NS: Will Eisner’s The Spirit For Sale

[cygnia]

https://www.dailycartoonist.com/index.php/2026/01/29/will-eisners-the-spirit-for-sale/

The estate of Will Eisner is putting the entire output of Will Eisner that they control through copyright and trademark up for sale, including The Spirit and all of Eisner’s graphic novels and comics.

George Gene Gustines for The New York Times reports (or here):

Quote

Up for grabs are Eisner’s graphic novels, children’s books and instruction manuals for creating comics. Also included in the sale are the many characters he created, most notably the Spirit, the influential masked crime fighter who debuted in 1940 and featured in stories that are noteworthy for their moral realism, mature themes, genre fluidity and inventive page design.

Eisner’s last work featuring the Spirit, a 72-page story from 1996 called “The Spirit Returns,” was never published. It, too, is up for sale.

Comments

[metadronos]

Oh wow -- according to that Daily Cartoonist article, all installments of The Spirit newspaper section from 1940 through 1952 are in the public domain and available for download because their copyright was never renewed.

Unfortunately, none of the stories had titles, at least originally, so the above-linked Digital Comic Museum archive lists them by date only, with very tiny splash-page thumbnails. Fortunately, there's a more helpful way to search for a particular story: the Grand Comics Database index of DC's The Spirit Archives. The DC archive volumes provide story titles, so it's possible to cross-reference them with the date of newspaper publication if you want to not only download them but also post them in their entirety, legally (from the DCM archive of course). You're welcome. 😁

[blueprintstyles]

Huh, didn't expect this today.