It was with great relief on Boxing Day that a message came from his wife Ann (whom I had interviewed for my "I Have To Live With This Guy!" book of 2002) that Will was doing remarkably well and would be back with her that week.

Stunning was it to wake up to the morning of January 4th and hear Will had passed away from complications the night before.

A comic-book world without Will Eisner is much like a world without a parent. You, and all around you, have learned so much and been so inspired by the example they set that you are shaken with a fear that you now have to live up to that example. You also feel quite alone, knowing that there is no longer the wisdom and sage advice from that generation above you. Gone are memories unique to a period prior to you existing.

The Spirit strip appeared in 1940 in newspapers across America. Will was a first-generation comic artist. There was no trail to follow. He, Jack Kirby, Bill Everett et al were the ones blazing the trail.

Ditko came to New York City to find work in comics in 1950 and his was the first generation that had predecessors that could be studied. Most want-to-be illustrators passed through comics without a care as to seeing what the medium could really do or how far its boundaries could really be pushed. Will Eisner pushed those boundaries his entire life and Steve Ditko chose to honour the comic-book medium by doing the same. Ditko was one of a select few from the second generation of artists who didn't view comics as a stopping post on the way to "bigger and better things." No wonder that Ditko, in his early youth, became attracted to the work of Will Eisner.

Growing up in Johnstown, Pennsylvania, Ditko and his brother, Pat, are alleged to have traveled great distances on their own across town to acquire The Spirit section in the Philadelphia newspaper. The worlds that Eisner could conjure on the page inspired Ditko to view the medium as something that could be satisfying to an artist willing to push boundaries.

Ditko also took inspiration from Bob Powell’s Mr. Mystic, which ran in the Sprit section. A story from the 1957 Charlton comic, OUT OF THIS WORLD #7 (Feb '58) combines the Spirit’s window and the astral form from Powell's Mr. Mystic that would be featured by Ditko in the first 1963 Dr. Strange strip (seen on your right). It has been said that Spider-Man and Dr. Strange represented The Spirit and Mr. Mystic.

Eisner's artistic influence on Ditko is present in much of Ditko earliest work. The Spirit lived underground in a tomb in a cemetery and had an abstract German expressionist window - a circle with criss-crosses on it to create curved wedges of black - which Ditko adopted not only for Dr. Strange's mansion, but can be seen at various points throughout Ditko 1950s Charlton mystery stories.

Ditko followed Eisner's lead in borrowing from old silent German Expressionist movies that featured skewed and dark settings and camera work. Haunted mansions, dismal tenements and rainy night scenes, lit only by a lamp post and a cigarette tie Eisner and Ditko together forever.

My first encounter with Will came at the 2001 San Diego Comic Con (my first ever convention outside of Canada). Tellingly, I was at the Eisner Awards, sitting at the back of the presentation, when Fantagraphics co-founder Mike Catron found me. I made the mistake of telling him I don't like autographs and its pursuit, so Mike spent the night dragging me kicking and screaming to all sorts of creators getting my program - both sides - signed by virtually everyone there. I had only one article published at this point and, having never ventured outside of Canada for a convention, I certainly never had the pleasure of meeting people like Ann and Will Eisner.

Over the course of the evening, I would watch the wives of the creators, noting how the women would stand quietly by, listening to tales they've heard a million times (getting larger with each year passing) and I thought that to interview the wives about living with cartoonists over the past 60 years would make an interesting book. I mean, they knew "the real story," yes? They could give a completely unique perspective on the creators and their lives.

A day later, I had convinced John Morrow, publisher of TwoMorrows, that it would be a fabulous idea for a book. "I Have To Live With This Guy!" was born. The first person I had the pleasuring of interviewing was Ann Eisner.

At the next year's San Diego Comic Con - 2002 - I hosted a panel for my book (three months before its premiere) that included Ann. My strongest memory of that panel was Will popping in to "harass" Ann, since finally the shoe was on the other foot; something in which Will took delight.

My last memory of Will was at the 2003 San Diego Comic Con. The book had been out for 9 months. I had come to regard it as the greatest learning experience of my life, but a flawed gem. I had little qualms with the content, but the calibre of the delivery, of the technique is something that prevents me to this day from picking the book up for a casual read (never write a book without a copy-editor, he says knowingly).

Still, at the night of the 2003 Eisner Awards, Will, Ann and I had a great conversation about how I had ruined his marriage now that his wife was "a star." My strongest memory was of Will turning away, but looking back for a moment to say, "You really did a good job on that book." I didn't want to argue the point with the man, but I did think to myself that if Will Eisner thought it wasn't half bad, maybe there was something there. Maybe Will just saw the spark of potential and didn't want to quash it. It was a sincere complement from a man who forgot more about sequential art and writing than I'll know and it will remain a treasured memory.

As they walked away into the night, you could tell the two of them really loved and relied on each other's companionship. Will's personality, his life was such a force and Ann's fortitude was a strong complement. It takes a certain type of partner to spend a lifetime with an artist; much less a cartoonist, but Ann found the balance beautifully.

It says a great deal about Will's life that he didn't want a funeral. This act suggests that he knew life was a celebration, not something to be mourned. His work (and life) is something that deserves to be celebrated. 87 years young and he's going to have more original work (with his book, "The Plot") published after his passing than most cartoonists will this year. If one can't find inspiration in that, one didn't deserve to have known the man, and I was blessed to know the man in the small capacity that I did.

The chapter of my "I Have To Live With This Guy!" book that featured my interviews with Will and Ann was combined with the lives of Muriel and Joe Kubert, and Joanie and Stan Lee. In tribute to the life and work of Will Eisner, and his soulmate Ann, I have removed all the Kubert and Lee material so that what is left is (some of) the story of...