Quotes from Will Eisner

Humor has historically been tied to the mores of the day. The Yellow Kid was predicated on what people thought was funny about the immigrant Irish. When you're different in a society, you're funny.

Comics deal with two fundamental communicating devices: words and images. Admittedly this is an arbitrary separation. But, since in the modern world of communication they are treated as independent disciplines, it seems valid. Actually, the are derivatives of a single origin and in the skillful employment of words and images lies the expressive potential of the medium.

We have this history of impossible solutions to insoluble problems.

Thus, sped by currents of curiosity afloat the swift river of rumor do secrets sail to strange ports.

Still,[...] in all forms of comics the sequential artist relies upon the tacit cooperation of the reader. This cooperation is based upon the convention of reading and the common cognitive disciplines. Indeed, it is this very voluntary cooperation, so unique to comics, that underlies the contract between artist and audience.

Living in a big city can be compared to existing in a jungle. One becomes a creature of the environment. The response to the rhythms and choreography is visceral and before long a dweller's conduct is as distinctive as those of a jungle inhabitant.

You are learned in the Word of God--And if you know His Word, you know His Will.

The comic strip is no longer the comic strip, but in reality an illustrated novel. It is new and raw in form just now, but material for limitless intelligent development. And eventually and inevitably it will a legitimate medium for the best writers and artists. It is already the embryo of a new art form.

Humor has historically been tied to the mores of the day. The Yellow Kid was predicated on what people thought was funny about the immigrant Irish. When you're different in a society, you're funny.

Ive spent my whole life working in a medium that was regarded with contempt largely because of historical reasons.

I want to point out to adults that there is a world of good material available to you now in comic form - in this medium - and learn to give it your support because the more you support it, the better the material will be as it comes out.

A key to my thinking has always been the almost fanatical belief that what I was engaged in was a literary art form. That belief was compounded out of ego and necessity, I guess, a combination of the two.

As for me, I am in pursuit of excellence. I have no time to get old.