Will Eisner

"Born and brought up in New York City and having survived and thrived there, I carry with me a cargo of memories, some painful and some pleasant, which have remained in the hold of my mind. I have an ancient mariner’s need to share my accumulation of experience and observations. Call me, if you will, a graphic witness reporting on life, death, heartbreak and the never-ending struggle to prevail…or at least to survive."

"As the story unfolds it is at 55 Dropsie Avenue where Frimme Hersh deals with God; where the street singer fails to grasp his chance for gory. It is on Dropsie Avenue where a diminutive enemy defeats the super, and Willie comes of age. It is in an alley of Dropsie Avenue where Jacob Shtarkah tries to find the meaning of life. It is also on Dropsie Avenue, finally, where I undertake the biography of the street itself, through the physical evolution of the block, the rise and fall of the tenement building at No.55 and the ethnic and social changes of the stream of occupants."

"The tenement – the name derives from a fifteenth-century legal term for a multiple dwelling – always seemed to me a “ship afloat in concrete.” After all didn’t the building carry passengers on a voyage through life? No. 55 sat at the corner of Dropsie avenue near the elevated train, or the elevated as we called it in those days. It was a treasure house of stories that illustrated tenement life as I remembered it, stories that needed to be told before they faded from memory. Within its “railroad flats,” with rooms strung together train-like lived low-paid city employees or laborers and their turbulent families. Most were recent immigrants, intent on their own survival. They kept busy raising children and dreaming of the better lie they knew existed “uptown.” Hallways were filled with a rich stew of cooking aromas, sounds of arguments and the tinny wail from Victrolas. What community spirit there was stemmed from the common hostility of tenants to the landlord or his surrogate superintendent. Typically, the buildings tenants came and went with regularity, depending on the vagaries of their fortunes. But many remained for a lifetime, imprisoned by poverty or old age. There was no real privacy or anonymity. Everybody knew about everybody. Human dramas, both good and bad, instantly gathered witness like ants swarming around a piece of dropped food. From window to window or on the stoop below, the tenants analyzed, evaluated and critiqued each happening, following an obligatory admission that it was really none of their business."

"To anyone growing up in any large city, the immediate neighborhood becomes the world. The street on which one lives provides a kid with local identification somewhat similar to being branded by national origin. Streets have a status. They grow, get old and change in character. In large coastal cities, immigration has an effect on the profile of a street altering it as each new group enters, stays a while, assimilates and then moves away. Streets seem to have a discernible life. Some start out ostentatiously and gradually descend into slums while others begin as poor the disreputable neighborhoods and rise to ostentation through what city planners call gentrification."

"My early work in newspaper comics and comic books allowed me to entertain millions of readers weekly, but I always felt there was more to say. I pioneered the use of comics for instructional manuals for American soldiers, covering three major wars, and later used comics to educate grade school children. Both were heady responsibilities that I took very seriously. But I yearned to do still more with the medium. At an age when I could have "retired," I chose instead to create literary comics, than a decidedly oxymoronic term. Acceptance has not always been easy, but I have seen it arrive in my lifetime. It has been most gratifying to see the graphic novel and many of its exceptional creators gradually become an accepted part of the book world. I couldn't find a major publisher to take A Contract With God only a quarter century ago, and now graphic novels represent the book industry's fastest growing genre."

"The most extraordinary aspect of the Protocols of the Elders of Zion is not so much the history of its inception as that of its reception. That this fake was produced by a number of secret services and police of at least three countries, assembled from a collage of different texts, is by now a well-known fact-and Will Eisner tells it in full, taking into account the most recent research. In one of my essays I identify other sources that scholars had not taken into account: for example, the Protocols “Jewish plan” for conquering the world follows, almost literally at times, the Jesuit plan as told by Eugene Sue first in Le juif errant, (1844-45) and later in Les myst’eres du people (1849-57)-the similarities are so great that one is tempted to conclude that Maurice Joly himself (the French satirist whose pamphlet Dialogues in Hell Between Machiavelli and Montesquieu, published in 1864, is considered to be the direct predecessor of the Protocols, and who is a figure in Eisner’s The Plot) had been inspired by Sue’s novels."

