Sep. 21 “A Contract with God” by Will Eisner
Will Eisner’s work in “A Contract with God”, really focuses on the elements of frustration, fear, disillusionment and powerlessness some people face in their everyday lives. A fascinating thing is that he bases each little story off his own memories of certain individuals, even himself. Someone he barely knows he can [G1] even take and make a whole story based off what little he knows. The whole set of stories has an amazing sense of impressionistic memory. Impressionistic memory meaning memories that are based on or involve impression as distinct from expertise or fact. Eisner also seems to emphasize the urban setting, that surrounds the tenements, with very monochromatic colors. It becomes more dramatic, lonely, and the audience such as me becomes a part of the story. I begin to wander through his experiences with him and it becomes unsettling and in no doubt disturbing at some points. Each frame, I have noticed, consists of words that are put into large text and becomes part of the piece, it does not crowd the space but gives each story more emphasis. Not to mention his illustrations are vertically placed on the pages. He allows the length of the stories to develop based on their content. While the text gives more space, Eisner allows the focus to be more on facial expressions while we still get the idea of what's going on. Eisner also seems to mix melodrama with realism, that mainly derives from his personal memories growing up in the tenements in the Bronx. He prefers to keep his style of cartooning within realistic limits.[G2] Reading theses stories I was a little uncomfortable, but it does have some truth to put into it. It is sad to actually be reading this and that is what I assume Will Eisner wants the audience to feel. None of the characters in these stories are neither good nor are they evil, they all desire certain things and they get thrown into the mud. “A Contract with God” really explains the idea that what choices we make we are still going to have consequences. If we allow it to get to use we end up hurting ourselves, and restrict ourselves from ever being happy. Will Eisner really brings that to light through these little stories.[G3] [G4]
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