave of Italian immigrants moved it, and slum landlords let the tenements go to ruin. While responsible residents remain, the years pass by with much social upheaval, until the neighborhood is razed for a new housing development. Then begins the cycle again, with a rather depressing epilogue.

Each story can stand alone, but they all fit together as a whole for they complement one another in tone, under the same thematic motif of cultural and religious identity. The pictures are drawn in black and white with sepia overtones, and Eisner varied his page design to great effect in his storytelling. The cityscapes were well done, but the people he depicted veered between realistic portrayals and caricatures that were culturally insensitive. Ultimately, the saga of death and rebirth makes this a classic story that deserves all the praise it has received. It was a landmark book, that forever changed how a story could be told.

The review can also be found on my blog: https://graphicnovelty2.com/2016/11/1...

[Petra · Rating 4 out of 5]

Three graphic novels in one volume. All three books are intertwined with Dropsie Street as the setting of each novel. This is a wonderful look at people, times and a neighbourhood through generations and changes.

A Contract With God
A young Russian Jew comes to America after signing a contract with God. Years later, when tragedy strikes, he breaks that contract. The conflict that ensues consumes his life, changing it forever.

A Life Force
Looks to understand the meaning of Life. Compares the meanings of Man's life with that of a cockroach. Set in the Depression, a man loses his job and begins to look at Faith. Did God create Man or did Man create God?

Dropsie Avenue
Follows the history of Dropsie Street for generations, from the time of farmland to tenement slum in a large city. It shows how society changed over time; how war, social change, immigration changed a neighbourhood; how Life continues despite Time. But most of all, it tells of the people who make up that neighbourhood.

These books tell 3 different times and aspects of one neighbourhood. Together they tell a story of People in hard times making the best of life that they can.

[Ivan Jovanovic (Valahiru) · Rating 5 out of 5]

Svaki ljubitelj žanra je sigurno čuo za Vila Ajznera ili prestižnu Ajznerovu nagradu. Pred nama je trilogija nastala u periodu od više od četvrt veka. Smatra se Ajznerovim najupečatljivijim i trajnim zaveštanjem, a takodje je u pitanju prvi grafički roman i začetnik svega što nam je kasnije došlo.


Ajzner u trilogiji obradjuje gomilu tema i mislim da ih se ne mogu svih setiti. Od nasilja u porodici, alkoholizma, silovanja, politike, borbe za život, ljubavi, raznih vera, istrajnosti, finansijske propasti, ljudskih emocija, osećanja i odnosa, do zavisnosti od narkotika i raznih drugih tema. Ajzner je realan, bez ustezanja i njegovi likovi su takvi. Prikazuje svet i ljude kakvi jesu, sa svim vrlinama i manama. Ovo mi se mnogo dopalo i uživao sam u toj gomili različitih likova. Uprkos mračnoj atmosferi/pozadini koju delo kasnije dobija, ne može se osporiti kvalitet čak ni tada.

Crteži su fantastični, živopisni i kroz njih se može iskusiti atmosfera i emocije. Medjutim, meni ovde crteži spadaju u nebitniji deo, jer sam više bio očaran pričom. Scenario je ono što je ovde vredno, mada je naravno i crtež neosporivo odličan. To je bar moj lični doživljaj.

Ovde ima toliko materijala, da je Ajzner lako mogao da napiše knjigu ili da snimi film ili seriju. Dovoljno o kvalitetu govori i to da sigurno ne bih proveo vreme u čitanju 500+ stranica, a da me to delo nije ozbiljno zainteresovalo i oduševilo. Upravo je takav slučaj sa Ugovorom s Bogom. Nisam prekinuo sa čitanjem dok ga nisam završio. Toliko me priča interesovala, toliko me Ajzner "zaludeo".Drago mi je što je Čarobna knjiga objavila ovo, jer sam svestan koliko bih propustio da ga nikada nisam pročitao. Zaista, jedno kolosalno delo sa pregršt poruka, alegorijama i temama o kojima se dugo može razmišljati.