"This patchwork of largely fictional works makes the Protocols an incoherent text that easily reveals its fabricated origins. It is hardly credible, if not in a roman feuilleton or in a grand opera, that the “bad guys” should express their evil plans in such a frank and unashamed manner, that they should declare, as the Elders of Zion do, that they have “boundless ambition, a ravenous greed, a merciless desire for revenge and an intended hatred.” If at first the Protocols was taken seriously, it is because it was presented as a shocking revelation, and by sources all in all trustworthy. But what seems incredible is how this fake arose from its own ashes each time someone proved that it was, beyond all doubt, a fake. This is when the “novel of the Protocols” truly starts to sound like fiction. Following the article that appeared in 1921 in the Times of London revealing that the Protocols was plagiarized, as well as every other time some authoritative source confirmed the spurious nature of the Protocols, there was someone else who published it again claiming its authenticity. And the story continues unabated on the Internet today. It is as if, after Copernicus, Galileo, and Kepler, one were to continue publishing textbooks claiming that the sun travels around the earth. How can one explain resilience against all evidence, and the perverse appeal that this book continues to exercise? The answer can be found in the works of Nesta Webster, an antisemetic author who spent her life supporting this account of the Jewish plot. In her Secret Societies and Subversive Movements, she seems well informed and knows the whole story as Eisner narrates it here, but this is her conclusion: The only opinion I have committed myself is that, whether genuine or not, the Protocols represent the programme of a world revolution, and that in view of their prophetic nature and of their extraordinary resemblance to the protocols of certain secret societies of the past, they were either the work of some such society or of someone profoundly versed in the lore of secret society who was able to reproduce their ideas and phraseology. Her reasoning is flawless: “since the Protocols say what I said in my story, they confirm it,” or: “the Protocols confirm the story that I derived from them, and are therefore authentic.” Better still: “the Protocols could be fake, but they say exactly what the Jews think, and must therefore be considered authentic.” In other words, it is not the Protocols that produce antisemetism, it is people’s profound need to single out an Enemy that leads them to believe in the Protocols. I believe that-in spite of this courageous, not comic but tragic book by Will Eisner- the story is hardly over. Yet is is a story very much worth telling, for one must fight the Big Lie and the hatred it spawns."

"In 1848, driven by a revolution in Paris, King Louis Philippe abdicated and Louis Napoleon (a nephew of Napoleon Bonaparte) was elected president of France. Four years later, after a coup d’etat, Louis Napoleon styled himself Napoleon II, emperor of France. Napoleon III’s first act as emperor was to imprison his political opponents. He was a crafty monarch, and his ambition during his reign was to seek glory through military adventurism while the great mass of French peasants remained ina state of poverty and despair. Initially, Napoleon III achieved a short-lived public popularity by trying to “modernize” France and liberalize its economy, but his legacy remains that of a dictator and conniving politician. In 1870, fearful that Germany was expanding too fast, Napoleon III declared war against this neighbor. The French were quickly defeated, and Napoleon III became a prisoner of war. Upon release in 1871, he was exiled to England, where he lived until his death in 1873. Maurice Joly was mindful of this growing tension between Germany and France. He had been born in 1821 of French parents. He was admitted to the Paris bar as an attorney and was a one-time member of the General Assembly. Joly devoted most of time to writing caustic essays on French politics. He joined many other severe critics of Napoleon III, who regarded him as a ruthless despot. In 1864, Joly wrote a book called “The Dialogue in Hell between Machiavelli and Montesquieu.”…It intended to liken Napoleon III to the infamous Machiavelli, author of “The Prince,” a treatise on the acquisition of power. Holy intended to reveal the French dictator’s dark and evil plans."

"Maurice Joly: In “Caesar” I bluntly accused our emperor of evil offenses…in ‘’’this’’’ book I expose the nature of the man’s mind, how he thinks, y’see!"

