Will Eisner died this week.

Here’s a sample of his work, a single page from one of his invaluable process books that doesn’t even begin to demonstrate how important or influential he was on American comic books over the course of his sixty-plus years in the industry. Not, perhaps, to the same must-imitate-him degree of Jack Kirby, but certainly in an age when we’re talking about standalone graphic novels as the viable future of the American medium, Eisner was there first, and he’s been doing it for decades. His stuff is required reading, no question.

Hell of a way to start 2005.