The Spirit #6/2/1940
The Spirit Section of June 2, 1940 is one of the most consequential single publications in American comics history: it marks the simultaneous debut of The Spirit, Lady Luck, and Mr. Mystic, launching a 16-page self-contained comic-book insert that newspapers had never seen before. Will Eisner's origin story for Denny Colt — a private detective felled by a mad scientist's chemicals who awakens in a cemetery and reinvents himself as a masked vigilante — gave the medium a protagonist deliberately conceived outside the superhero mold, with Eisner later saying his interest was always in stories and the full range of human experience rather than in cape-and-cowl adventure. The supplement pioneered a format that treated comics as adult reading, foreshadowing the film-noir aesthetic that would dominate popular culture through the decade and anticipating the creator-owned model that only became standard practice decades later. Its influence on page design, cinematic composition, and genre storytelling has been cited by virtually every major cartoonist of the postwar generation.
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The section came together in late 1939 when Everett M. 'Busy' Arnold, publisher of Quality Comics, partnered with the Register and Tribune Syndicate — a Des Moines, Iowa-based service — to create a comic-book insert that Sunday newspapers could use to compete with the booming standalone comic-book market, following a trail blazed by the Chicago Tribune Comic Book two months earlier. Arnold recruited Will Eisner, then 22 and running the profitable Eisner & Iger studio, who dissolved his partnership with Jerry Iger and negotiated an unusual contractual arrangement that gave Arnold copyright on paper while confirming that the characters remained Eisner's personal property — a deal that protected The Spirit, Lady Luck, and Mr. Mystic from DC's later acquisition of Quality's assets. Eisner wrote and drew the lead Spirit story himself, while bringing Bob Powell with him from the Iger studio to handle the Mr. Mystic backup; Chuck Mazoujian drew Lady Luck from Eisner's design and the first two scripts Eisner wrote under the pseudonym 'Ford Davis.' The production team for this first installment also included letterer Zoltan Szenics and colorist Joe Kubert.
Trivia · 8 facts
- First appearance of The Spirit (Denny Colt): detective Colt is doused in Dr. Cobra's chemicals, falls into suspended animation, and wakes in Wildwood Cemetery to adopt a new vigilante identity, wearing a blue suit and — notably — no mask in this very first installment.
- First appearance of Commissioner Dolan: the Central City police commissioner who immediately deduces the Spirit's true identity and agrees to cooperate with his extralegal crime-fighting.
- First appearance (cameo) of Ebony White: appearing as an unnamed taxi driver in a single panel, he would become the Spirit's primary sidekick for the first nine years of the strip's run.
- First appearance of Dr. Cobra: the mad scientist whose chemical vat inadvertently creates the Spirit; he returns the very next week in 'The Return of Doctor Cobra' (June 9, 1940).
- First appearance of Lady Luck (Brenda Banks): the socialite-turned-masked-crime-fighter debuted simultaneously in a four-page backup drawn by Chuck Mazoujian from Eisner's design; Eisner wrote the first two Lady Luck installments under the pseudonym 'Ford Davis.'
- First appearance and origin of Mr. Mystic (Kenneth St. Germain): the magician crime-fighter debuted in a four-page backup created by Will Eisner and drawn by Bob Powell (credited as 'W. Morgan Thomas'), retooling Eisner's earlier overseas feature Yarko the Great.
- The 16-page Spirit Section was distributed by the Register and Tribune Syndicate and would eventually reach 20 Sunday newspapers with a combined circulation of as many as five million copies at its peak.
- The complete run of the June 2, 1940 Spirit Section — including all three features — was collected and reprinted in full color in The Spirit Archives Volume 1 (DC Comics, 2000), with a foreword by Alan Moore and an introduction by comics historian R.C. Harvey.
Cast · 9 characters
Full credits
Full plot ⚠ may contain spoilers
▸ Reveal full plot — may contain spoilers
While chasing Dr. Cobra Denny Colt falls into a vat of chemicals and is presumed dead.
Plot details indexed by the Grand Comics Database (CC BY-SA).