"Maurice Joly: Your honor, I have not written a lampoon here…this book’s delineations are applicable to all governments!"

"When Nicholas II was crowned tsar of Russia in 1894, the country was seething with unrest. Brought up by private tutors, he had little training in the affairs of state. He was dull, reactionary, and an ineffective ruler who was easily influenced. Although revolution was slowly brewing, Russia on the surface remained a prisoner of its feudal past. In order to maintain the appearance of stability, Nicholas II engaged ina policy of suppreission and later on supported pogroms against Jews. Such anti-Semitic views were not new. Even before the assassination in 1881 of Alexander II (Nicholas II’s grandfather) the Romanov family had been convinced of p-lots against the tsar. During his own reign, Nicholas II was easily swayed by strong opinions. He veered from one plan to another depending on the advice of the most articulate in his council. His most trusted adviser was Sergei Yulievich Witte, a clever but sometimes unpopular councilor who was known to have liberal modernistic views regarded as controversial by conservatives, who dominated the court. Witte had two very resentful enemies…Gorymikine and Rachkobsky, who were associated with the secret police."

"Gorymikine: Surely, he must be aware that Russia is facing a revolt!"

"Rachikovsky: What if there appeared a document proving that modernization was a part of a Jewish plot?"

"Mathieu Golovinski was born in the Simbirsk region of Russia in 1865 during the reign of the Romanov dynasty. His family, a part of the fading Russian aristocracy, provided him with a fragile social standing. He grew up in a leisured environment typical of families of that class. His father, Basil Golobinski, died,however, when Mathieu was 10 years old."

"Classmate 1: Count Dashkov is close to the tsar…a minister at the court no less…"

"Count Dashkov: Ah, Mathieu Golovinski, I hear good things about you…I have need for a young man with your talents!"

"Pobedonostev: Aha! You are very well recommended Golivinski. You are just what we need here! Russia’s bureaucracy and its state apparatus have been infiltrated by Jews. Believe me. I’ve been studying the Jewish threat. As guardians of Christina Russia we must deal with them… but it will not be easy…they’re more intelligent and smarter than the average Russian. So how?? How??"

"Golovinski: What is the meaning of this? Why am I arrested?"

"Rachkovsky: The tsar must have unquestionable’’’ evidence of a threat against the monarchy!"

"Golovinski: Mr. Rachkovsky, a Zionist congress met last year. I can simply fabricate a manifesto!"

"Rachkovsky: That is Sergius Nilus!"

"Nilus: This is a program of Jewish world conquest…proof of who is behind this revolution!"

"1905 Tsar Nicholas II made inept efforts to mollify his angry people by granting basic liberties and allowing a parliament (Duma), which he kept dissolving. Meanwhile he ruthlessly suppressed the people’s rising. Royal troops fired ona peaceful march of workers in St. Petersburg on January 9, known as Bloody Sunday. Anti-Jewish pogroms were rampant. The Russian edition, published by Dr. Nilus, of the “Protocols of Zion” was widely circulated. Monarchists frequently read it aloud to illiterate peasants. 1914 The start of World War I led to Russian military defeats. A failing economy brought about terrible civilian suffering. Loyalists openly spoke about a “Jewish plot”. Food riots, strikes, and the tsar’s panicky dissolution of the Fourth Duma exploded into revolution. By November, the Bolsheviks (the revolutionary faction of the former Social Democratic workers’ party) had seized control of the government. Royalist Russians began a civil warand were defeated. Tsar Nicholas II abdicated and was executed, along with his family, by Bolsheviks in 1918. Russian aristocrats fled Russia and dispersed throughout Europe, the Far East, and the Middle East. There they settled as expatriates. Most had little work experience.In order to earn money, they frequently sold valuables. Some of these items provided information on the Russian use of anti-Semitic literature."

