WILL
EISNER (1917-2005) Complete 7-page
Spirit Story
August 12, 1951. "THE FOXTROT
POLL."
This story represent Eisner's take
on early television. The splash page makes a big point
of this being "color television" because all sets were
black and white in the early '50s.
Eisner's normally
more inventive page layouts here become
sequence of rigid, heavily-outlined, squares to
effectively mimic TV screens. Eisner cleverly weaves a
Spirit television adventure between interviews with Commissioner
Dolan.
The story is also distinctive because
it is (I think) the very last appearance of notorious
femme fatale Sand Saref, introduced a
year and a half earlier in the converted John-Law-to-Spirit
stories. The art here is almost all Eisner, though
hurried in places because his life in 1951 (doing much
commercial work) was far more complicated than earlier
years when he could devote full-time to The Spirit.
The splash page is weak but, overall, one of the
stronger 1951 stories.
Condition: No
paste-ups (except the title and 1st panel on splash
page. Very little White-out.
Size: 15 x 22 inches
(38 x 56 centimeters) on heavy Bristol board.
Provenance: Warranted
to be from the Will Eisner estate, which this agency
exclusively represents.
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