Ovo nije samo priča o jednoj zgradi ili o aveniji... Ovo je priča o narodu, o njihovim sudbinama - ovo je svedočanstvo o životu. Apsolutna preporuka. Ovo se mora pročitati!

[Práxedes Rivera · Rating 4 out of 5]

This fantastic recompilation of three stand-alone graphic novels is a must-read for anyone who likes the genre. The first volume, A Contract With God, is considered by many to be the first true modern graphic novel. Prior to this work no one had ventured into this medium exploring concepts such as drug use, philandering, and the violence that so often accompanies poverty. The artwork is also gritty and dark, a departure from works which preceded it.

The second volume, A Life Force, was my least favorite. But it is still an example of superb story telling combined with artwork. Read any recent novel about the proverbial 'underbelly of society' and you will recognize Eisner's technique reflected in it.

The final installment, Dropsie Avenue, was perhaps the most elucidating --particularly if you are familiar with New York City. It chronicles the changes of a fictitious neighborhood in the Bronx as different ethnic and racial groups traverse through it over centuries. I enjoyed the work more at the beginning than at the end, since the plot does not dedicate enough space to new minorities as they moved in and out of the zone. The reader simple does not get a chance to get to know these newer migrants as well.

Overall a very good read and highly recommendable for fans of graphic novels.

[Christopher · Rating 4 out of 5]

Apparently the book that marked the "birth of the graphic novel," according to the dust jacket, The Contract with God, the first volume in the trilogy that bears its name, is a fascinating collection of morality tales set on the fictional Dropsie Avenue in the Bronx of the 1930s. It's a community of then-new Jewish immigrants to the United States, and the stories feature colorful characters whose fortunes rise and fall as they navigate the vagaries of life amongst the (mostly) disenfranchised. Volume 2, A Life Force, presents a more unified cast of Dropsie inhabitants, whose tales intersect over the course of the Great Depression. This was my favorite of the three books, as we really get to know each character. In Dropsie Avenue: The Neighborhood, author Will Eisner pulls a James Michener, using a single location as the main protagonist, with generations of people coming and going, all in service of a narrative about history, change and the occasional line of continuity. It's a little disjointed, but still enjoyable. The entire trilogy – each volume published separately from 1978 to 1995, packaged together in this handsome hardcover tome – makes for a strong portrait of the American immigrant experience, all wonderfully illustrated in evocative black-and-white drawings by Eisner, himself. It's definitely a worthwhile read.

[cloverina · Rating 4 out of 5]

3.5
This one is a little hard to rate. On one hand, there's a lot of reason for me to rate it highly. On the other, there's probably even more I don't enjoy about it. I was planning to rate this around 2 stars, but "A Life Force" (and partially "Dropise Ave") saved it.

I know it's definitley a controversial opinion, since most people here seem to consider it the best story in this collection, but "The Contract With God" and the stories that it includes is not enjoyable for me. I don't like it even a little bit. The only thing I can compliment is the art, which is VERY good, and definitley better than the next two stories. My big issue is with the story.

It's just so needlessly depressing. There's no happy side to any of it. Normally, I wouldn't mind this. I love depressing stories. But it's hopeless and tragic while simultaneously being completely disinteresting. It's all about a pedophilic landlord killing himself or a girl getting raped while the rapist gets away with it and lives luxuriously. I could deal with it if there was a points, but it doesn't even seem to have any point to make. It bores me and grosses me out.

"A Life Force" is my favorite story in this collection. It's mostly just a view into life in the fictional Dropsie Avenue at the time, but assuming it's realistic, I love seeing what life was like at the time; even if it's also hopeless and depressing. The only issue I had with it is that rather than following one set of characters, it can focus on things that don't come back up or matter at all, with characters that don't contribute to the overall story. Still, if it's all about life, it makes sense to focus on the overall Dropsie experience rather than what a few people experience, especially since experiences are so diverse.

