A Contract with God

Will Eisner’s A Contract with God (Kitchen Sink Press, 1985) is a landmark graphic novel that redefined the medium, collecting four interconnected tales of tenement life in 1930s New York. Eisner, the sole creator, weaves a poignant, unsentimental portrait of poverty, faith, and shattered dreams, anchored by the title story’s devastating exploration of a man’s broken covenant with the divine. As the first work to be marketed as a “graphic novel,” it remains a foundational text that elevated comics to serious literary art.