"1920 The Times London, Saturday, May 8, 1920. “The Jewish peril.” A disturbing pamphlet Call for inquiry. (From a correspondent.) The Times has not as yet noticed this singular little book. Its diffusion is, however, increasing, and its reading is likely to perturb the thinking public. Never before have a race and a creed been accused of a more sinister conspiracy. We in this country, who live in good fellowship with numerous representatives of Jewry, may well ask that some authoritative criticism should deal with it., and either destroy the ugly “Semitic” body or assign their proper place to the insidious allegations of this kind of literature. In spite of the urgency of impartial and exhaustive criticism, the pamphlet has been allowed, so far, to pass almost unchallenged. The Jewish Press announced, it is true, that the anti-semitism of the “Jewish Peril” was going to be exposed. But save for an unsatisfactory article in the March 5 issue of the ‘’Jewish Guardian’’ and for an almost equally unsatisfactory article in the March 5 issue of contribution to the ‘’Nation’’ of March 27, this exposure is yet to come. The article of the ‘’Jewish Guardian’’ is unsatisfactory, because it deals mainly with the personality of the author of the book in which the pamphlet is embodied, with Russian reactionary propaganda, and the Russian secret police. It does not touch the substance of the “Protocols of the Learned Elders of Zion.” The purely Russian side of the book and its fervid “Orthodoxy.” Is not its most interesting feature. Its author-Professor S. Nilus-who was a minor official in the Department of Foreign Religions at Moscow, had, in all likelihood, opportunities of access to many archives and unpublished documents. On the other hand, the world-wide issue raised by the “Protocols” which he incorporated in his book and are now translated into English as “The Jewish Peril,” cannot fail not only to interest, but to preoccupy. What are the these of the “Protocols” with which, in the absence of public criticism, British readers have to grapple alone and unaided?"

"Have we, by straining every fiber of our national body, escaped a “Pax Germanica” only to fall into a “Pax Judaica”? The “Elders of Zion,” as represented in their “Protocols” are by no means kinder taskmasters than William II. And his henchmen would have been. All these questions, which are likely to obtrude themselves on the reader of the “Jewish Peril” cannot be dismissed by a shrug of the shoulders unless one wants to strengthen the hand of the typical anti-Semite and call forth his favourite accusation of the “conspiracy of silence.” An impartial investigation of these would-be documents and of their history is most desirable. That history is by no means clear from the English translation. They would appear, from internal evidence, to have been written by Jews for Jews, or to be cast in the form of lectures, and notes for lectures, by Jews to Jews. If so, in what circumstances were they produced and to cope with what inter-Jewish emergency? Or are we to dismiss the whole matter without inquiry and to let the influence of such a book as this work unchecked?"

"Zionist Aspirations Dr. Weizmann on Future of Palestine. Dr. Weizmann; the Zionist leader, who had just returned from the Conference at San Remo, in the course of a statement yesterday on the future of Palestine expressed his appreciation, and that of his fellow Zionists for the assistance rendered to their cause by The Times. The Balfour declaration, by being incorporated in the Treat with Turkey, had received international sanction. Dealing with the mandate conferred on Great Britain, he said:- There are still important details outstanding, such as the actual terms of the mandate and the question of boundaries in Palestine. There is the delimitation of the boundary between French Syria and Palestine, which will constitute the northern frontier and the eastern line of demarcation, adjoining Arab Syria."

"Graves: Quite a lot of attention has been given to this “Protocol” matter in England! An English edition of it, “The Jewish Peril,” appeared last January…and the “Illustrated Sunday Herald” carried a big article on it February 8, 1920"

"International Jews. In violent opposition to all this sphere of Jewish effort rise the schemes of the International Jews. The adherents of this sinister confederacy are mostly men reared up among the unhappy populations of countries where Jews are persecuted on account of their race. Most, if not all, of them have forsaken the faith of their forefathers, and divorced from their minds all spiritual hopes of the next world. This movement among the Jews is not new. From the days of Spartacus-Weishaupt to those of Karl Marx, and down to Trotsky (Russia) Bela Kun (Hungary), Rosa Luxemborg (Germany) and Emma Goldman (United States), this world-wide conspiracy for the overthrow of civilization and for the reconstitution of society on the basis of arrested development, of envious malevolence, and impossible equality, has been steadily growing. It played, as a modern writer, Mrs. Webster, has so ably shown, a definitely recognizable part in the tragedy of the French Revolution. It has been the mainspring of every subversive movement during the Nineteenth Century; and now at last this band of extraordinary personalities from the underworld of the great cities of Europe and America have gripped the Russian people by the hair of their heads and have become practically the undisputed masters of that enormous empire."

