A Contract With God
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A Contract With God
''A Contract with God and Other Tenement Stories'' is a graphic novel by American cartoonist Will Eisner published in 1978. The book's short story cycle revolves around poor Jewish characters who live in a tenement in New York City. Eisner produced two sequels set in the same tenement: '' A Life Force'' in 1988, and '' Dropsie Avenue'' in 1995. Though the term "graphic novel" did not originate with Eisner, the book is credited with popularizing its use. Four stand-alone stories make up the book: in "A Contract with God" a religious man gives up his faith after the death of his young adopted daughter; in "The Street Singer" a has-been diva tries to seduce a poor, young street singer, who tries to take advantage of her in turn; a bullying racist is led to suicide after false accusations of pedophilia in "The Super"; and "Cookalein" intertwines the stories of several characters vacationing in the Catskill Mountains. The stories are thematically linked with motifs of frustration ...
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Will Eisner
William Erwin Eisner (March 6, 1917 – January 3, 2005) was an American cartoonist, writer, and entrepreneur. He was one of the earliest cartoonists to work in the American comic book industry, and his series ''The Spirit'' (1940–1952) was noted for its experiments in content and form. In 1978, he popularized the term "graphic novel" with the publication of his book ''A Contract with God''. He was an early contributor to formal comics studies with his book '' Comics and Sequential Art'' (1985). The Eisner Award was named in his honor and is given to recognize achievements each year in the comics medium; he was one of the three inaugural inductees to the Will Eisner Comic Book Hall of Fame. 1917–1936: Early life Family background Eisner's father, Shmuel "Samuel" Eisner, was born March 6, 1886, in Kolomyia, Austria-Hungary (present-day Ukraine), and was one of eleven children. He aspired to be an artist, and as a teenager painted murals for rich patrons and Catholic church ...
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Shaving In Judaism
Judaism prohibits shaving with a razor on the basis of a rabbinic interpretation of Leviticus 19:27, which states, "Ye shall not round the corners of your heads, neither shalt thou mar the corners of thy beard." The Mishnah interprets this as a prohibition on using a razor on the beard. This prohibition is further expanded upon in kabbalistic literature. In the Torah The book of Leviticus in the Torah makes mention of ''corners of the head'', and prohibits the ''marring'' of the ''corners of the beard'', with particular emphasis on priests (kohanim) not ''marring'' the ''corners of the beard''; as with many other parts of Leviticus, the Book of Ezekiel describes different regulations, stating that the priests should not shave their heads, or let their locks grow long. However, there were exceptions, with the Book of Ezekiel itself adding that priests should keep their hair trimmed, and Leviticus arguing that, in certain cases of tzaraath, the beard and hair should be complete ...
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Rube Goldberg
Reuben Garrett Lucius Goldberg (July 4, 1883 – December 7, 1970), known best as Rube Goldberg, was an American cartoonist, sculptor, author, engineer, and inventor. Goldberg is best known for his popular cartoons depicting complicated gadgets performing simple tasks in indirect, convoluted ways. The cartoons led to the expression "Rube Goldberg machines" to describe similar gadgets and processes. Goldberg received many honors in his lifetime, including a Pulitzer Prize for political cartooning in 1948, the National Cartoonists Society's Gold T-Square Award in 1955, and the Banshees' Silver Lady Award in 1959. He was a founding member and first president of the National Cartoonists Society, which hosts the annual Reuben Award, honoring the top cartoonist of the year and named after Goldberg, who won the award in 1967. He is the inspiration for international competitions known as Rube Goldberg Machine Contests, which challenge participants to create a complicated machine to ...
