As a long-time comics fan - and, if you remember,
I even wrote one - this is extra-special: the great Renaissance E Books (who I'm an Associate Publisher for) has just stepped into graphic novels ... beginning by releasing classics like
The Phantom Lady.
Well, one of the titles they also just released is a little-known treasure by the comic legend Will Eisner called
The Flame - and guess who was asked to write the introduction?
EISNER'S FLAME OF
INSPIRATION
If you were to
create a Mount Rushmore for comic creators they'd certainly be a lot of controversy
on who to immortalize. Alan
Moore? Winsor McCay? Art Spiegelman? Osamu Tezuka? Robert Crumb?
But the one that everyone – and I
mean everyone -- would agree should have his face etched in stone is Will
Eisner.
To say that Will
Eisner, famed for his groundbreaking noir creation The Spirit, made comics what
they are today is like saying the sun is just that warm thing in the sky. Born in Brooklyn in 1917, Eisner made
his first tentative steps onto the comic book stage at 16 by sending his
artwork, with prodding from Batman creator Bob Kane, to Wow, What A Magazine!
Back in the
late-1930s comic books were still deciding what they were and where they were
going – it was a real wild west for writers and artists, with publishers,
editors, writers, artists, and characters coming and going almost daily.
It was during
these crazy times that The Flame was
created by Eisner and Lou Fine – another illustrious member of those Golden
Years. Their brainchild, first
appeared in Wonderworld Comic #3,
July 1939. The Flame was so popular the character soon graduated to his own
comic – but, alas, it was snuffed out after only eight issues, going dark on
January 1942, a victim not of a vividly costumed menace or even the Nazis, but of
the publisher's bankruptcy.
While The Flame's run in the superhero game
was a short one the comic still – excuse me – burns quite bright for its
originality. In fact, you could
easily trace a lot of The Flame
forward to many now legendary comic characters.
Just look at his
origin story: poor little Gary Preston was the only survivor of a flood that
killed his father, Charteris Preston – a missionary in China. Little Preston was saved by a
benevolent order of Tibetan monks who taught him the mysterious power of heat
and fire. Gary knew that power
must be used for good and The Flame was born.
