This Day in Comic Book History: July 23
This Day in Comic Book History: July 23
July 23 falls in the heart of San Diego Comic-Con season — the time of year when the Eisner Awards are presented and comics' greatest creators are honored. Today we celebrate Will Eisner, the man whose name graces the industry's most prestigious awards.
Will Eisner: The Spirit of Comics
Will Eisner
Creator of The Spirit (1940) · A Contract with God (1978) · Father of the graphic novel · The Eisner Awards are named for him
Will Eisner (1917–2005) is one of the most important figures in the entire history of comics. He created The Spirit in 1940 — a masked crime-fighter whose stories were groundbreaking in their visual sophistication, cinematic storytelling, and narrative ambition. Eisner's splash pages for The Spirit were masterclasses in graphic design, using the title itself as an architectural element of the composition. Later, in 1978, he published A Contract with God — the book he called a "graphic novel" and which established the vocabulary for serious literary comics in America. When comics' most prestigious awards were named in his honor in 1988, it was one of the most fitting tributes in the medium's history.
The Eisner Awards: Comics' Highest Honor
The Eisner Awards
Named for Will Eisner · Presented annually at San Diego Comic-Con · 31 categories · The most prestigious awards in comics
The Eisner Awards have been presented annually at San Diego Comic-Con since 1988, recognizing excellence across 31 categories covering comics, graphic novels, archival collections, and educational materials. Named for Will Eisner, they are the comics equivalent of the Academy Awards — the recognition that means the most to creators, publishers, and readers who care about the health and quality of the medium. Recent Best Publication winners have included Monstress, Saga, and The Sandman: Overture.
The Spirit: Innovation in Every Issue
The Spirit
Weekly newspaper supplement · Groundbreaking splash pages · Cinematic storytelling · Social commentary · 12 years of innovation
The Spirit ran as a weekly newspaper supplement from 1940 to 1952 and demonstrated week after week that comics could be as sophisticated, as funny, as moving, and as visually inventive as any other art form. Eisner used each issue as a laboratory for narrative experimentation — stories told from the villain's perspective, issues structured as newspaper front pages, tales that subverted every genre convention. The Spirit himself was almost incidental to some of the stories; what mattered was Eisner's relentless exploration of what the comics page could do.
🏆 Top 10 Eisner Award-Winning Masterworks
- Maus (Pantheon, 1991) — Art Spiegelman's multiple Eisner winner and Pulitzer Prize recipient; the most honored graphic novel in history.
- Sandman #19 ("A Midsummer Night's Dream", 1990) — Won the World Fantasy Award — the first comic ever to win a literary award, helping establish that comics deserved serious critical attention.
- Monstress #1 (November 2015) — Marjorie Liu and Sana Takeda's multiple Eisner winner; the most honored comic book series of the 2010s.
- The Spirit Archives (DC Comics) — The definitive collection of Will Eisner's Spirit — the work that inspired the award named after its creator.
- A Contract with God (1978) — Will Eisner's foundational graphic novel; the work that defined the format the Eisner Awards now celebrate.
- Saga #1 (March 2012) — Multiple Eisner winner; Brian K. Vaughan and Fiona Staples' Image Comics masterpiece is one of the most decorated comics of its era.
- Watchmen (DC, 1987) — Won the Hugo Award in addition to comics honors; Alan Moore and Dave Gibbons' masterwork is a perennial on best-of lists.
- Love and Rockets (Fantagraphics) — Jaime and Gilbert Hernandez's multiple Eisner winner; one of the most consistently acclaimed comics in the award's history.
- Black Panther: A Nation Under Our Feet (Marvel, 2016) — Ta-Nehisi Coates and Brian Stelfreeze's Eisner-winning run; brought literary journalism's moral seriousness to superhero comics.
- March (Book One) (Top Shelf, 2013) — John Lewis, Andrew Aydin, and Nate Powell's Eisner winner; a landmark of political witness in comics form.
Find Eisner Award winners and Will Eisner classics at Epic Panels Comics!