Will Eisner’s comics and the Spirit are up for sale

The intellectual property of Will Eisner — including his graphic novels, children’s books, instruction manuals and the characters he created, most notably the masked crime fighter the Spirit — is up for sale, the Times reported on Jan. 29, 2026. The sale also includes an unpublished 72‑page Spirit story from 1996 called “The Spirit Returns.” The Times noted that Eisner’s 1978 book “A Contract with God and Other Tenement Stories” helped attract literary attention to comics and popularize the term “graphic novel.” The Spirit, which debuted in 1940, is described in the report as influential for its moral realism, mature themes, genre fluidity and inventive page design.

Eisner died in 2005 and his wife, Ann Weingarten Eisner, died in 2020. Since then the estate has been run by Ann’s nephew, Carl Gropper, and his wife, Nancy Gropper. Now in their 70s, they hope to find a buyer “eager to keep Eisner’s work, especially the Spirit, in the public eye.” Mr.

Gropper said, “We expect either a movie or an animated feature, we hope, in the future.” The report recalls that a 2008 big‑screen version of the Spirit, written and directed by Frank Miller, had an estimated budget of $60 million but earned less than $40 million worldwide.

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