Salvador Dali predicted that comic books would be the culture of the year 3794. It remains to be seen if he was right, but graphic novels, the more serious and literary offspring of the comic, are currently enjoying something of an ascendancy. The sections dedicated to them in bookshops are growing and mainstream publishers are signing up all the available talent they can find.
Will Eisner was indisputably the founding father of the graphic novel. He was already a comics legend - responsible for the gritty noir action-strip The Spirit - before finishing the first-ever graphic novel, A Contract With God, in 1978. Set in 1930s Bronx, this told the story of Frimme Hersh, a good, practicing Jew who turns against God after the death of his adopted daughter. He becomes a real-estate tycoon, bereft of any moral compulsion, and dies 
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