Will Eisner’s Minor Miracles and A Life Force

At the Syfy Presents the Will Eisner Comic Industry Awards I was given copies of Will Eisner’s Minor Miracles and A Life Force. I read Minor Miracles right away but didn’t complete A Life Force until this morning. Both were excellent, but I especially enjoyed A Life Force.

Minor Miracles consists of four stories taking place on Dropsie Avenue in the Bronx. Each is told as a sort of exaggerated legend featuring something miraculous. As I mentioned in a previous entry, they kind of reminded me of Kafka in the sense that they were very entertaining but sort of uncomfortable, causing mild distress. They weren’t full of happy endings, but they didn’t have sad endings either. They just sort of ended with that feeling of having the emotional wind knocked out of you – a numbness, maybe.

A Life Force was absolutely excellent. It focused on many different characters centered around Jacob Shtarkah on Dropsie Avenue. It takes place in the depression and touches on poverty, the economy, racial tensions, organized crime, political systems, anti-semitism, and the life force that drives us. It was a fantastic window to the depression era and shows man’s struggle for survival.

Having read these two graphic novels, I understand why Eisner’s so acclaimed. I highly recommend both these books.