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A legendary graphic novelist gets the (bio)graphic novel treatment
In 1992, Art Spiegelman’s Maus won the Pulitzer prize.
The first graphic novel to win the award, Maus testified both to Spiegelman’s singular brilliance and to the graphic novel’s acceptance as a serious medium. This owed a great deal to one man: Will Eisner.
A legendary figure within the comic book and graphic novel industries, yet comparatively lesser-known without, a new biography of Eisner from longtime graphic novelists Steve Weiner and Dan Muzur introduces Eisner to a new generation.
And to do justice to the life and career of the man who coined the term graphic novel, the duo have written — you guessed it — a graphic novel, entitled Will Eisner: A Comics Biography.
“What, it should be an opera?” Mazur joked, when I met him and Weiner over Zoom. “If you want to learn about Will Eisner, and you don’t want to read a graphic novel, I don’t know how that works.”
Mazur and Weiner had moved in the same comics circles in Cambridge, MA, for several years. Their work had even appeared side by side in 2017’s Cambridge Companion to the Graphic Novel. But they officially met only in 2022, when Weiner pitched Mazur a graphic novel about Eisner-the-artist and Eisner-the-man.
The pair clicked immediately. “We just started talking about the books and comics we liked,” said Weiner, who has a shock of curly white hair. “I thought: This is going to work.”
Mazur, an expert on early comic history, was especially taken by the idea of illustrating Eisner’s “grubby, romantic career beginnings.” What’s more, he and Weiner both felt Eisner’s early career had never been properly examined.
“We wanted to think about what the challenges really were for him in this industry that wasn’t yet an industry,” Weiner told me.
Striking out on his own
The biography’s first section takes the reader from Eisner’s upbringing in 1920s Jewish Brooklyn to the still-fledgling world of comics in the 1930s. Mazur’s drawings are effective at capturing the poverty of Depression-era New York, while Weiner, who wrote the narrative, details the considerable drive Eisner needed to pull himself up.
Interestingly, though the biography is about Eisner’s work, we don’t see examples of his drawings; the duo are less concerned with the specifics of Eisner’s art than with the life that made it possible and the stories he told.
During the first half of the 1930s, Eisner eked out a living as a writer-cartoonist for the New York Journal-American, a now-defunct New York City daily that was the first American newspaper to publish a daily comic strip. He also found work as a freelance illustrator for various pulp magazines. One such publication was the short-lived Wow!, which lasted just four issues, but whose editor — Jerry Iger, now perhaps overshadowed in popular memory by his grand-nephew Bob, CEO of the Disney corporation — took a particular liking to Eisner’s work.
The two formed Eisner & Iger in 1936, which established itself as the most important comic book packager of its time. Several artists who would eventually rank among America’s most influential passed through the business’ one-room office on East 41st Street — including, most notably, Jack Kirby (Jacob Kurtzberg, by birth), who went on to create many of the Marvel Comics characters that are today Hollywood staples.
Eisner, though, sold his share of the firm to Iger in 1939, having signed an agreement with a Sunday newspaper to draw comics. The Spirit, an Eisner character that first appeared in the Des Moises Register in June 1940, would morph into a regular 16-page Sunday comic strip supplement known colloquially as “The Spirit Section.” At its height, it featured in 20 Sunday newspapers and had a circulation of more than five million copies.
The Spirit was the first truly highbrow comic strip, and Eisner’s most enduring creation. (“It made a big impact on me,” said Mazur.) The domino mask-wearing private investigator possessed no superpowers, relying on his wit and physical prowess alone. In many ways, he was a vehicle for Eisner to experiment with genre and tone, exploring the kind of thorny moral terrain that conventional superhero comics wouldn’t even gesture at.
P’Gell of Paris, for example, a supporting character in The Spirit Section, was a none-too-subtle allusion to the Parisian district of Pigalle, which, during World War II was a red light district popular among U.S. servicemen. Her dark, seductive demeanor was Eisner’s tribute to the femme fatales of the noir films that dominated 1950s cinema, while her success in getting under the Spirit’s skin — Eisner’s protagonist was usually unflappable — upended the gender dynamics of 1950s superhero comics.
In time, The Spirit would provide a blueprint of sorts for a later generation of graphic novelists. In its depth and ambition, however, it was wholly out of step with the so-called Marvel Boom of the 1950s and ‘60s.
