The Legacies of Comics Legends Eisner and Schulz

Charles Kochman is the editorial director of Abrams ComicArts and editor of the #1 bestselling series Diary of a Wimpy Kid by Jeff Kinney. Kochman has edited several hundred books for all age groups, including picture books, retrospectives, definitive monographs, award-winning graphic novels; and collections. Prior to Abrams, Kochman spent twelve years as the first editor of licensed publishing at DC Comics and MAD Magazine, where he launched the MAD Books. A graduate of Brooklyn College with a BA in children’s literature, Kochman is a member of the National Cartoonists Society and the Society of Illustrators, and is on the board of advisors for the San Diego Comic-Con’s Bill Finger Award for Excellence in Comic Book Writing, the Spectrum Art Annual, and the Museum of Comic and Cartoon Art (MoCCA).

Chip Kidd is a graphic designer and writer, and editor-at-large for Pantheon. A three-time Eisner Award winner, he has written and designed over a dozen books on comics including Peanuts: The Art of Charles M. Schulz. His novels, The Cheese Monkeys and The Learners, were national bestsellers, as was True Prep: It’s a Whole New Old World (with Lisa Birnbach). For Only What’s Necessary: Charles M. Schulz and the Art of Peanuts (Abrams ComicArts), Kidd teamed up with Geoff Spear and Jeff Kinney to honor the most popular and influential comic strip of all time. Kidd was granted unprecedented access to the extraordinary archives of the Charles M. Schulz Museum and Research Center in Santa Rosa, California. Reproducing the best of the Peanuts newspaper strip, all shot from the original art by award-winning photographer Geoff Spear, Only What’s Necessary also features exclusive, rare, and unpublished original art and developmental work—much of which has never been seen before.

Paul Levitz, former president and publisher of DC Comics, is a four-time New York Times bestselling writer and the author of the Eisner Award-winning 75 Years of DC Comics: The Art of Modern Mythmaking. His latest book is Will Eisner: Champion of the Graphic Novel (Abrams ComicArts). Will Eisner (1917–2005) is universally considered the master of comics storytelling, best known for The Spirit, his iconic newspaper comic strip, and A Contract With God, the first significant graphic novel. This seminal work from 1978 ushered in a new era of personal stories in comics form that touched every adult topic from mortality to religion and sexuality, forever changing the way writers and artists approached comics storytelling. Noted historian Paul Levitz celebrates Eisner by showcasing his most famous work along­side unpublished and rare materials from the family archives. Also included are original interviews with creators such as Jules Feiffer, Art Spiegelman, Scott McCloud, Jeff Smith, Denis Kitchen, and Neil Gaiman—all of whom knew Eisner and were inspired by his work to create their own graphic novels for a new generation of readers.