Eisner & Iger was a
comic bookA comic book or comicbook is a magazine made up of comics, narrative artwork in the form of separate panels that represent individual scenes, often accompanied by dialog as well as including...
"packager" that produced comics on demand for publishers entering the new medium during the late-1930s and 1940s period fans and historians call the
Golden Age of Comic BooksThe Golden Age of Comic Books was a period in the history of American comic books, generally thought of as lasting from the late 1930s until the late 1940s or early 1950s...
. Many of comic books' most significant creators, including
Jack KirbyJack Kirby , born Jacob Kurtzberg, was an American comic book artist, writer and editor regarded by historians and fans as one of the major innovators and most influential creators in the comic book medium....
, entered the field through its doors.
The company, formally titled the
Eisner and Iger Studio, was also known as
Syndicated Features Corporation.
Will EisnerWilliam Erwin "Will" Eisner was an American comics writer, artist and entrepreneur. He is considered one of the most important contributors to the development of the medium and is known for the cartooning studio he founded; for his highly influential series The Spirit; for his use of comics as an...
, in a 1997 interviewed, referred to the company as both "Eisner & Iger" and the "Art Syndication Company". It existed from 1936–1939. In addition to comic books, the company also sold color comic strips, such as
Adventures of the Red Mask and
Pop's Night Out, to newspapers.
Its origin has been recounted by its namesakes, Will Eisner and
Jerry IgerSamuel Maxwell "Jerry" Iger was an American cartoonist. With business partner Will Eisner he co-founder of Eisner & Iger, a comic book packager that produced comics on demand for new publishers during the late-1930s and 1940s period known to fans and historians as the Golden Age of Comic...
, in highly different ways, each given below, in alphabetical order.
Eisner & Iger was formed to service the emerging market for American comic books, which had originated in the early '30s as tabloid-sized magazines that reprinted
newspaperA newspaper is a scheduled publication containing news of current events, informative articles, diverse features and advertising. It usually is printed on relatively inexpensive, low-grade paper such as newsprint. By 2007, there were 6580 daily newspapers in the world selling 395 million copies a...
comic strips, adding color to black-and-white daily comics. By 1935, sporadic new material was beginning to be created for them. One such seminal comic book,
Wow, What a Magazine! was edited by Samuel Maxwell "Jerry" Iger, a former cartoonist.
Wow, which folded after issue #4 (Nov. 1936), brought Iger together with a 19-year-old Will Eisner — the future creator of
The SpiritThe Spirit is a crime-fighting fictional character created by writer-artist Will Eisner. He first appeared June 2, 1940 in "The Spirit Section", the colloquial name given to a 16-page Sunday supplement, distributed to 20 newspapers by the Register and Tribune Syndicate and reaching five million...
and some of the earliest and most influential graphic novels — who wrote and drew the adventure feature "Scott Dalton", the pirate feature "The Flame", and the
secret agentSecret Agent is a British film directed by Alfred Hitchcock, loosely based on two stories in Ashenden: Or the British Agent by W. Somerset Maugham. The film starred John Gielgud, Peter Lorre, Madeleine Carroll, and Robert Young...
feature "Harry Karry" for
Wow.
Will Eisner account
According to Eisner, the demise of
Wow prompted him to suggest that he and the out-of-work Iger form a partnership to produce new comics, anticipating that the well of available reprints would soon run dry. In late 1936, he said, the two formed Eisner & Iger, one of the first comics packagers. Iger was 32; Eisner claimed to be 25 so as not to scare Iger off.
As Eisner recounted,
Renting a one-room office on East 41st Street in Manhattan for $5 a month (the first three months' rent fronted by Eisner, who'd just been paid for a one-time
commercial artCommercial art is historically a subsector of creative services, referring to art created for commercial purposes, primarily advertising. The term has become increasingly anachronistic in favor of more contemporary terms such as graphic design and advertising art.Commercial art traditionally...
job. for a product called Gre-Solvent), Eisner & Iger began with the former as the sole
writingA writer is a person who produces literature, such as novels, short stories, plays, screenplays, poetry, or other literary art. Skilled writers are able to use language to portray ideas and images....
and
artAn artist is a person engaged in one or more of any of a broad spectrum of activities related to creating art, practicing the arts and/or demonstrating an art. The common usage in both everyday speech and academic discourse is a practitioner in the visual arts only...
staff and the latter handling sales and also
letteringA letterer is a member of a team of comic book creators responsible for drawing the comic book's text. The letterer's use of typefaces, calligraphy, letter size, and layout all contribute to the impact of the comic. The letterer crafts the comic's "display lettering": the story title lettering and...
the comics. Through Eisner's use of pseudonyms, including "Willis Rensie" ("Eisner" spelled backward) and "Erwin" (his middle name), the company gave the impression of being larger than it was.
A fictionalized account of Eisner's time with the company is depicted in Eisner's largely autobiographical
graphic novelA graphic novel is a narrative work in which the story is conveyed to the reader using sequential art in either an experimental design or in a traditional comics format...
,
The Dreamer.
Jerry Iger account
In a 1985 account, Iger said:
Note: Eisner was not
draftedConscription is the compulsory enlistment of people in some sort of national service, most often military service. Conscription dates back to antiquity and continues in some countries to the present day under various names...
in 1940, but in 1942. Eisner did leave the firm in 1940 to produce
The Spirit.
