Will Eisner Original Spirit Art: The Good Ole Days p.7 (1950)

May 28, 1950. Page 7 from “The Good Old Days” (Baseball story).

WILL EISNER, JULES FEIFFER & TEX BLAISDELL • THE SPIRIT • May 28, 1950 (and 1948*). Page 7 from “The Good Old Days” (and page 5 or 6 from Baseball Comics #2).

As a framing device, Commissioner Dolan is at a Central City ballpark telling Sammy about a legendary baseball game pitting the dominant American League teams of 1907: the Detroit Tigers and the Philadelphia Athletics, featuring superstars of the era like Ty Cobb, Sam Crawford, Rube Waddell, and others. This concluding page tells how the game ended in a tie, paving the way for the Tigers to win the 1907 AL pennant. And, of course, younf Sammy, who is not especially interested in a game played over four decades earlier, is sound asleep in an empty stadium. For the full understanding of this story’s unusual history read the back-story below:

*Back-story: The bulk of the 7-page “Good Old Days” Spirit story (minus the splash and 2^nd page) was originally created in 1948 for Baseball Comics #2. Jules Feiffer wrote the story and Tex Blaisdell drew it. Will Eisner had briefly started his own comic book line that year, publishing Kewpies and Baseball Comics #1, with John Law #1 (a solo Eisner creation) and Baseball Comics #2 poised to be printed, when he quickly pulled the plug.

The comic book market was congested in 1948 and the initial sales numbers did not look promising for a start-up imprint, so Eisner shelved the unpublished titles. A portion of the John Law #1 contents was famously converted by Eisner into what became an all-time Spirit classic: the 2-part “Sand Saref” story published in January 1950. Five months after that conversion, probably spurred by a deadline crisis, a 6-page story created for Baseball Comics #2 became this “Good Old Days” Spirit story. Eisner finished the story himself to complete the conversion.

Medium/Size/Condition: Brush, pen, and ink on Bristol board measuring 13.75 x 22 inches (34.9 x 52.8 cm. White tape at top and bottom, applied by Eisner to cover up yellowing from original 1948 Baseball Comics rubber cement. Considerable White-Out in the opening panel and a smattering elsewhere. Oddly enough, given the history recited above, there are no paste-ups, which strongly indicates that Eisner drew the entire page himself, loosely emulating Blaisdell’s style in the first four panels, for internal consistency. Excellent condition.