“He was too far ahead of his time,” Mazur said. “That’s why he left.”
The graphic novel arrives
After the United States entered WWII in 1941, Eisner spent four years in the Pentagon designing instructional comics for military magazines. He enjoyed the relative dependability of the work, Mazur told me. He had also grown tired of the homogeneity of superhero comics, so what began as a wartime position grew into a peacetime business.
For the better part of three decades, Eisner supplied the military and other companies with educational comics. His most frequent publication was Preventive Maintenance Monthly, which colorfully detailed ways to guard against equipment mishaps. (Its protagonist was G.I. Joe Dope, a chronically wayward infantryman.)
Two things revived Eisner’s interest in the comics industry. First, the emergence of a new, and decidedly Eisner-esque, approach to comics. Eisner attended various comics conventions in the early 1970s, where he was surprised by the variety of offerings and, on occasion, feted as a returning hero.
“Guys in their 20s were running up to him, saying, ‘Oh, Will Eisner! The Spirit is so great!’” Mazur said. “For a guy who’d always wanted to be creative, what was happening then was just too appealing to not want to be part of.”
The second was less heartening: The death of Eisner’s 16-year-old daughter Alice, from leukemia, in 1970.
The result was Eisner’s profoundly personal 1978 book, A Contract with God: and Other Tenement Stories, about life in an impoverished Jewish tenement in New York City; the titular story described a religious man giving up his faith after his young daughter dies.
Eisner presented Contract with God to publishers as a “graphic novel,” the first known use of the term. Though comics had already outgrown their superhero origins, Eisner wanted to make this difference obvious for audiences.
Contract with God ushered in the era of the graphic novel as a longer, more literary endeavor, distinct from comics; Eisner would write no fewer than 20 over the next 30 years. Many explored Jewish themes — Fagin the Jew, expanding the backstory of the Charles Dickens character, is an obvious example — while others were artistic takes on classic novels like Moby Dick.
Though Mazur’s more expressive drawing style is nothing like the rigid, straight-edged approach Eisner favored, it is nonetheless superb at conveying Eisner’s evolution. The result is warm and inviting, or, as one reviewer put it, a haimish biography, a term Eisner would have doubtless recognised.
It’s a worthy tribute to a man who, first with The Spirit, and later with Contract with God, laid the foundation for Spiegelman’s Pulitzer win.
“Eisner saw what no one else saw,” Weiner said. “He saw that there was no limit to how this form could be used,” Mazur added.
The post A legendary graphic novelist gets the (bio)graphic novel treatment appeared first on The Forward.
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French Jewish Community Marks 20 Years Since Ilan Halimi’s Brutal Murder
A crowd gathers at the Jardin Ilan Halimi in Paris on Feb. 14, 2021, to commemorate the 15th anniversary of Halimi’s kidnapping and murder. Photo: Reuters/Xose Bouzas/Hans Lucas
France’s Jewish community on Tuesday commemorated the 20th anniversary of the death of Ilan Halimi, a young Jewish man who was brutally tortured to death, as his memory continues to be defaced amid a rising tide of antisemitism threatening Jews and Israelis across the country.
“Twenty years on, Ilan Halimi’s memory still needs to be protected and honored, yet it continues to come under attack, as recent vandalism at his memorial site shows,” the Representative Council of Jewish Institutions of France (CRIF) — the main representative body of French Jews — wrote in a post on X.
“Antisemitism remains a persistent threat in France today,” the statement read.
Le 20 janvier 2006 marque l’enlèvement et le début de la séquestration d’Ilan Halimi, 23 ans, parce qu’il était Juif.
20 ans plus tard, alors que la mémoire d’Ilan Halimi doit être protégée et honorée, elle continue d’être atteinte, comme l’ont montré les récents actes de… pic.twitter.com/Htu9ntMHhq
— CRIF (@Le_CRIF) January 20, 2026
Last week, another olive tree planted to honor Halimi’s memory was vandalized and cut down, as French authorities continue efforts to replant trees in remembrance of the young Jewish man who was murdered in 2006.
“We will bring those responsible to justice,” French Interior Minister Laurent Nunez wrote in a post on X. “Our collective outrage is matched only by our unwavering determination to combat antisemitic and anti-religious acts that continue to tarnish the memory of an innocent man.”
This latest antisemitic act came after a plaque honoring Halimi was vandalized in Cagnes-sur-Mer, a town in southeastern France, prompting local authorities to open an investigation for “destruction and antisemitic damage.”
