A Contract with God

The revolutionary work of graphic storytelling that inspired a new art form.

Will Eisner was present at the dawn of comics. In the 1940s, he pushed the boundaries of the medium with his acclaimed weekly comic strip The Spirit, and with the publication of A Contract with God in 1978, he created a new medium altogether: the graphic novel. It was unlike anything seen before, heralding an era when serious cartoonists were liberated from the limiting confines of the comic strip. Eisner’s work was a shining example of what comics could be: as inventive, moving, and complex as any literary art form.

Eisner considered himself “a graphic witness reporting on life, death, heartbreak, and the never-ending struggle to prevail.” A Contract with…