Spirit (comics) - Assistants and Collaborators

Assistants and Collaborators

Like most artists working in newspaper comic strips, Eisner after a time employed a studio of assistants who, on any given week's story, might draw or simply ink backgrounds, ink parts of Eisner's main characters (such as clothing or shoes), or as eventually occurred, ghost-draw the strip entirely. Eisner also eventually used ghostwriters, generally in collaboration with him.

Jules Feiffer, who began as an art assistant circa 1946 and later became the primary writer through the strip's end in 1952, recalled, "When I first worked for Will there was John Spranger, who was his penciler and a wonderful draftsman; better than Will. There was Sam Rosen, the lettering man. Jerry Grandenetti came a little after me and did backgrounds, and Jerry had some architectural background. His drawing was stiff but loosened up after a while, but he drew backgrounds and inked them beautifully. And Abe Kanegson, who was my best friend in the office, was a jack-of-all-trades but mostly did lettering and backgrounds after Jerry left. Abe was a mentor to me."

Eisner's studio also included:

• Art assistants: Bob Powell (1940), Dave Berg (backgrounds, 1940–41), Tex Blaisdell (1940–41), Fred Kida (1941), Alexander Kostuk a.k.a. Alex Koster (1941–43), Jack Cole (1942–43), Jack Keller (backgrounds, 1943), Jules Feiffer (1946–47), Manny Stallman (1947–49), Andre LeBlanc (1950), Al Wenzel (1952)

• Inkers: Alex Kotzky (1941–43), John Belfi (1942–43), Don Komisarow (1943), Robin King (year?), Joe Kubert (1943–44), Jerry Grandenetti, (1948–51), Jim Dixon (1950–51), Don Perlin (1951)

• Letterers: Martin De Muth (years?), Abe Kanegson (years?), Sam Schwartz (1951), Ben Oda (1951)

• Colorists: Jules Feiffer (years?), Chris Christiansen (1951)

• Ghost artists (pencilers): Lou Fine and Jack Cole (variously, during Eisner's World War II service, 1942–45), Jerry Grandenetti (1951), Wally Wood (1952)

• Ghostwriters/writing assistants: Toni Blum (1942), Jack Cole (years?), Manly Wade Wellman and William Woolfolk (variously, during Eisner's World War II service, 1942–45), Klaus Nordling (1946, 1951), Marilyn Mercer (1946), Abe Kanegson (1950), Jules Feiffer (1951–52)