"Dropsie Ave" is very similar to "A Life Force". Rather than one time period, though, it focuses on Dropsie Ave over many years, and ends past where either story takes place in a prosperous community built upon the collapse of the tenements. It's not quite as interesting to me as "A Life Force", but it's still an excellent look into what life was like for various communities over the years.

I'm glad I powered through rather than quitting, because this is probably something every comic fan has read or should read since it's considered by many to be the first graphic novel. I can't reccomend it much, but if you enjoy cartoonists making serious work and this sounds interesting to you, you'll probably like this one.

[Paolo del ventoso Est · Rating 3 out of 5]

Sicuramente tre stelle è un po' ingeneroso per uno dei padri del romanzo grafico. I disegni sono bellissimi nel loro tratto abbozzato e retrò, le storielle hanno quel giusto sapore yiddish newyorkese di inizio Novecento e c'è pure una disperazione di fondo che dà spessore al tutto. Ebbene forse leggerlo in contemporanea con un altro gigante della letteratura ebrea americana, Saul Bellow, l'ha naturalmente ridimensionato; non si dovrebbe mettere in competizione la densità articolata di un romanzo con la levità del fumetto (letto in meno di un'ora), tuttavia viene istintivo e niente, va così e ciao. Forse l'ultimo racconto illustrato, Cookalein, è quello che mi è rimasto più in mente.

[Michael (Mai) · Rating 4 out of 5]

This was a very interesting read. I wouldn't have picked it up if it hadn't been recommended to me by a friend. It's supposed to be the first graphic novel and all of it looks like newspaper comics. It's definitely different than anything else I've read. A lot of the story is focused on the great depression era and before. It's about how this one street, Dropsie Avenue, has changed through time and what the people that live on it have experienced. It's main focus is the Dropsie Tenement, we even see the history of how this building comes to be.

It was great but hard to read at times because of so much hate and racism. It depicts the time though. It's worth reading if you haven't already but be prepared for some bleak stories that break your heart.

[Nnedi · Rating 5 out of 5]

Still the best graphic novel I've read, to date. Despite the fact that Eisner seems to only be able to draw grotesque-looking black people. I mean, look at how he drew the little girl. WTF was that all about? Lol. Anyway, despite that- a most excellent piece of art that I will read again in a few years.

[TK421 · Rating 4 out of 5]

History is but a sketch and a drawing away from being continuously rewritten. Bravo, Mr. Eisner, bravo!

[Ritinha · Rating 5 out of 5]

A masterpiece (3, actually) by the Master.

[David H. · Rating 4 out of 5]

Will Eisner has always been a mixed bag for me. I frequently love his art and hate his characters, with nasty families often cruel to each other (like in A Family Matter or The Name of the Game). But in this and his other works I've read, he can really capture moments and settings--New York City, immigrants, and families.

The first two books of this trilogy are basically short stories (A Contract with God has 4, A Life Force has 11), with the third a continuous "single" story. But all three are set in the fictional Dropsie Avenue in the south Bronx of New York City, and many characters from the earlier books appear in the later. The title story of the first book, "A Contract with God," is a pretty rough story of a former rebbe who loses his daughter, and his anger is palpable and hard to read. A Life Force, the second book, has a continuing thread with Jacob, an elderly Jewish carpenter I just really liked a lot, despite his dissatisfaction in life and hopes for his future.

The third book, Dropsie Avenue, just follows the rise and fall and rise and so on of the neighborhood, and that one just really spoke to me. A line I loved was "In the end buildings are only buildings but people make a neighborhood."

