Eisner and Freas; Another New Blog

The new year has brought the loss of a couple of great artists, as many of you no doubt already know. Will Eisner and Kelly Freas were both favorites of mine. Back in the Seventies, Warren Publishing, which put out oversized, black-and-white horror comic books like VAMPIRELLA and EERIE, began reprinting some of the Spirit comic strips from the Forties that were written and drawn by Eisner. Eventually Warren gave the Spirit reprints their own series. I read all of these and loved them. Last year I read THE SPIRIT ARCHIVES, a hardback collection of the first stories from the series, and while these aren't as good as the later ones, they're still wonderfully entertaining. Eisner also created the long-running comic book BLACKHAWK, which went through dozens of incarnations over the years but none that ever topped Eisner's original. As for Kelly Freas, I'd hate to have to count how many SF paperbacks and digest magazines I have that feature his cover art. He was one of the true giants in that field.

On a more positive note, Western and historical novelist Richard S. Wheeler has started a blog. Dick Wheeler is a fine writer and one of the true gentlemen in the business, and he's a perceptive observer of the publishing industry as well, having worked as the editor of Walker and Company's Western line for several years. Dick's comments are always worth thinking about. (I don't think he's done much work with the theory of squirrel evolution, however. Some things you can only find here.)