Joe Shuster out of the action. As owners of the characters, the publisher could assign them to other artists or, in the case of a character as popular as Superman, use the character for other lucrative marketing adventures, from movies to toys, without having to give the creators a fair cut of the profits.
Young as he was, Eisner never deluded himself about the nature of the business he was conducting with Busy Arnold and Henry Martin. He later joked in interviews that he would have loved to believe, as he sat across the table from Arnold and Martin, that they were interested in him because he was the best artist in the comic book business; in fact, he knew that they sought his services because he was a dependable commodity. “To the syndicate, [the supplement] was merchandise, and I was always conscious of that,” he said. “I wasn’t flattering myself into thinking that they saw it as anything but something their salesmen could use to sell more newspapers, and that didn’t bother me.”
The men argued at length, and for a while it looked as if they’d be breaking off the meeting without reaching an agreement. Then Eisner came up with a creative solution. The partnership contract would stipulate that the supplement would be copyrighted in Busy Arnold’s name, with the written agreement that all rights to character and content would revert to Eisner if the partnership dissolved. As Eisner recalled, Arnold was particularly concerned about what would happen to the character if Eisner was drafted—a likely enough scenario given the escalation of the war in Europe—and if something happened to him while he was in the service.
“We agreed that the stories would carry his copyright,” Eisner said, “and that at any time I returned, I would get the copyright back.” Arnold proved to be good to his word. “When I got back I went to him and told him I wanted to disassociate him from The Spirit , and he signed an agreement in which he gave the rights back to me.”
Arnold and Martin could live with this. The three men shook on the deal, and when Eisner got up to leave, he was convinced that he was now involved in something important, something career changing. Arnold and Martin hoped to launch the comic as soon as Eisner could put it all together—a tall order, considering they hadn’t discussed any specifics about the characters that Eisner would be presenting. In fact, Eisner himself had no idea what he’d be doing. His future, like a blank page on his drawing board, was all potential.
Jerry Iger thought his partner had lost his mind when Eisner explained the new project to him. He was undoubtedly hurt and angered by the prospect of his main creative force leaving him on his own, but beyond that, for all of Eisner’s explaining, Iger could see no good reason for his leaving the company at the height of its success. A war, he told Eisner, was on the horizon, already being waged in Europe, and there was no telling what would happen to Eisner’s comic strip if the United States became involved and Eisner was called into the service. There was a tremendous risk in leaving a proven success like Eisner & Iger for something that had never been attempted before. “Your dream could go up in smoke,” Iger cautioned his partner.
At Fiction House, Eisner & Iger’s biggest client, publisher Thurman T. Scott was also upset, but for a different reason. His business with the shop was based largely on his cordial relationship with Eisner, and he didn’t want to deal with Jerry Iger. A southerner, with all the traditional gentility that implied, Scott found Iger’s aggressive personality intolerable—to such an extent that he offered to lend Eisner any money he might need to buy Iger out if that meant Eisner would continue to supply Fiction House with comics. Eisner politely declined.
What neither man understood was the extent of Eisner’s need to break away. Both understood that newspaper comic strip artists were
Young as he was, Eisner never deluded himself about the nature of the business he was conducting with Busy Arnold and Henry Martin. He later joked in interviews that he would have loved to believe, as he sat across the table from Arnold and Martin, that they were interested in him because he was the best artist in the comic book business; in fact, he knew that they sought his services because he was a dependable commodity. “To the syndicate, [the supplement] was merchandise, and I was always conscious of that,” he said. “I wasn’t flattering myself into thinking that they saw it as anything but something their salesmen could use to sell more newspapers, and that didn’t bother me.”
The men argued at length, and for a while it looked as if they’d be breaking off the meeting without reaching an agreement. Then Eisner came up with a creative solution. The partnership contract would stipulate that the supplement would be copyrighted in Busy Arnold’s name, with the written agreement that all rights to character and content would revert to Eisner if the partnership dissolved. As Eisner recalled, Arnold was particularly concerned about what would happen to the character if Eisner was drafted—a likely enough scenario given the escalation of the war in Europe—and if something happened to him while he was in the service.
“We agreed that the stories would carry his copyright,” Eisner said, “and that at any time I returned, I would get the copyright back.” Arnold proved to be good to his word. “When I got back I went to him and told him I wanted to disassociate him from The Spirit , and he signed an agreement in which he gave the rights back to me.”
Arnold and Martin could live with this. The three men shook on the deal, and when Eisner got up to leave, he was convinced that he was now involved in something important, something career changing. Arnold and Martin hoped to launch the comic as soon as Eisner could put it all together—a tall order, considering they hadn’t discussed any specifics about the characters that Eisner would be presenting. In fact, Eisner himself had no idea what he’d be doing. His future, like a blank page on his drawing board, was all potential.
Jerry Iger thought his partner had lost his mind when Eisner explained the new project to him. He was undoubtedly hurt and angered by the prospect of his main creative force leaving him on his own, but beyond that, for all of Eisner’s explaining, Iger could see no good reason for his leaving the company at the height of its success. A war, he told Eisner, was on the horizon, already being waged in Europe, and there was no telling what would happen to Eisner’s comic strip if the United States became involved and Eisner was called into the service. There was a tremendous risk in leaving a proven success like Eisner & Iger for something that had never been attempted before. “Your dream could go up in smoke,” Iger cautioned his partner.
At Fiction House, Eisner & Iger’s biggest client, publisher Thurman T. Scott was also upset, but for a different reason. His business with the shop was based largely on his cordial relationship with Eisner, and he didn’t want to deal with Jerry Iger. A southerner, with all the traditional gentility that implied, Scott found Iger’s aggressive personality intolerable—to such an extent that he offered to lend Eisner any money he might need to buy Iger out if that meant Eisner would continue to supply Fiction House with comics. Eisner politely declined.
What neither man understood was the extent of Eisner’s need to break away. Both understood that newspaper comic strip artists were
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