[Vinayak Hegde · Rating 4 out of 5]

Will Eisner essentially invented the graphic novel genre when words and hand-drawn pictures were used only in super hero comics. In that sense it is a one of the first of that genre (Lynn ward amongst other is also a recommended author for his wordless novel). The graphic novel concept addressesed serious topics with fictional stories. In this trilogy, there are three stories all based around Dropsie Avenue - A contract with God, A Life Force and Dropsie Avenue. A contract with god is a whimsical story based on Tenement in New York during the depression era. Similarly Dropsie Avenue traces the history of the neighborhood through it's development as various migrants move in and move out with undertones of social mobility, xenophobia, politics and development. This is a slice of life of New York development for about 100 years from field to row houses to filthy tenements. These reflect the experiences of the author living through the depression era as well as the World Wars. A few of the stories are timeless and the drawing is top notch. With a large cast (for a graphic novel) sometimes the narrative and the characters' language can be hard to follow but this is a worthwhile read that has stood the test of time.

[Dilena Lezpin · Rating 5 out of 5]

Este libro tiene dentro 3 novelas gráficas, que en realidad son consecutivas.
La primera y mas conocida es Contrato con Dios, luego viene Ansia de vivir y termina con la avenida Dropsie.

Todas abordan temas relacionados a la convivencia ciudadana, en donde el hilo conductor es la Avenida Dropsie. Pasa por etapas de sus historia, sus inicios, su transformaciones,y principalmente la mudanza y partida de sus habitantes.

Su esencia cambiante es muy interesante de leer. Además de que los dibujos del Eisner pueden llegar a ser cautivantes e impactantes. Tiene secuencias de acción sin palabras que son muy geniales. También tiene una peculiaridad que no tiene los bordes externos de los recuadros(no se ve esto en novelas gráficas modernas); y fue interesante como parecía fusionarse como una arte.

Es fácil conectarse con los personajes, entender sus emociones, sus decisiones, sus reacciones.
También aprendí mucho del mundo de bienes raices, política y migración.

Un libro que no es para niños. Y aporta mucho tanto o más que una novela corriente.
Recomiendo esta la "primera novela gráfica" de la historia.

[David · Rating 4 out of 5]

I've read some of Eisner's other work, particularly his Spirit comics...which are both brilliant and a little bit awkward. This is a primal graphic novel, one that predates most of the modern genre. It's intense. The energy of his inking is undeniable, as is his preference for the visceral and the edgy.

I'm entirely sure this couldn't get published today, but that doesn't necessarily diminish it. The ground of this story is a tenement in the Bronx, as we're offered up three variant spins on the lives that have played out in that little universe-in-itself. Character studies, vignettes, and an array of interlocking narrative arcs all wok.

The way Eisner toys with ethnicity can be particularly challenging to our contemporary ethos..and it's difficult to say just how much I clicked with it at times. It's rough, alive, cynical, and hopeful, all at the same time.

A fascinating, beautiful, horrible work from a 20th century master.

[Glen Farrelly · Rating 4 out of 5]

I know this is a classic and the original works were integral for creating the graphic novel medium. Other reviewers here cover Eisner and this work's cultural impact and legacy. I acknowledge the importance of the work, I just didn't much enjoy this work reading it today in terms of its story and characters. The artwork and world-building are solid, but the stories were bleak and the characters too one dimensional or uninteresting.

To get a sense of Eisner's genius, I prefer his work on the Spirit. I highly recommend this as a much more enjoyable and impressive read: The Best of the Spirit

[Max · Rating 5 out of 5]

Will Eisner is often regarded as the father of the modern-day graphic novel. The Contract with God trilogy depicts his first three works in this medium, that jumpstarted an entire industry.

Eisner describes himself as "a graphic witness reporting on life, death, heartbreak and the never-never ending struggle to prevail," which is exactly what the book contains—stories of real people living their lives, often in heartbreaking and terrible ways. The trilogy follows the lives of people living in a fictional tenement building, resembling a New York suburb. All the stories depict people living the way Eisner saw them, covering themes such as religion, poverty, coming of age, and segregation. The stories often had me stopping to pause in disgust or heartbreak.

