MFT: Will Eisner's "The Spirit" monochrome strips

Even decades after its initial run, Will Eisner's "The Spirit" is still a blast of a read. You already know that. It is an obvious fact. Sure, some of its elements haven't aged that well (ahem, Ebony White, depiction of female, characters, yellow menace stuff, etc) and some of it more out there moments (Trip to the Moon, in a hard boiled noir comic? sure thing!) are still endlessly baffling throws of despair - but overall, its style and presentation defined they way american comic books look today.

"The Spirit" established fast-paced no-nonsense narrative which proppels forward with each coming panel, it codified the way action scenes are broken down and sequenced. You can learn how to write comic books by reading "The Spirit" - it is that good. 

One of it signature features was unorthodox use of the first pages of a story. It was always more than just a beginning of another tale. It established everything you need to know about the story - style, themes, tone. These pages often had short blurb descriptions of the stories in the top header, as is with _ or _.

However, in some cases this space was simply filled with monochrome rectangles as a simple breaker-separators between the stories. They are effective in this role. But looking at these separating monochrome strips on their own is even more fascinating than within a context of a comic. 

These rectangles offer something nondescript, something abstract. Bundled together, they sure are able to compose some sort of an impressionistic narrative. A very abstract one, but nevertheless.

Since i've spent last couple of years collecting various abstract and black panels - it was natural for me to start snapping these rectangles with subsequent shoving into the queue. But it doesn't mean that this post will be left with any examples.

For your convenience, here are seventy four of "The Spirit"'s monochrome rectangles.Enjoy!

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