I probably don't have to tell anyone who'd come to this page that Will Eisner was a master storyteller of comics; that when I dined with him and Jack Kirby, as I did on a couple of occasions, I was eating with the two men most responsible for the invention of most of what made comic books different from newspaper comic strips. Will passed away in 2005 and we still talk about him all the time…and probably always will.
Thursday evening, we'll be talking about him at a meeting of the Comic Art Professional Society, the Southern California group of people who write or draw comics. There's a panel and I seem to be the Moderator, as I found out when I read the ad currently on the CAPS website. As it says there, I'll be chairing a panel with Batton Lash, Jackie Estrada, Charles Hatfield, Pat McGreal and Scott Shaw! (It says there Sergio Aragonés will be there but he won't be. Still catching up on work now that his back is better.) I believe admission is restricted to professionals or friends of members but if you qualify in either category, you might like to attend. I'm going to try and steer things in the direction of discussing Will's tireless streak for innovation; how even in his eighties, he was somehow managing to do newer things in comics than artists a fourth his age. But we'll talk about all sorts of things. There's plenty to say about Will Eisner.