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National Cartoonists Society
The National Cartoonists Society (NCS) is an organization of professional cartoonists in the United States. It presents the National Cartoonists Society Awards. The Society was born in 1946 when groups of cartoonists got together to entertain the troops. They enjoyed each other's company and decided to meet on a regular basis. NCS members work in many branches of the profession, including advertising, animation, newspaper comic strips and syndicated single-panel cartoons, comic books, editorial cartoons, gag cartoons, graphic novels, greeting cards, magazine and book illustration. Only recently has the National Cartoonists Society embraced web comics. Membership is limited to established professional cartoonists, with a few exceptions of outstanding persons in affiliated fields. The NCS is not a guild or labor union. The organization's stated primary purposes are "to advance the ideals and standards of professional cartooning in its many forms", "to promote and foster a social ...
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Otto Nückel
Otto Nückel (Cologne, 6 September 1888 – Cologne, 12 November 1955) was a German painter, graphic designer, illustrator and cartoonist. He is best known as one of the 20th century's pioneer wordless novelists, along with Frans Masereel and Lynd Ward. Life Nückel, who had exhibited skill as an artist in his childhood, dropped out of medical school in Freiburg im Breisgau and moved to Munich where he resided for the remainder of his life. There he developed his skill in drawing and painting, joining the artists' association, the Munich Sezession, and developing an interest in relief printing. Because of the scarcity of wood, Nückel made engravings for relief prints on lead plates. A pioneer in lead engraving, Nückel developed an accomplished mastery of this medium, distinguished by ample use of the multiple-line tool. He illustrated works by Thomas Mann, E. T. A. Hoffmann and others before garnering considerable attention with his own publication '' Destiny: A story in p ...
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Frans Masereel
Frans Masereel (31 July 1889 – 3 January 1972) was a Flemish painter and graphic artist who worked mainly in France, known especially for his woodcuts focused on political and social issues, such as war and capitalism. He completed over 40 wordless novels in his career, and among these, his greatest is generally said to be '' Passionate Journey''. Masereel's woodcuts influenced Lynd Ward and later graphic artists such as Clifford Harper, Eric Drooker, and Otto Nückel. Biography Upbringing Frans Masereel was born in the Belgian coastal town Blankenberge on 31 July 1889, and at the age of five, his father died. His mother moved the family to Ghent in 1896. She met and married a physician with strong Socialist convictions, and the family together regularly protested against the appalling working conditions of the Ghent textile workers. Education At the age of 18 he began to study at the École des Beaux-Arts in the class of Jean Delvin. In 1909, he visited England a ...
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Flemish People
The Flemish or Flemings ( nl, Vlamingen ) are a Germanic ethnic group native to Flanders, Belgium, who speak Dutch. Flemish people make up the majority of Belgians, at about 60%. "''Flemish''" was historically a geographical term, as all inhabitants of the medieval County of Flanders in modern-day Belgium, France, and the Netherlands were referred to as "Flemings", irrespective of their ethnicity or language. The contemporary region of Flanders comprises a part of this historical county, as well as parts of the medieval duchy of Brabant and the medieval county of Loon, where the modern national identity and culture gradually formed. History The sense of "Flemish" identity increased significantly after the Belgian Revolution. Prior to this, the term "Vlamingen" in the Dutch language was in first place used for the inhabitants of the former County of Flanders. Flemish, however, had been used since the 14th century to refer to the language and dialects of both the peoples of Fl ...
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Lynd Ward
Lynd Kendall Ward (June 26, 1905 – June 28, 1985) was an American artist and novelist, known for his series of wordless novels using wood engraving, and his illustrations for juvenile and adult books. His wordless novels have influenced the development of the graphic novel. Although strongly associated with his wood engravings, he also worked in watercolor, oil, brush and ink, lithography and mezzotint. Ward was a son of Methodist minister, political organizer and radical social activist Harry F. Ward, the first chairman of the American Civil Liberties Union on its founding in 1920. His best-known books are ''Gods' Man'' and his Caldecott Award, Caldecott-winning children's story, ''The Biggest Bear''. Early life Ward was born on June 26, 1905, in Chicago, Illinois. His father, Harry F. Ward, was born in Chiswick, England, in 1873; the elder Ward was a Methodism, Methodist who moved to the United States in 1891 after reading the Progressivism in the United States, pro ...
