Colouring Book Theatre: Will Eisner’s The Spirit

I got an early Easter present yesterday as Rob Kelly, creator of treasurycomics.com (and more blogs than humanly possible) offered to do a guest review. Me not doing any work is the best gift of all, take it away Rob!

Will Eisner never did anything the same as anyone else.

When I learned of the existence of an actual Spirit coloring book, published in 1974, (in research for my site treasurycomics.com), I was pretty surprised. After all, anyone old enough in the seventies to remember the Spirit probably was a tad past coloring book age, so I wondered who this book was aimed at. But who am I to question Will Eisner’s business sense?
The book itself is treasury comic-sized, 10×14″, and instead of a sequential story, it consists of fifteen classic Spirit splash pages, complete historical and story information for each of them.
Some of the splashes chosen for the book are unusual selections for a coloring book, like this one:

Will Eisner never believed comic books, as a medium, were meant to be just junk entertainment. And that belief found its way into every Spirit project, even a coloring book. You could give this book to a kid and it would challenge them, just like his work always did.