The Spirit Book Three - Softcover

Will Eisner’s great comic-book creation gets handed off again, this time to MAD stalwart Aragonés and Jack Kirby biographer Mark  Evanier (Kirby: King of Comics, 2008). They handily maintain the marriage of mystery and humor that has been the series’ hallmark from 1940 on, and they get art to match from a slightly different set of hands in each of these nine stories. All the draftsmen vary Eisner’s basic style in the parodic manner of early MAD artists, especially Bill Elder. Meanwhile, colorists Dave Stewart and Lee Loughridge keep the palette consistent. Whether sleuthing at home in Central City, way away in Paris, Cairo, and the Comoros, or on a Caribbean cruise liner; and whether cracking a murder or very grand theft case, the Spirit remains rather a Boy Scout who just can’t seem to get to the clinch with either regular wannabe-steady Ellen or any of the other lookers who throw themselves at him in passing, and who lets the gag-lines the supporting cast pitches all around him go whizzing on by his head. Delightful. --Ray Olson