WILL EISNER: PORTRAIT OF A SEQUENTIAL ARTIST had its world premiere last Thursday at the Tribeca Film Festival in New York City, and a special screening and post-reception for Will’s family and friends on Saturday night. It also got reviewed favorably in The Huffington Post.

Director Andrew D. Cooke does a good job of mixing talking-head interviews — with the likes of Jules Feiffer, who worked on “The Spirit,” Spiegelman, Miller, Michael Chabon, and even the late Kurt Vonnegut, among other notables of multiple generations — with audio tape interviews Eisner did in the eighties with the big comic artists of the early 20th century, including Milton Caniff and Harvey Kurtzman. He also gives non-comic viewers a good indication of what Eisner’s work was like, from the brightly-colored, cinematic drawings of “The Spirit,” to black-and-white biographical drawings that show how Eisner was able to draw characters that were cartoonish and realistic all at once.

Cooke writes to report more:

The Saturday night reception, held post-screening at the Museum of Comic and Cartoon Art, our co-sponsor for the event, was also a blast. I can’t tell you what a kick it was to have Jules Feiffer, Art Spiegelman, Jerry Robinson, Paul Levitz, Michael Uslan and more (including Ann and other Eisner family and friends) mingling together and sharing Eisner anecdotes. (Natch, yours truly brought along our copy of THE GREAT COMIC BOOK HEROES — where Andy and I were first introduced to Eisner’s artistry and THE SPIRIT — which was kindly inscribed by the author, Jules Feiffer, who added his own Spirit cartoon! Yep, I’ll always be a fanboy!).

While we’re still in negotiation to secure a distribution deal for WE:POASA (and thus have no news to add regarding future plans outside of the Tribeca screenings), Andy and I, as well as executive producer Kris Schackman and producers Ben Tudhope and James D. Lee, are anxious to fill the seats for the final two screenings at the film festival… so we’re imploring Eisner fans in the NYC area to consider coming down to Manhattan to attend a showing.

There’s one more screening, this Sunday am, click on the link for tickets.

Sunday, May 6, 11:30 a.m.
AMC Village VII, 66 Third Ave.
(at 11th St.)