Company history and influence
However it was structured, the firm grew to be one of the most successful and influential of such comics packagers as Funnies, Inc. (which supplied the contents of
Marvel ComicsMarvel Mystery Comics is an American comic book series published during the 1930s-1940s period known to fans and historians as the Golden Age of Comic Books...
#1, including the
Human TorchThe Human Torch, also known as Jim Hammond, is a fictional character, a Marvel Comics-owned superhero. Created by writer-artist Carl Burgos, he first appeared in Marvel Comics #1 , published by Marvel's predecessor, Timely Comics....
, the Sub-Mariner and the Angel) and the quirkily named Harry "A" Chesler's studio.
Its first client, made through Iger's connections at
Wow! was Editors Press Service. Joshua B. Powers, reportedly a former U.S. government agent whose beat was
South AmericaSouth America is a continent situated in the Western Hemisphere, mostly in the Southern Hemisphere, with a relatively small portion in the Northern Hemisphere. The continent is also considered a subcontinent of the Americas. It is bordered on the west by the Pacific Ocean and on the north and east...
, had founded the company when he retired, and provided Latin American newspapers with comics strips, cooking features and other material in exchange for ad space that he would in turn sell to U.S. companies. After expanding to other countries, Editors Press Service had a
BritishGreat Britain or Britain is an island situated to the northwest of Continental Europe. It is the ninth largest island in the world, and the largest European island, as well as the largest of the British Isles...
client, the magazine
Wags, for which Eisner and Iger, under the pseudonym "W. Morgan Thomas," created the leggy, leopard-wearing jungle goddess
SheenaSheena, Queen of the Jungle is a fictional, American comic book jungle girl heroine, published originally by Fiction House. The female counterpart to Tarzan, Sheena had two things in common with Edgar Rice Burrough's Jungle Lord: Both possessed the ability to communicate with wild animals and were...
. That much-imitated "female
TarzanTarzan is a fictional character, an archetypal feral child raised in the African jungles by the Mangani "great apes"; he later experiences civilization only to largely reject it and return to the wild as a heroic adventurer...
" would become famous stateside in 1938 when writer "William Thomas" and artist
Mort MeskinMorton "Mort" Meskin was a prolific American comic book artist best-known for his work in the 1940s Golden Age of comic books, well into the late-1950s and 1960s Silver Age.-Early life:...
took over her exploits in Eisner & Iger client
Fiction HouseFiction House is an American publisher of pulp magazines and comic books that existed from the 1920s to the 1950s. Its comics division was best known for its pinup-style good girl art, as epitomized by the company's most popular character, Sheena, Queen of the Jungle.-History:-Jumbo and Jack...
's
Jumbo Comics #1.
Eisner & Iger created material as well for Fox Comics,
Quality ComicsQuality Comics was an American comic book publishing company that operated from 1939 to 1956 and was an influential creative force in what historians and fans call the Golden Age of comic books....
, and others. By 1939, the firm had 15 writers, artists and letterers on staff, according to Eisner: "They were working for me full-time, on salary. I tried to avoid dealing with freelancers on a per-page basis", although future industry
Jack KirbyJack Kirby , born Jacob Kurtzberg, was an American comic book artist, writer and editor regarded by historians and fans as one of the major innovators and most influential creators in the comic book medium....
has called his early work in the Eisner & Iger office freelance). Other future luminaries who worked there included
Lou FineLouis Kenneth Fine was an American comic book artist known for his work during the 1940s Golden Age of comic books, where his quality draftsmanship became an influential model to a generation of fellow comics artists....
,
Bob KaneBob Kane was an American comic book artist and writer, credited as the creator of the DC Comics superhero Batman...
, Wallace Wood,
Bob PowellBob Powell né Stanislav Robert Pawlowski was an American comic book artist known for his work during the 1930-40s Golden Age of comic books, including on the features "Sheena, Queen of the Jungle" and "Mr. Mystic". He received a belated credit in 1999 for co-writing the debut of the popular...
and
Jules FeifferJules Ralph Feiffer is an American syndicated cartoonist, most notable for his long-run comic strip titled Feiffer. He has created more than 35 books, plays and screenplays...
. During this time, Eisner is credited with co-creating characters including
Doll ManNote: This article is about the Quality Comics character. For the Full Moon Features film Dollman, see Dollman . For the article on the movie's titular character, please see Brick Bardo....
, and
BlackhawkBlackhawk, a long-running comic book series, was also a film serial, a radio series and a novel. The comic book was published first by Quality Comics and later by DC Comics. The series was created by Will Eisner, Chuck Cuidera, and Bob Powell, but the artist most associated with the feature is Reed...
.
Turning a profit of $1.50 a page, Eisner claimed, "I got very rich before I was 22", later detailing that in
Depression-eraThe Great Depression was a severe worldwide economic depression in the decade preceding World War II. The timing of the Great Depression varied across nations, but in most countries it started in about 1929 and lasted until the late 1930s or early 1940s...
1939, for example, he and Iger "had split $25,000 between us", a considerable amount for the time.
After Eisner sold his share of company stock to Iger in late 1939 or early 1940 in order to leave and launch
The SpiritThe Spirit is a crime-fighting fictional character created by writer-artist Will Eisner. He first appeared June 2, 1940 in "The Spirit Section", the colloquial name given to a 16-page Sunday supplement, distributed to 20 newspapers by the Register and Tribune Syndicate and reaching five million...
, Iger would continue to package comics as the
S. M. Iger Studio through 1955.