Will Eisner was born March 6, 1917, which means he would have turned 94 tomorrow. Google Australia has decided that’s an event worth celebrating (good for them!), and so turned its logo into an image of The Spirit for the day. But since it’s already tomorrow over in Australia (it’s always the future over there), we can see it that way now.

Though if you should happen to click that link when it’s no longer March 6 in Oz, you’ll have to content yourself with checking out the logo below.

I’m very pleased, even though it would be nice if the art style looked at little more … I don’t know … Eisnery. But I guess I shouldn’t look a gift Spirit in the mask.

Will the U.S. Google follow suit at midnight tonight and give us its own homage to Eisner? I sure hope so!

I headed over to Silver Spring, Maryland, this morning to catch the documentary Will Eisner: Portrait of a Sequential Artist. Had it not been the D.C.-area premiere, with director Andrew D. Cooke scheduled to be present for a Q&A, I might have instead waited for the DVD. But since it had the feel of an event, I thought it might be fun, and worth the drive. (After all, I’m about an hour and 45 minutes away.) Also, I was intrigued to see whether serendipity would throw me together with any other members of the comics and/or science-fiction tribe.

I’d never been to the AFI Silver Theatre before, so I made sure to get there early and scope the place out. While waiting in line wondering whether I’d see any familiar faces, who should appear but local fan Kyle Scott McAbee, someone I’d often seen at Capclave, Balticon, and even a few Worldcons. While we waited to be let in, we chatted about Walter Karig, the novel Zotz!, and the Stratemeyer Syndicate. I’d have liked to have kept talking, but unfortunately, we parted once we were let in, since he wanted to sit in the back row and I preferred to sit closer to the front. (Sorry, Kyle!) (more…)