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Wordless Novel
The wordless novel is a narrative genre that uses sequences of captionless pictures to tell a story. As artists have often made such books using woodcut and other relief printing techniques, the terms woodcut novel or novel in woodcuts are also used. The genre flourished primarily in the 1920s and 1930s and was most popular in Germany. The wordless novel has its origin in the German Expressionist movement of the early 20th century. The typically socialist work drew inspiration from medieval woodcuts and used the awkward look of that medium to express angst and frustration at social injustice. The first such book was the Belgian Frans Masereel's ''25 Images of a Man's Passion'', published in 1918. The German Otto Nückel and other artists followed Masereel's example. Lynd Ward brought the genre to the United States in 1929 when he produced , which inspired other American wordless novels and a parody in 1930 by cartoonist Milt Gross with ''He Done Her Wrong''. Following a ...
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Denis Kitchen
Denis Kitchen (born August 27, 1946) is an Americans, American underground comix, underground cartoonist, publisher, author, agent, and the founder of the Comic Book Legal Defense Fund. Early life Kitchen grew up in Wisconsin, attending William Horlick High School, Racine, Wisconsin, Racine, where he cofounded and edited ''Klepto'', an unofficial school paper, also contributing stories and illustrations to the paper. He continued this interest at the University of Wisconsin–Milwaukee, where in 1967 he cofounded and served as art director for the humor magazine ''Snide'', also supplying cartoons. He also provided cartoons for the ''UWM Post''. Originally a member of the Reserve Officers' Training Corps, ROTC on campus, Kitchen left ROTC, a decision he later attributed to an allergy to the wool uniform pants ("...had the pants been made out of cotton, I might be a lieutenant colonel today," he later said). He took classes in journalism and started frequenting a local coffeehouse ...
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Frans Masereel - 25 Images Of A Man's Passion - Final Four Plates
Frans is an Afrikaans, Danish, Dutch, Finnish, Icelandic, Norwegian, and Swedish given name, sometimes as a short form of ''François''. One cognate of Frans in English is ''Francis''. Given name * Frans van Aarssens (1572–1641), Dutch diplomat and statesman * Frans Ackerman (1330–1387), Flemish statesman * Frans Adelaar (born 1960), Dutch football player and manager * Frans Alphons Maria Alting von Geusau (born 1933), Dutch legal scholar and diplomat * Frans Aerenhouts (born 1937), Belgian cyclist * Frans Ananias (born 1972), Namibian footballer * Frans Andersson (1911–1988), Danish bass-baritone * Frans Andriessen (1929–2019), Dutch politician * Frans Anneessens (1660–1719), Flemish protest leader * Frans van Anraat (born 1942), Dutch businessman and convicted war criminal * Frans Badens ( fl. 1571–1618), Flemish painter * Frans Bak (born 1958), Danish composer, choral conductor, saxophonist, and pianist * Frans Decker (1684–1751), 18th-century painter from the Nort ...
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Yiddish Language
Yiddish (, or , ''yidish'' or ''idish'', , ; , ''Yidish-Taytsh'', ) is a West Germanic language historically spoken by Ashkenazi Jews. It originated during the 9th century in Central Europe, providing the nascent Ashkenazi community with a vernacular based on High German fused with many elements taken from Hebrew (notably Mishnaic) and to some extent Aramaic. Most varieties of Yiddish include elements of Slavic languages and the vocabulary contains traces of Romance languages.Aram Yardumian"A Tale of Two Hypotheses: Genetics and the Ethnogenesis of Ashkenazi Jewry".University of Pennsylvania. 2013. Yiddish is primarily written in the Hebrew alphabet. Prior to World War II, its worldwide peak was 11 million, with the number of speakers in the United States and Canada then totaling 150,000. Eighty-five percent of the approximately six million Jews who were murdered in the Holocaust were Yiddish speakers,Solomon Birnbaum, ''Grammatik der jiddischen Sprache'' (4., erg. Aufl., Hambu ...
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