Everett M. "Busy" Arnold - The Spirit

The Spirit

In late 1939, Arnold orchestrated two roughly concurrent events. First, he made Will Eisner an offer to join Quality Comics' art staff. Eisner agreed to a complicated arrangement in which, Eisner recalled, "I regarded him as a partner and he thought of me as an employee". Whatever the specific business details, "The Eisner-Iger amalgam was dissolved, Iger buying out his partner's share of the organization", wrote historian Jim Steranko,who interviewed both Eisner and Arnold in the early 1970s. "In the bargain, Eisner took the shop's key men with him: Viscardi,

Second, Arnold explored an expansion into newspapers, with the idea of a Sunday-supplement comic-book section. Compiling a presentation piece with existing Quality Comics features, he contacted editors he knew from when he was vice president of Greater Buffalo Press. An editor of The Washington Star liked George Brenner's "The Clock", but not Brenner's art, and was favorably disposed toward a Lou Fine strip. Arnold, concerned over the meticulous Fine's slowness and his ability to meet deadlines, claimed it was Eisner's work. Arnold and Eisner had already been discussing a new feature, which would evolve into The Spirit.

In "late '39, just before Christmas time, 'Busy' came to me and said that the Sunday newspapers were looking for a way of getting into this comic book boom", Eisner recalled in 1979. In a 2004 interview, he elaborated on that meeting:

"Busy" invited me up for lunch one day and introduced me to Henry Martin was making money; we were very profitable at that time and things were going very well. A hard decision. Anyway, I agreed to do the Sunday comic book and we started discussing the deal was that we'd be partners in the 'Comic Book Section', as they called it at that time. And also, I would produce two other magazines in partnership with Arnold.

Eisner negotiated an agreement with the syndicate in which Arnold would copyright The Spirit, but, "Written down in the contract I had with 'Busy' Arnold — and this contract exists today as the basis for my copyright ownership — Arnold agreed that it was my property. They agreed that if we had a split-up in any way, the property would revert to me on that day that happened. My attorney went to 'Busy' Arnold and his family, and they all signed a release agreeing that would not pursue the question of ownership". This would include the eventual backup features, "Mr. Mystic" and "Lady Luck".

Martin of the Register and Tribune Syndicate signed a contract for a 16-page weekly section. After Arnold sold it to The Washington Star, The Baltimore Sun and The Philadelphia Record, the syndicate then acted as sales agent. "The Spirit Section", as it came to be colloquially called, eventually appeared in 20 major newspapers, premiering June 2, 1940, and continuing through 1952.