WILL EISNER WEEK, MARCH 1-10, CELEBRATES THE ‘FATHER OF THE MODERN GRAPHIC NOVEL’ IN A DOZEN CITIES

NEW YORK (February 20, 2013) - The Will and Ann Eisner Family Foundation is proud to announce Will Eisner Week 2013, a ten-day series of events in more than a dozen cities nationwide that celebrates graphic novels, free speech awareness, and the career and legacy of Will Eisner, one of the most innovative figures in the history of comics and graphic novels.

Will Eisner Week’s theme this year is, “Read a Graphic Novel,” which will be the underlying message of all the events. Cities holding celebrations include New York, Los Angeles, San Francisco, Boston, Seattle, and Minneapolis.

Will Eisner Week 2013 has added significance, as it marks 35 years since the 1978 publication of Eisner’s groundbreaking graphic novel, “A Contract With God.”

“This year, we will be having Will Eisner Week celebrations in more places than ever before,” said Will Eisner Week Organizing Committee Chair Danny Fingeroth. “The people doing the events are planning some amazing happenings that will spread the word about how cool graphic novels are, and that celebrate Will Eisner’s astonishing body of work done over a career that spanned seven decades.”

Will Eisner Week 2013 events include:

March 1-15, SAVANNAH, GA: Savannah College of Art and Design will hold several events run by Professor David Duncan, including a March 2 screening of “Will Eisner: Portrait of a Sequential Artist” and various Eisner-themed art sessions.

March 2, 4:00-4:55 PM, SEATTLE, WA:  Emerald City Comic Convention panel: Eisner’s “A Contract With God—Reflections on the 35th Anniversary,” featuring Dennis O’Neil, Batton Lash, Matt Fraction, Jackie Estrada, and Ben Saunders.

March 3-10, PITTSBURGH, PA: Various events at the Toonseum, including a screening of the documentary “Will Eisner: Portrait of a Sequential Artist” by Andrew & Jon Cooke on March 6.

March 4-8, ARKADELPHIA, AR: The Comics Arts Club of Henderson State University, under the direction of Professor Randy Duncan, will study Eisner’s work in the context of Immigrant Experience Focus Week.

March 6: 7:30 PM, PORTLAND, OR: The Art Institute of Portland: Lecture on Eisner by Dark Horse Editor Diana Schutz.

March 7, 6:30-9:30 PM, NEW YORK, NY: The Society of Illustrators hosts a Will Eisner Sketch Night.

March 7, 7:00-9:00 PM, SAN FRANCISCO, CA: The Cartoon Art Museum. An Evening With Mario Hernandez, including a discussion of Eisner’s influence. 

March 7, 7:30 PM, PORTLAND, OR: The Jack London Bar. A reading of Eisner’s “Last Day in Vietnam,” with Brian Bendis, Matt Fraction, Kelly Sue DeConnick, Michael Oeming, and Dylan Meconis.

March 7, 7:00-9:30 PM, BOSTON, MA: Tufts University. Screening of “Will Eisner: Portrait of a Sequential Artist,” followed by a panel discussion including A. David Lewis, Chuck Henebry, and Stephen Weiner.

March 10, 1:00-4:00 PM, MINNEAPOLIS, MN: Minneapolis College of Art and Design hosts a Graphic Novel Read-In, featuring a screening of “Will Eisner: Portrait of a Sequential Artist.”

March 11, 7:00-9:00 PM, NEW YORK, NY:  Parsons/The New School, Comics & Picture-Story Symposium. Jeremy Dauber and Danny Fingeroth discuss Eisner’s work in the context of Jewish-American literature.

March 12, WHITE RIVER JUNCTION, VT: Center for Cartoon Studies. Lecture on Eisner by Stephen Bissette. (For CCS students only.)

March 14, 7:30 PM, BURBANK, CA: The Animation Guild will hold a special Comic Art Professional Society meeting devoted to Eisner, hosted by Scott! Shaw.

Celebrations are also being planned for Amherst, MA and Washington, DC. Check www.willeisnerweek.com for updates on all events.

About WILL EISNER:

WILL EISNER (1917-2005) grew up in the tenement Bronx of the Great Depression. He was a pioneer in the creation of comics of the "golden age" of the 1930s and '40s, achieving immortality with his noir crime fighting superhero, The Spirit, the first character to star in a comics insert distributed in newspapers. At one time or another, just about every comics great of his own and succeeding generations worked with and for Eisner, including Jules Feiffer, Wallace Wood, Jack Kirby, Al Jaffee, and Mike Ploog. When The Spirit ceased publication in 1952, Eisner devoted himself to producing educational and instructional Sequential Art, a term he coined. Then, in 1978, Eisner reinvented himself—and the medium— again with his graphic novel A Contract with God, the first of a series of works focused, for the most part with a compassionate yet unsentimental lens, on early 20th century Jewish life in America. Other notable graphic novels included To The Heart of the Storm, A Life Force, Last Day In Vietnam, and Fagin. At the time of his 2005 death, Eisner had just completed The Plot, a comics-form refutation of the resurgent anti-Semitic Protocols of the Elders of Zion, which was released posthumously by W.W. Norton.

About WILL EISNER WEEK:

WILL EISNER WEEK is an annual series of celebrations that takes place in multiple cities, timed around Eisner’s March 6th birthday. Started in 2009, Will Eisner Week is dedicated to promoting graphic novels, literacy, free speech awareness, and the legacy of Will Eisner. This year Will Eisner Week is primarily being celebrated March 1-10 in locales including New York City, Portland (OR), Seattle, Columbus (OH), Minneapolis, Savannah, Burbank, Pittsburgh, San Francisco, Arkadelphia (AR), and Amherst. Will Eisner Week details can be found at www.willeisnerweek.com.