Throughout the trilogy, Eisner begins writing in a form that more closely resembles pictures with a caption than it does comics. Over time you can see Eisner adopt the paneling structure that we are used to today, while also remaining creative with how he allows the structure to flow, instead of having a rigid 3 x 3 grid of panels. It is interesting reading his original works and seeing where everything I am used to in graphic novels began.

While it can be a gut-wrenching read at times, I recommend this book to anyone who is a fan of graphic novels, especially ones with a more serious tone.

[Joshua · Rating 2 out of 5]

I appreciate the historical context of this being “the first graphic novel” or whatever but Jesus Christ the characters are horribly written. Radicalized people, drug addicts, and communists are characterized and drawn as grotesque monsters, women are objects for pedophilia, rape, and domestic violence, the neighbourhood as a character is bland and serves only as a blank slate for moralizing about societal decay.

I really enjoyed the first book but by the third book it was clear that nothing of any substance was going to be written about.

[Robin K · Rating 3 out of 5]

3.5 stars. Interesting graphic novel. Each book of the trilogy is set in one location, a street in the Bronx. The first book is made up of longer, stand alone short stories. The second is a set short stories, which interweave as neighbors’ lives intersect. The third traces the history of the location from the first European settlers to the 20th Century. I thought the art seemed somewhat racist and dated, but also the fact is, I’m just not a short story person, so hence this rating.

[Itamar · Rating 3 out of 5]

This isn't something I'd have picked up on my own, but since it was recommended (and lent) to me, I quite enjoyed it.
The art is monochrome but effective, with a style that's quite different from comics I'd r doead before (thank you, Understanding Comics!) and the stories very human in both scope and character.

I actually especially like the fictive history of Dropsie Avenue depicted in here, from 1870 onward, with its cycle of immigration and emigration over generations. Sadder than I expected.

All in all, an interesting read, although I doubt it will leave a long-term impression.

[Cuchillo Lope · Rating 4 out of 5]

It’s a sweeping epic of a piece of New York. I think it’s a classic for a reason. It has this beautiful flowing nature to the art. It feels alive. It feels lived in.
I loved seeing these characters change over time as the very city itself changes. It’s a story of “the other” and how they change and adapt to not only fit in, but keep their own piece of culture. Harrowing and uplifting as time moves on.
It is a little funny to see how much Will Eisner dislikes communism and socialism and a slight disdain for unions. Those moments had me roll my eyes a bit.
A fantastic story and great example of what a graphic novel can do and make you feel. It’s wonderful.

[Lee · Rating 4 out of 5]

Beautifully illustrated but it's hard to say that I truly enjoyed it? At its heart, it's a slice of life with all that comes with it.

I did find the earlier sections stronger in their storytelling than the final ones.

It is very easy to see why it's such a famous example of graphic novels though.

[Federica · Rating 4 out of 5]

Nel Bronx, a Dropsie Avenue, e in particolare al n. 55, passa la storia, quella dell'America del cuore del '900, della Grande Depressione, delle bande di quartiere, della povertà, dell'immigrazione... e passa l'uomo, quello deluso da un contratto con Dio, il cantante di strada che perde un'occasione, l'uomo comune che si chiede il senso della vita, e uno scarafaggio che (soprav)vive e basta.
Eisner racconta in questa trilogia l'uomo, fatto di mille sfaccettature e contraddizioni, e racconta una parte della sua vita, e di ciò che ha visto. Quello che esce fuori è il ritratto di un quartiere inventato, ma vero come non mai.

[Luis Bernardino · Rating 4 out of 5]

Um livro que a nível gráfico é um autêntico superlativo.
O argumento não é tão homogêneo, mas na sua totalidade é uma grande obra que retrata a vida de um bairro duma cidade, que afinal não é mais do que a vida dos seus habitantes.
Leitura obrigatória para quem gosta de novelas gráficas.