This book edited by Charles Brownstein transcribes a series of conversations between Frank Miller and Will Eisner about the state of the field in 2002, three years before Eisner’s death. I took notes to help me pay attention, and here they are. The book is divided into sections, each with illustrations from the two artists and other relevant comparison work.

Intent: A brief discussion about the differences in their respective audiences and the difference between drama and melodrama.

Format: They agree that comic books are fundamentally the wrong size. Due to historical accident. Shorter, wider pages would make more sense. This led Miller to draw 300 as a set of double-page spreads, while Eisner works on pages that will be printed as 6x9 inches, the dimensions of many regular books. They agree that color should be used sparingly, for specific purposes.

The Walk Through the Rain: Eisner’s A Contract with God and Miller’s Sin City: The Long Goodbye both feature sequences in a rainstorm. They discuss the techniques used to achieve the effect of obscuring rain or snow. Also the problem of lettering, using the work of Milton Caniff, Alex Raymon, and Al Capp as examples. Word balloons or no? Printed or typed? Umbilicals or no?

Creative Problems: The use of exaggeration to imply action. Sweat flying off brows. Cars, paper, or people in the air. Jim Shooter told Miller to stop putting so much paper in the air in imitation of Eisner. The importance of doing your own lettering. As an old man, Eisner feels more pressure to reap a financial reward from the months he puts into a comic book project, compared to when he was young man. The Dreamer is Eisner’s autobiography in roman a clef form. Miller relished the liberty of producing all 126 pages of Sin City: Family Values before showing any of it to his publisher. He wants a happy medium that reads more quickly than American comic books but more slowly than manga.

Sexy and Inside the Master’s Studio and Kink and Freedom: More technique discussion. Dirty water as ink wash. Lessons from theater on how to use a single background object to imply an entire room. Detail slows the reader’s pace. Snickering about The Spirit’s spanking-themed splash page.

Stages and Creativity: Eisner starts with character sketches and precis, then builds a “laundry list” of events to be massaged into order toward the intended finale. He shows pages to prospective publishers rather than describing it orally, preferring not to depend on the publisher’s imagination of what it will look like on the page. Whereas Miller talks it all out first, and a look at the pages comes very late in the process. Eisner starts with a wooden pencil for rough layout, then tightens up with a mechanical pencil – but not too tight, because an ink brush is a better tool for that. Miller first pencils the entire book, then letters it all, and then rough-inks the entire book, before going back to each page with a finer ink brush.

Film, Theater, and Family Matters: Eisner likens his later work to theater, with a static camera angle for each scene rather than cinematically moving to different shot compositions. Miller discusses his work Family Values and says that he hates the “worship” of the traditional family. Eisner’s Family Matter is about the interactions between elderly parents and their adult children.

Color Technology: discussion of computer shading vs Benday, Duotone, Zip-a-tone. Using software intended for retouching photographs. Technical discussion of offset printing and color separation and the challenges of bleeding color to the edge of the page.

Old-Time Censors The Comics Code censors only looked at black and white art, so Miller only depicted blood with red color, and it got past the censors. Eisner doubts that the Comics Code’s language was specifically intended to target EC Comics, which Miller deems the best comics publisher of the 1950s. The congressional hearings were looking for a scapegoat as to why teenagers of that generation (as with every generation) are grumpy and insolent toward their parents.

Talking Out of School: Steve Ditko was stand-offish. He wasn’t interested in working with Miller on a revival of his Randian character Mr. A. Thoughts on Todd McFarlane, Neil Gaiman, Stan Lee, Jack Kirby. Eisner went to school with Bob Kane who started claiming to be younger than he was. James Robinson proposed an Eisner Award called “The Finger” (in honor of Bill Finger) for uncreadited writers or artists. Stan Lee tried to get Eisner to take his job so Stan could go to Hollywood, but Marvel’s owner balked at Eisner’s proposal to pay royalties to creators like a legitimate book business.

Awards and Blockbusters: The awkwardness of Eisner winning an Eisner Award. The problems of setting out to have an “event” or “blockbuster.” How the direct market neglects mainstream publishing venues. Modern comics creators as fanboys, overly reverent to the characters of their youth instead of either recasting them or moving on to new ones.

