Thu Aug 28, 2008 — by Robert Greenberger

Will Eisner's Final Book Out This Week

Textbook on Anatomy Latest Must Have

Will Eisner’s final book, Expressive Anatomy For Comics and Narrative, was released this week from W.W. Norton without a lot of fanfare. It would have slipped our notice had James Vance not discussed it at his blog.

Among his comments, Vance wrote, “But the reward was being allowed to pore over decades’ worth of Eisner work, concentrating on it as never before, and learning all over again just what a terrific craftsman he was. Even the pieces which I’d dismissed as lesser work revealed lovely little nuggets of compassion in the characterizations, brilliance in construction and masterful shorthand in the staging. Old school or not, at its best Will’s stuff is still among the few examples in the graphic storytelling field that’s truly for grownups.”

The book completes a series of text books by the acknowledged master of the artform and supplements his 1985 volume Comics and Sequential Art and 1996’s Graphic Storytelling and Visual Narrative.

Eisner, 1917-2005, was at work on the book when he had the heart surgery that surprisingly led to his death.
 

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