Will Eisner Portfolios
The Spirit
City

[-ALL BELOW THE LINE-] Certainly not art-BOOKS by any stretch of the imagination, but it seems worthwhile to track how these artworks figure into the body of Eisner's canon being gathered into various collections.

The Spirit Portfolio (1977 - Collectors Press) [-BELOW THE LINE-] In this case, it is important to know that all ten of this portfolio's color plates are reproduced in the book WILL EISNER COLOR TREASURY. All of them are presented as double-page spreads, with the usual distortion at the central gutter, but also be aware that nine of them are turned sideways to maximize the size of the image. Know that this portfolio was packaged in a book-like hard-bound container, whose two inner liners were printed pencil-roughs of two of the art pieces. Also included within was an eleventh "plate" which was a reproduction of a couple of pencil-roughs of a third piece, along with informational page, which is mostly a photograph of the artist.

City (A Narrative Portfolio) (1980 - Hollybrook Graphics) [-BELOW THE LINE-] In this case, it is important to know that all six pages of this portfolio, in addition to the cover, are better presented in the book WILL EISNER COLOR TREASURY. In this portfolio, the art pieces were trimmed and presented as one-half of a page, accompanied on each other half by the narrartive and two spot drawings. In the noted book, each art piece is presented, in its entirety, on its own page, with separate pages each devoted to the narratives and their companion spot drawings.