According to local reports, a 29-year-old man with no prior criminal record has been arrested. While he admitted to the acts, he denied any antisemitic motive and is now awaiting trial.
Last year, a tree planted in memory of Halimi was also vandalized and cut down in Épinay-sur-Seine, a suburb north of Paris.
Two Tunisian twin brothers were arrested and convicted for cutting down the tree, but were acquitted of the antisemitism charges brought against them.
Both of them were sentenced to eight months in prison, but one of them received a suspended sentence, meaning he will not serve time unless he commits another offense or violates certain conditions.
According to local media, one of the brothers has reportedly been deported from France.
Halimi was abducted, held captive, and tortured in January 2006 by a gang of about 20 people in a low-income housing estate in the Paris suburb of Bagneux.
Three weeks later, Halimi was found in Essonne, south of Paris, naked, gagged, and handcuffed, with clear signs of torture and burns. The 23-year-old died on the way to the hospital.
In 2011, French authorities planted the first olive tree in Halimi’s memory. However, the young Jewish boy’s memory has faced attacks before, with two other trees planted in his honor vandalized in 2019 in Essonne, where he was found dying near a railway track.
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Mourner’s Kaddish for Bondi Beach victims recited in Australian parliament as tougher hate crime laws pass
(JTA) — A Jewish member of Australian Parliament recited the Mourner’s Kaddish in an address Monday to honor the victims of the Hanukkah massacre on Bondi Beach.
The address, delivered by Jewish parliamentarian and former attorney general Mark Dreyfus, came over a month after two gunmen motivated by what authorities said was “Islamic State ideology” opened fire on a celebration in Sydney, killing 15 and injuring dozens more. Most of the victims were Jewish, and Dreyfus read all of their names aloud.
Dreyfus, who wore a kippah for the presentation, then commended the “acts of extraordinary courage” by bystanders and emergency workers during the attack, naming Ahmed al-Ahmed, the Muslim man who received widespread support from the Jewish community after he was shot while disarming one of the attackers. He also told the Australian House of Representatives that the country’s “response cannot be confined to grief,” exhorting his fellow lawmakers to take action around “upholding our laws against hate.”
Then he invited everyone present to rise for the Mourner’s Kaddish, recited in Jewish communities in memory of the dead.
“You don’t have to be Jewish to feel this in your chest, an attack like this hurts all of us,” Dreyfus said, describing the prayer as “a prayer about life, dignity and the hope for peace at times of profound loss.”
The public recitation was redolent of the decision of the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette to publish the Hebrew text of the prayer on its front page following the murder of 11 Jews in their synagogue there in 2018.
https://www.instagram.com/p/DTtw-r7Dehs/?hl=en
Late Tuesday, Australia’s parliament passed anti-hate speech and gun reform bills initiated in the wake of the attack. The gun reform bill included new checks on firearm license applications and a national gun buy-back program, while the anti-hate speech bill banned hate groups and imposed penalties for preachers who promote hate.
The hate speech component won support from liberal lawmakers who said they had free-speech concerns after it was weakened from its initial version.
“The terrorists at Bondi Beach had hatred in their hearts and guns in their hands,” wrote Prime Minister Anthony Albanese in a post on X. “Today we passed new laws that deal with both. Combatting antisemitism and cracking down on guns.”
The new laws come as Australia grapples with another searing antisemitic incident. Late in the day on Monday, five Jewish teenagers in Melbourne were chased for several minutes by a car whose occupants chanted “Heil Hitler” and performed Nazi salutes at them.
The boys, aged 15 and 16 and easily identifiable as Orthodox Jews, were walking home from Adass High School when the incident occurred in the proximity of Adass Israel Synagogue, which was firebombed in December 2024. No arrests were immediately made.
“The antisemitic hate incident last night in St Kilda targeting young Jewish boys has no place in our country,” Albanese in a statement, according to The Australian. “At a time when Australians are joining with the Jewish community in sorrow and solidarity, it is beyond disgusting to see these cowards shouting Nazi slogans at young people.”
The post Mourner’s Kaddish for Bondi Beach victims recited in Australian parliament as tougher hate crime laws pass appeared first on The Forward.
