Speaking of loss

I was being pretty off-hand in speaking of loss the other day. There are certain people — writers, artists, singers — who somehow connect with you through their work, who just mean something to you though you may never meet them personally, and when they die, a real loss is felt. One of the all-time greats, Will Eisner, has died. He created The Spirit, a character forgotten by all but comic-book afficionados — but his importance was less the creation of the character than the method of storytelling he developed. He created the graphic novel, introduced true emotion into comic drawing, and he drew rain like nobody else could. I spent a good part of the ’80s collecting everything by Eisner that I could get my hands on. As far as I was concerned, there were really only two giants in the comics field: Milton Caniff, who created “Terry & The Pirates” and “Steve Canyon,” and who was drawing “Steve Canyon” right up to his death, and Will Eisner, who continued to break ground with his work in his 70s and 80s. He was the last of them, and it’s sad to see him go.