10 Figures Who Completely Reshaped Comic Book History

The Eisner award is just about the highest honour a creative in the field of comics can win. If your influence on comics is so important that one award just won't do, you can even become admitted into The Will Eisner Hall Of Fame. So it's a safe bet that Will Eisner is a pretty important fellow in comic books, or this has all been a giant act of sarcasm that got out of hand.

Eisner's work and accomplishments are too numerous to cover in full. But his most notable works include the influential The Spirit (ignore the movie) and 1978's A Contract With God, arguably the first graphic novel which was sold in mainstream bookstores, absolutely unheard of at the time for a comic. So every time you walk into a bookshop and see a graphic novel section, you have Will Eisner to thank for that.

Eisner's accomplishments extend beyond the practical into the academic as he was one of the first and loudest advocates of comics being a legitimate art form and means of story telling. He was also one of the three original inductees into the Will Eisner Hall of Fame along with Jack Kirby and Carl Banks. They had to induct him first, it's named after him, that's the rule.