Dull Week is Spirit’s biggest formal swing to date. Ebony, Spirit, and Ellen are all (individually) on the prowl for adventure, and their stories all get tied together, plotting-wise, but also in rhyming, whimsical narration. It’s constantly delightful and Eisner and studio do well in how they dole out the narration (alongside the stylized rhymes, there’s the normal strip narration). They get the reader hooked on the rhymes, then only use them for great effect in the second half.
The strip opens with Ebony complaining he and Spirit haven’t had any adventures since last Sunday (the most meta the strip’s gotten on the weekly nature of their experiences). Spirit directly references last week’s strip as an example of extreme adventure and tells Ebony to relax. That reference to last week’s adventure is also a first, outside two-parters—direct continuity, shared passage of time with the reader, rhymes; it’s not Dull.
So Ebony heads out looking for adventure right after observing the Spirit’s relaxation is leading to weight gain. Spirit looks in the mirror and decides he is getting pudgy, and so goes out to case citizens about their business on a lazy Sunday. Simultaneously, Ellen is arguing with her father about her failing private detective business (she only had that first case, none since), and she goes too out looking for adventure.
Our heroes will find intrigue, romance, and quite a bit of action in their pursuit.
Ebony kicks it off, checking out a shady joint and spotting a trench coat with a Roscoe in the pocket. Ebony empties the bullets of their powder before the gun’s owner catches him, and then gets the bar owner to hold Ebony hostage until the job is done. What job? Be patient.
Spirit—in light disguise (he looks like Clark Kent multiple times)—decides to follow the first person who passes him on the street. It just happens to be the trench coat owner, who quickly spots the tail and starts blasting. But not with the Roscoe. The Roscoe is Chekhov’s gun in Dull; it’s wild how well they tie it all together, looping in and out to maximize the payoff.
(I’m referring to it as a Roscoe for simplicity’s sake; the strip itself isn’t concerned with make or, more importantly, chain of custody.)
The bad guy takes off, and Spirit gives chase, but not fast enough to save Ellen. See, she’d also decided to tail the first person who walked past her, and it also happened to be bad guy in trench coat. Unfortunately, he’s thrilled to bump into her because he’s always wanted to take a lady detective hostage.
The finale has the heroes tying everything together, including introducing an eligible bachelor to create a love triangle for Spirit and Ellen. The finale’s almost entirely done for laughs (versus thrills), and it’s quite good. The resulting bickering between Spirit and Ellen, however, is just for laughs and is better. The strip—even if one ignored the rhyming narration pieces—has a bit further narrative distance from the cast than usual. It’s also more inclined towards summary panels, which, it turns out (unsurprisingly) Eisner and studio successfully execute with seeming ease.
It’s a beautifully illustrated strip, too, with small panels and extreme long shots to pack in the material. It must’ve looked fantastic full-size.
Dull Week is nothing but.
