The Stop Button

The splash page is Ellen Dolan with a black eye, reading The Manly Art of Self Defense. Given Ellen’s last appearance in the strip, it’s a sensational and not unconcerning opener. But it’ll all work out, with Self Defense possibly the best Spirit strip so far.

We open in Wildwood Cemetery, Spirit running into the crypt, begging Ebony to hide him. Ebony wonders what could have the Spirit so scared… why, it’s just Ellen Dolan. She’s told the Spirit she loves him and he’s run away. She decides to catch a criminal to prove herself worthy of his attention.

Except the criminal she goes to catch is dead, and an enforcer is just arriving to find her there. Luckily, the Spirit convinces the thug Ellen’s not the killer, except she then wants to identify herself as the commissioner’s daughter, which would complicate matters.

The Spirit will eventually find the killer, defeat the gangsters, and generally save the day. Ellen will get that black eye. And, then, in the glorious last page, pay the shiner back in full. Along the way, there are multiple action and suspense sequences. The line work is gorgeous, as are all the shadowy panels. Eisner and studio really go for mood this strip and it pays off. They also play with color in the last action scene, setting it in the dark (blue), and it’s a dynamite visual. The Spirit’s got a lot of gangsters to get through before the day’ll be saved. The strip’s seven pages, not including the splash, and three of those pages are superlative. The flow between the panels, the change in angles and distance, the expressions, the fisticuffs… it’s all just fantastic.

But what will put it over is how the strip deals with that first plot line—Spirit and Ellen—things have gotten a little more complicated and there’s not exactly a lot of time to wrap it. Still, Eisner leaves the couple’s relationship in a far more interesting place than it’s ever been before. And without being crappy to Ellen.

Maybe minus her naïveté in going after the criminal at the beginning (the strip has forgotten she’s in school to be a criminal psychologist or whatever).

Anyway.

Manly’s a beautiful piece of work.