Living History: Miller finds the availability of old material to be a revolutionary improvement. Self-image of creators as artist vs entertainer vs factory hand. The self-contempt of an industry that congratulates its creators who manage to write a bad movie or a failed novel more than those who make good comics. Miller wanted to tell pulp crime stories and was allowed to work them into Daredevil. Even Elektra was a noir character he had concocted in the mid 1970s.

Shop Talk and Old Testimony: Eisner describes the workflow of his studio with Iger. Quality was better paying by the hour than by the page. The ongoing importance of small alternative presses challenging the preconceptions and limits of the art form. Alex Ross as the apotheosis of the photorealism introduced by Neal Adams, who was known as a troublemaker for wanting his pages back. Eisner turned down publication of Superman.

Cowardice and Shame and Bitterness and Backstabbing: Miller says “Company loyalty is the battered wife’s excuse.” Discussion of Neal Adams’ Artists Guild. Daily newspaper strip artists as royalty, or as an irrelevant relic. Professional success involves the quality of your work, but also the willingness to leave the room if you’re not being treated properly. The small presses of the 1970s could experiment with material by printing only a thousand copies, whereas in the 1930s the minimum run for a new project was more like 300,000, making the publisher and distributor indispensable. Bob Kane gave National the concept of Batman in exchange for the promise of being hired to work on the character. His lawyer got him some rights back in exchange for not challenging ownership on an upcoming Batman movie. Jerry Robinson and Neal Adams organized a media stink in the 1970s to get rights for Siegel and Shuster in conjunction with Superman: The Movie. By 1972 Eisner was CEO of a publishing company; his secretary didn’t know he had ever drawn comic books.

The Schemer and The Measure of Success: Eisner has spent more time as a businessman than artist. Wally Wood was an amazing artist who destroyed himself. Power is taken, not given. Eisner prefers to work with smaller publishers where he can talk directly to the decision-makers. Financial/sales success is one metric, but connecting with the readers deeply is another. Miller and Eisner are accustomed to radically different sales numbers that they would consider acceptable. Miller likes to write about the present, while Eisner likes to write about the past.

New York: Miller thinks of New York in terms of skyline and music and the arts. Eisner thinks in terms of neighborhoods where people live. The verticality of the city lends itself to depiction in vertical comic book panels. Miller prefers to depict skyscrapers impressionistically as blank rectangles without drawing all the windows. Silhouettes, not details. Eisner and Miller discuss how each would render a true-life event of Miller finding a rag doll on the street.

Breaking In and Professionalism: Miller’s new art is more cartoony because he values clear communication over illustrative value. Some artists set out to draw Spider-Man. Others just want to commit ideas to paper. And some people just need a job. If you are trying to sell an idea, go into self-publishing. If you are trying to sell a skill of writing or drawing, work for someone else. The monopoly power of Diamond Distribution inevitably puts a squeeze on publishers which gets passed along to creators. Eisner believes Scott McCloud’s ‘Creators’ Bill of Rights’ has no basis in reality. Eisner encouraged his students in thought experiments of being the publisher. Today power has swung back from creators to editors due to an oversupply of creative talent. The monthly periodical format is a dinosaur which drags on profitability. Work-for-hire talent needs at least two of the three things “really terrific, on time, and easy to work with.” Eisner likes to present his art class students with the dilemma of being well paid to anonymously produce a morally objectionable (to them) work.

Editors and Hollywood: Discussion of the role of the editor and the problem of late work. Better to rush or not? Hollywood sees comic books as an R&D ideas division, but then those ideas have to survive the lowest common denominator during test screenings. Creators get swept up in the lure of Hollywood and neglect their comic book work.

Managing Your Career: Miller’s goal was to bring back crime comics. His strategy was to start with work for hire and build a name that he could parlay into doing what he really wanted to do. A creator who’s done a small indie book first may get a slight leg up.

The Future: Miller would like to see Local Comic Shops become community centers where geeks hang out and have coffee, not just rooms full of inventory. He wants Sin City shelved next to Mickey Spillane, not Spawn.

Legacy: The demise of “house style” is a good thing. Publishers are less seedy than when Eisner started. Eisner is amazed that Superman hasn’t been supplanted by something more serious. Creators need to be prepared for repeat rejection before (and after) acceptance.