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Number of UK Schools Marking Holocaust Has Dropped by Nearly 60% Since Oct. 7 Massacre
Tens of thousands joined the National March Against Antisemitism in London, Nov. 26, 2023. Photo: Tayfun Salci/ZUMA Press Wire via Reuters Connect
The number of British schools commemorating the Holocaust has plummeted by nearly 60 percent following the Palestinian terrorist group Hamas’s Oct. 7, 2023, invasion of southern Israel.
Since Hamas-led Palestinian terrorists perpetrated the largest single-day massacre of Jews since World War II, the number of secondary schools across the UK signed up for events commemorating Holocaust Remembrance Day, which takes place annually on Jan. 27, dropped to fewer than 1,200 in 2024 and 854 in 2025, according to data from the Holocaust Memorial Day Trust.
The figure had been rising each year since 2019, reaching more than 2,000 secondary schools in 2023.
There are about 4,200 secondary schools in the UK.
Sir Ephraim Mirvis, chief rabbi of the UK, commented on the figures in an essay published in The Sunday Times, expressing alarm about an increasingly hostile environment for the British Jewish community.
“I fear for what will happen this year,” Mirvis wrote. “For if we cannot teach our children to remember the past with integrity and resolve, then we must ask ourselves what kind of future they will inherit.”
Mirvis urged readers to put themselves in the shoes of a UK teacher preparing a Holocaust memorial event. “Now imagine that as you begin to organize such an event, you learn that some parents of pupils at your school are unhappy about it,” he added. “One of the claims that Holocaust education is a form of “propaganda”; another insists that the event must not go ahead unless it also highlights the awful suffering of Palestinians in Gaza.”
Karen Pollock, chief executive of the Holocaust Educational Trust, described to The Times how some students “arrive in the classroom with views shaped by social media trends rather than evidence.”
The European Jewish Congress (EJC) released a statement on Monday reflecting on the drop in UK schools recognizing the Holocaust.
“Holocaust Memorial Day is not about politics. It is about memory, responsibility, and education. It exists to honor the 6 million Jews murdered in the Holocaust and to remind future generations of the consequences of hatred, indifference, and extremism,” the EJC stated. “Avoiding commemoration out of fear of controversy undermines the very purpose of education. When remembrance becomes optional, memory itself becomes fragile.”
The EJC continued, “Now is precisely the moment when Holocaust education matters most: when misinformation spreads easily, when antisemitism is openly visible, and when fewer survivors remain to bear witness. Schools play a vital role in preserving this memory, not only for Jewish communities, but for society as a whole.”
Dwindling commemoration of the Holocaust comes amid a steep surge in antisemitism across the UK.
The Community Security Trust (CST) — a nonprofit charity that advises Britain’s Jewish community on security matters — recorded 1,521 antisemitic incidents from January to June this year. This was the second-highest number of antisemitic crimes ever recorded by CST in the first six months of any year, following 2,019 incidents in the first half of 2024.
In total last year, CST recorded 3,528 anti-Jewish hate crimes — the country’s second worst year for antisemitism, despite an 18 percent drop from 2023’s record of 4,296.
“When a trigger event such as the Oct. 7 attack occurs, antisemitic incidents initially spike to a record peak; then gradually recede until they plateau at a higher level than before the original trigger event occurred,” CST stated.
These figures juxtapose with 1,662 antisemitic incidents in 2022, 2,261 in 2021, and 1,684 in 2020.
The struggles of the UK’s educational establishment to counter the rising antisemitism problem mirror the ongoing challenges confronted by its medical institutions.
In November, UK Health Secretary Wes Streeting called it “chilling” that some members of the Jewish community fear discrimination within the NHS, amid reports of widespread antisemitism in Britain’s health-care system.
The comments came weeks after British Prime Minister Keir Starmer unveiled a new plan to address what he described as “just too many examples, clear examples, of antisemitism that have not been dealt with adequately or effectively” in the country’s National Health Service (NHS).
One notable case drawing attention involved Dr. Rahmeh Aladwan, a trainee trauma and orthopedic surgeon, who police arrested on Oct. 21, charging her with four offenses related to malicious communications and inciting racial hatred. In November, she was suspended from practicing medicine in the UK over social media posts denigrating Jews and celebrating Hamas’s terrorism.
Other incidents in the UK included a Jewish family fearing their London doctor’s antisemitism influenced their disabled son’s treatment. The North London hospital suspended the physician who was under investigation for publicly claiming that all Jews have “feelings of supremacy” and downplaying antisemitism.