Week 15

These stories told by Will Eisner have shown a more serious side of comic subject matter that up to his point has not yet seen. Most of the stories we have read in class so far had to do with more light and very cartoony stories and characters perhaps with the exception of Tales from the Crypt, but even those stories were pretty over the top and silly for the subject matter. The problems were one dimensional with it usually being how will the villain be thwarted by the. But with a Contract with God we see very real and mature themes shown in these stories, many of them dealing with the members of the jewish people and people who lived in early 1920s New York poor tenement apartments . He shows in the first story a pretty compelling tale of a rabbi who turns his life from being a rabbi to a real-estate tycoon after God allegedly breaks the contract they had. He eventually forms a new one by making other rabbis at temple write out a new one, the second story has to do with a supor who everyone hates that has a thing for younger girls. This gets him into so much trouble he kills himself at the end and nobody cares much. The final tale was young people falling in love and deceiving each other for money and power. All these stories were very well told, interesting to read and visually gorgeous. But more then that they told stories that aren't too different from what we see in the news and hear about today. These stories show all aspects of human nature from greed to how society wants you to live out your religion. The focusing in on a marginalized people, in this case the Jews, gave a unique look into the lives of a people that don't typically get media based on them. Will Eisner had a unique voice in the comics world and reading A Contract With God shows how well he could tell stories that were character driven as well as a visual delight to look at.