"Dialogue in Hell: First Dialogue"

"Dialogue in Hell: First Dialogue States, once constituted, have two kinds of enemies: the enemies within and the enemies without. What arms shall they employ in war against the foreigners? Will the two enemy generals communicate to one another their campaign plans in order that each shall be able to defend himself? Will they forbid themselves night attacks, snares, ambuscades, battles in which the number of troops are unequal? Without doubt, they will not. And such fighters would make one laugh. And these snares, these artifices, all this strategy indispensable to warfare, you don’t want them to be employed against the enemies with ink, against the disturbers of peace?... Is it possible to conduct by pure reason violent masses which are moved only by sentiment, passion, and prejudice?"

"Protocols: Number 1, paras. 9,10 If every State has two foes, and if in regard to the external foe it is allowed and not considered immoral to use every manner and art of conflict, as for example to keep the enemy in ignorance of plans of attack and defense, to attack him by night or in superior numbers, then in what way can the same means in regard to a worse foe, the destroyer of the structure of society and the commonweal, be called immoral and not permissible? Is it possible for any sound logical mind to hope with any success to guide crowds by the aid of reasonable counsels and arguments,, when any objection or contradiction, senseless though it may be, can be made and when such objection may find more favor with the people, whose powers of reasoning are superficial?"

"Protocols: Number 1, paras. 11,12,13,14 The political has nothing in common with the moral. The word “right is an abstract thought and proved by nothing. Where does right begin? Where does it end? In any State in which there is a bad organization of authority, an impersonality of laws and of the rights over multiplying out of liberalism, I find a new right to attack by the right of the strong, and to scatter to the winds all existing forces of order and regulation, to reconstruct all institutions and to become sovereign lord of those who have left to us the rights of their power by laying them down voluntarily in their liberalism."

"Raslovlev: The “protocols” written in 1897 states that the elders decreed the expulsion of all non-Jewish secret societies."

"Protocols: Number 1, paras. 16, 18, and 20 Let us, however, in our plans, direct our attention not so much to what is good and moral as to what is necessary and useful. In order to elaborate satisfactory forms of action it is necessary to have regard to the rascalist, the slackness, the instability of the mob, its lack of capacity to understand and respect the conditions of its own life, or its own welfare. It must be understood that the might of a mob is a blind, senseless and unreasoning force ever the mercy of a suggestion from any side…. A people left to itself, i.e., to starts from its midst, bring itself ro ruin by party dissensions excited by the pursuit of power and honors and the disorders arising therefrom. Is it possible for the masses of the people calmly and without petty jealousies to form judgement, to deal with the affairs of the country which cannot be mixed up with personal interest? Can they defend themselves from an external foe?"

"Dialogue in Hell: Fourth Dialogue There are tremendous populations riveted to labor by poverty, as they were in other times by slavery. What difference, I ask you, do your fictions make to their happiness? Your great political movement has after all only ended in the triumph of a minority privileged by chance as the ancient nobility was by birth. What difference does it make to the proletariat bent over in its labor, weighted down by the heaviness of its destiny, that some orators have the right to speak, that some journalists have the right to write? You have created rights which will be purely academic for the mass of the people, since it cannot make use of them. These rights, of which the law permits him the ideal enjoyment and necessity refuses him the actual exercise, are the people only a bitter irony of defeat."

