Fingers, meet brain.

But Greg, please please PLEASE never mention Chris Claremont and Eisner in the same paragraph, or even in the same page. You'll have my undying gratitude.

Actually, Darwyn Cooke had been planning to work on a creator-owned project before he was offered The Spirit.

Anyway, I think Cooke has done interesting things with the character of the Spirit and his supporting cast, particularly Ebony White (who seemed practically irredeemable). I think Cooke's set himself up so that he can alternate between doing stories where the Spirit is more of a background character to stories where he and his cast are the focus.

MarkAndrew-

You said "I really don’t think that, in terms of… Um… not writing well, but utilizing narrative craft, ANYONE in periodical comics has come close to matching Eisner. (I think Alan Moore could. He just doesn’t want too.)"

Where do you think Tezuka and Kirby stand with Eisner in terms of narrative craft?

Greg Hatcher - Yep. I still agree completely.

Fair enough. Although I wouldn't have said Eisner's Spirit work was "story first" at all- it was all about formal play, and seeing what he could get away with while still ostensibly making an adventure-hero strip. I'm guesing that's where our wires got crossed.

Now, Eisner's LATER stuff, yes, "story first" all the way.

People always go back to it as being the Eisner template but really that strip was the Eisner PROTOTYPE. It was the place where he figured out what the hell he was doing. So Greg's point is especially valid because in order to be 'true to Eisner's version' Cooke should be using the Spirit as an experimental vehicle to figure out what HE wants to be doing.

Apart from all that, the new Spirit book is one more example of Marvel and DC turning into one giant snake that's eating itself. Their critical darlings of the last couple of years are all pretty much revamps and pastiches: All-Star Superman, New Frontier, etc. If DC really wanted to honor Will Eisner, they'd start some sort of graphic novel imprint in his name and use it to showcase books like Fun Home. The new Spirit book strikes me as a blatant example of milking Eisner's most famous property for a few more bucks, and the fact that the book is perfectly okay and readable strikes me as an unexpected bonus. The initial reaction to it seems mostly to be, "Wow, Darwyn Cooke took on an insanely difficult job and didn't actually suck at it! Whoa!" And, you know, more power to him. Well done, certainly. My grumble is more just that it's a stupid job for him to be doing, especially since as far as I know, the last thing Eisner himself was interested in doing was reviving the Spirit. It comes off like DC was just waiting for the old man to die so they could go ahead with the new pastiche project.

...I admit that was more of a snarl than usual, but I'm really getting TIRED of these revival books being treated like some kind of breakthrough project for essentially hitting the same "baseline okay" mark the original work did. It's not a breakthrough when Grant Morrison does a clever Superman story or Jeff Smith does a fun Captain Marvel pastiche or Darwyn Cooke dopes a Spirit comic that doesn't stink. It's the minimum we should expect. The criminal part is that we don't actually demand such and keep buying the crappy books.

Cooke should be doing something creator owned however since I have no real attachment to the spirit.

Second- MarkAndrew, I'd like to reccomend a book: the Complete Alan Moore Future Shocks, published by Rebellion. It might be a little difficult to get hold of in the US, but it's well worth the trouble. In it you'll find some of Moore's earliest work (from just after he gave up strip-cartooning), and this is where you'll see the kind of formal play you seem to be looking for in his work. I think the reason we see so little of that kind of thing from him now is because he got it out of the way so early on. I particularly reccomend "Chronocops", which features superb Dave Gibbons art. You'll also find art by Bryan Talbot, Alan Davis, Brendan McCarthy, Steve Dillon and Jesus Redondo in there.

Now, to the point-

The problem with comparing the first 6 issues of a monthly book to a "best of" collection of a weekly comic that ran for over a decade should be immediatly obvious. Not to mention that it's the "best of" the best loved work of an artist who is considered by many to be the greatest single talent ever to work in the medium.
I think it may also be worth noting that the "best of" may not be the most representative sample in terms of story content. It stands to reason that in a run of literraly hundreds of stories, the ones that really stand out will be the ones that stray from the usual formula. I'm reminded of Judge Dredd- another long running weekly told in short episodes written almost exclusivly by the same writer (John Wagner) for it's whole run- whenever people talk about the best Dredd stories ever told, the same ones come up, and they're invariably stories that concentrate on supporting players, or more usually, random citizens from Dredd's world; stories where Dredd is in fact a minor character in his own strip. But these are not by any means representative of the majority of the strip's history... which is part of why they stand out.

Well, duh.

(I will agree with you that issues #2-4 were somewhat underwhelming, but the last two issues were exactly what they should have been.)

I agree that he didn't need to take so long to introduce us to the Spirit, and the lack of Eisnerian storytelling has hurt the book so far. But it's still a pretty fun, beautifully drawn book, and it sounds like it's heading in exactly the direction we've been wanting it to.

But I am still enjoying Cooke's work. I just have to remind myself not to expect Eisner before I crack open an issue.

But my favourite parts of the series so far have mostly had to do with the Spirit himself: the expression on his face as he peeks out of the car upholstery, his relationship with Ebony, his reaction to being attacked by Julia ("Of all the insane--")... I like that he's stalwart and capable, but not too stalwart and capable. Which doesn't make me think that the book would be better if the Spirit appeared in it less.

Sure, Cooke isn't doing what Eisner did, but then nobody can do what Eisner did. Cooke has to do what Cooke does, and why wouldn't he? Cripes, if you start with the immense advantage of being Darwyn Cooke, why would you throw it away?

Decent, but none of my favorite stories.

And, I dunno. I don't think it's really fair to compare poor Cooke to Eisner.

I really don't think that, in terms of... Um... not writing well, but utilizing narrative craft, ANYONE in periodical comics has come close to matching Eisner. (I think Alan Moore could. He just doesn't want too.)

Like I look at most of the Spirit comics with my critic goggles on and go "Shit. That was PERFECT."

I mean, Cooke's kind of asking for it writing the Spirit and all, but any comparison between the two is gonna put him up against a standard that's damn near impossible for him... or ANYONE... to uphold.