Will Eisner’s The Spirit Estate Sale Could Spark Revival

According to The New York Times, the estate of legendary cartoonist Will Eisner is preparing to sell the rights to his body of work, including his most iconic creation, The Spirit. Eisner is not just a name in comics history. He is a foundation stone. The estate has been overseen since 2020 by Carl Gropper, the nephew of Eisner’s widow Ann Weingarten, and his wife Nancy. Now both in their seventies, the couple hopes the sale, handled by investment bank Greif & Co., will ensure Eisner’s work stays visible, relevant, and possibly reimagined for a new generation, including the long-discussed hope for a new Spirit film.

The sale includes a substantial catalog. Alongside the rights to The Spirit, the masked crime fighter Eisner introduced in 1940, the package covers graphic novels, children’s books, instructional manuals, and even an unpublished 1996 story titled The Spirit Returns. The goal is not simply to cash out, but to find a buyer willing to actively manage and promote the work rather than let it fade into archival obscurity. Timing also plays a role. Some observers note that portions of Eisner’s catalog could begin entering the public domain as early as 2036, adding urgency to the decision.

The Spirit is widely regarded as one of the most important comic strips ever created, and that reputation is earned. Debuting as a weekly sixteen-page newspaper insert, it sat in a strange and wonderful space between low-brow comic books and high-brow newspaper strips. That freedom allowed Eisner to experiment in ways no one else was attempting at the time. He bent panel layouts, borrowed heavily from film noir, played with shadows and perspective, and famously worked the title The Spirit directly into the artwork of his splash pages, turning typography into part of the environment itself.

For me, what makes The Spirit endlessly fascinating is how Eisner used it as a proving ground for what he later called “sequential art.” Long before the term graphic novel became common, Eisner was telling mature, cinematic stories that trusted readers to follow emotional nuance, visual metaphor, and shifting genres. Crime drama, romance, slapstick comedy, fantasy, and horror all lived side by side. Often, the Spirit himself barely appeared, with Eisner choosing instead to spotlight ordinary people, small-time crooks, dreamers, and losers. Central City was not just a setting. It was a living character.

Artistically, Eisner blended gritty realism with broad caricature, a combination that influenced everyone from mainstream superhero artists to the later underground comix movement. His impact is so deeply embedded in the medium that the industry’s highest honor, the Eisner Awards, bears his name. Even outside comics, his legacy resonates. Google marked what would have been his ninety-fourth birthday with a homepage doodle, a rare nod to a cartoonist’s cultural weight.

The Spirit remains a kind of forgotten masterpiece. It showed, decades ahead of schedule, what comics could truly achieve as a storytelling form. If this sale leads to thoughtful stewardship and maybe even a meaningful new adaptation, it could be a rare case where commerce and cultural preservation actually align. For anyone who cares about comics as art, this is a moment worth watching closely.