Will Eisner, from New York to Angoulême

This was the central theme of the UNESCO Pavilion during the Grand Off comics festival, which took place at the end of January in Angoulême, France. The presentation featured a project for a statue dedicated to the master of comics, Will Eisner, designed and created by the local artist Richard Yelo.

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The idea originated in early 2025 with Olivier Balez, a comic book author and illustrator who has lived in Angoulême for about ten years. In keeping with the city’s policy of paying tribute to the great names of the ninth art, through murals and statues, the city, considered its international capital, felt it necessary to create a space alongside the bust of Hergé and near the mural dedicated to Uderzo, for representatives of America and Asia, thus further affirming Angoulême’s status as a UNESCO Creative City.

The project is being led by a committee that also includes Jean-Pierre Mercier, a comic book historian and former scientific advisor at the CIBDI (Cité internationale de la bande dessinée et de l’image), who has long-standing ties with the Will Eisner family.

Will Eisner, a comics giant

For North American comics, the choice naturally fell on the American Will Eisner (1917-2005), a pioneer of adventure comics in the 1930s and 1940s with the creation of the Spirit character, and inventor, a few decades later, of the graphic novel, with his compatriot Art Spiegelman.

Born in Brooklyn, New York, Will Eisner was both a graphic genius who revolutionized his art and a formidable businessman, as his friend Jean-Pierre Dionnet aptly describes in the 25-minute video we dedicated to him, which premiered at the UNESCO Pavilion during the Grand Off festival. Directed by Greg Lacouture and Marc Tournier, using footage shot for the 2017 exhibition “Will Eisner, Genius of American Comics” at the Cité internationale de la bande dessinée (International City of Comics), this documentary presents the project by retracing Will Eisner’s career through the voices of Jean-Pierre Mercier, Jean-Pierre Dionnet (journalist and comic book author, founder of the magazine Métal Hurlant), and Denis Kitchen (comic book author and Will Eisner’s publisher).

Attached to France, Will Eisner was the first non-European author to be awarded by the FIBD – at the time the International Comics Festival – which awarded him the Grand Prix of the City of Angoulême during its second edition in 1975.

A statue in Place Marengo

Sculptor and comic book artist Richard Yelo, also based in Angoulême for several years, proposed a design inspired by the lettering of the Spirit emerging from a New York building, which immediately won everyone over. The pedestal (made of molded concrete) and bust (in bronze, cast by the Cyclopes art foundry in Mérignac (33)) will measure 1.90 meters tall and weigh a total of 500 kg, and will be installed in Place Marengo, on the Rue Hergé side.

A crowdfunding

To finance this wonderful project, with a total budget of €28,000, the club has approached partners and local authorities, and has already raised €7,000. Then, during the “Grand Off” comics festival, limited-edition bronze medals, illustrations, keychains, and tote bags were produced and offered to visitors of the UNESCO Pavilion with considerable success, bringing the total to €1,000. To complete the funding and reach our goal, we are planning to launch an online crowdfunding campaign. Stay tuned…

Tezuka next ?

After Will Eisner, we plan to pay tribute to another legend of graphic storytelling, with the Japanese Osamu Tezuka, creator of Astro Boy and considered the father of modern manga, who also had a major retrospective exhibition entitled “Osamu Tezuka – Manga no Kamisama” dedicated to him at the FIBD in 2018.