"Protocols: Number 3, para. 5 All people are chained to heavy toil by poverty more firmly than ever they were chained by slavery and serfdom; from these, one way and another, they might free themselves, these could be settled with, but from want they will never get away. We have included in the constitution such rights as to the masses appear fictitious and not actual rights. All these so-called “People’s Rights” can exist only in idea, an idea which can never be realized in practical life. What is it to the proletariat laborer, bowed double over his heavy toil, crushed by his lot in life, if talkers get the right to babble, if journalists get the right to scribble nonsense side by side with good stuff, once the proletariat has no other profit out of the constitution save only those pitiful crumbs which we fling them from out table in return for their voting in favor of what we dictate, in favor of the men we place in power, the servants of our agenteur…. Republican Rights for a poor man are no more than a bitter piece of irony."

"Dialogue in Hell: Fourth Dialogue"

"Protocols: Number 3, para. 16 It is the bottomless rascality of the goyim peoples, who crawl on their bellies to force, but are merciless toward weakness, unsparing to faults, and indulgent to crimes, unwilling to bear the contradictions of a free social system but patient unto martyrdom under the violence of a bold despotism. It is those qualities which are aiding us to independence. From the premier-dictators of the present day the goyim peoples suffer patiently and bear such abuse as for the least of them they would have beheaded twenty kings."

"Dialogue in Hell: Ninth Dialogue"

"Protocols: Number 10, paras. 6,7 A scheme of government should come ready made from one brain, because it will never be clinched firmly if it is allowed to split into fractional parts in the minds of many. It is allowable, therefore, for us to have cognizance of the scheme of action but not to discuss it lest we disturb its artfulness, and interdependence of its component parts, the practical force of the secret meaning of each clause. To discuss and make alteration in a labor of this kind by means of numerous votings is to impress upon it the stamp of all ratiocinations and misunderstandings which have failed to penetrate the depth and nexus of its plottings…. These schemes will not turn existing institutions upside down just yet, They will only effect changes in their economy and consequently in the whole combined movement of their progress, which will thus be directed along the paths laid down in our schemes."

"Graves: Here, we can clearly see how an idea is copied!"

"Dialogue in Hell: Tenth Dialogue"

"Protocols: Number 11, paras. 1,2 The state Council has been, as it were, the emphatic expression of the ruler; it will be, as the “show” part of the Legislative Corps what may be called the editorial committee of the alws and decrees of the ruler. Br> This, then, is the program of the new constitution. We shall make Law, Right, and Justice (1) in the guide of proposals to the Legislative Corps, (2) by the decrees of the president under the guise of general regulations, of orders of the Senate and of resolutions of the State Council in the guise of ministerial orders, (3) and in case a suitable occasion should arise, in the form of a revolution in the State."

"Graves: When copying the “Dialogues”…why would the :Protocols” alter “coups d'etat: to “revolution”?"

"Dialogue in Hell: Thirteenth Dialogue"

"Protocols: Number 15, para. 6 You cannot imagine to what extent the wisest of the goyim can be brought to a state of unconscious naivete in the presence of this condition of high conceit of themselves, and at the same time how easy it is to take the heart out of them…. These tigers in appearance have the souls of sheep and the wind blows freely through their heads. We have set them on the hobby-horse of an idea about the absorbtion of individuality by the symbolic unit of Collectivism…."

"Graves: “…Tigers with the souls of sheep and heads full of wind…” A CLEVER METAPHOR…NO WONDER THE “PROTOCOLS” COPIES IT!"

"Dialogue in Hell: Seventeenth Dialogue"

"Protocols: Number 17, paras. 7,8 Our kingdom will be an apologia of the divinity Vishnu, in whom is found its personification – in our hundred hands will be, one in each, the springs of the machinery of social life. We shall see everything without the aid of official police…. In our programs one-third of our subjects will keep the rest under observation…. Our agents will be taken from the higher as well as the lower raniks of society, from among the administrative class who spend their time in amusements, editors, printers, and publishers, booksellers, clerks, and salesmen, workmen, coachmen, lackeys, et cetera…."

"Graves: Now, why on earth would the Elders of Zion have their kingdom be an apologia for Vishnu, a Hindu God?"