Will Eisner Letter To Artist Regarding Ebony Caricature Art 2 2

[GACollectibles]

Picked up a cool piece of comic history today, a letter from Will Eisner to the late artist Jim Jones about an Ebony caricature Jones did for a fanzine commenting how he "never really meant him to be a 'put-down' or a stereotype of Black people.", a copy of the fanzine page(or insert?) plus signed/dated print(not pictured).

 

Edited January 28, 2022 by GACollectibles

[Sauce Dog]

A nice piece of history (do you have a pic of the signed proof?), though a pretty lazy response by Eisner (It's not about intent. It's about impact) who did however have more to say on the matter:

"The only excuse I have for [that portrayal] is that at the time humor consisted in our society of bad English and physical difference in identity."

"I believe strongly that there's nothing wrong with stereotype. Stereotype has been made a bad word. But it's not a bad [thing] unless it's used badly -- for evil purposes. But [sometimes] it's the only way you can communicate, visually."

aka: Listen, at the time it was fine to disparage minorities, and drawing him that way was the only way to communicate he was black to you dummies, duh!

Edit: FYI the quotes are from his 2003 interview with Time magazine, which touches on both Ebony and Fagin the Jew.

Edited January 28, 2022 by Sauce Dog
citation

[GACollectibles]

On 1/27/2022 at 10:51 PM, Sauce Dog said:

A nice piece of history (do you have a pic of the signed proof?)

Print was of The Spirit #3 magazine cover:

Edited January 28, 2022 by GACollectibles

[Cat-Man_America]

I met Eisner back in the 80's.  In fact, we were both guests of the Dallas Fantasy Fair in '85.  For the convention program book I drew a full page tribute to his Spirit character.  Keep in mind I was only one artist among many dozens of guests across a variety of genres and Will was the main featured guest of this show.  As a side note, Eisner was an excellent and thoughtful conversationalist. 

While I agree with most of what Will stated about stereotypes in some contexts ...such as war propaganda... stereotypes employed in comic relief are usually employed to marginalize rather than identify people.  I'm not saying that as a criticism of Eisner or the any other of the many celebrated artists of another generation who used stereotypes in that manner.  It's unclear what Will meant by "it's not a bad thing unless used badly -- for evil purposes" in the quote Sauce Dog posted because that would probably include war propaganda.  In my estimation, war propaganda in the context of a specific time and place in the service of patriotism may be the only consistently justifiable use for stereotyping.  In either case, it's all collectible and highly prized work.

Will was a great guy and an awesome artist.  Comic history owes a lot to his creativity.  

In retrospect, this tribute piece done in pencil on stipple board didn't do the Spirit justice, but after a few drinks it probably looked pretty good to those attending! 

Edited January 28, 2022 by Cat-Man_America
ale!