By Tim Kane
Albany Times Union
Friday, December 21, 2007
Albany, N.Y. – Nearly 30 years ago, the noted cartoonist Will Eisner published a long-form comic book and called it a “graphic novel.” The literary world hasn’t been quite the same since.
More than 200 pages long, Eisner’s 1978 book, “A Contract With God,” stands as a landmark in a genre that today is eclipsing traditional comics and making serious inroads into mainstream publishing – not to mention attracting the deep-pocketed attention of Hollywood.
Excerpts from “A Contract With God” – an account of the artist’s gritty boyhood in the Bronx – anchor a captivating exhibition at the Norman Rockwell Museum in Stockbridge, Mass.
