L'omaggio di un grande maestro alla grande città americana (che è New York, ma non solo), con tutta la nostalgia per quel che non c'è più e l'amore per quel che, forse, c'è ancora. Eisner è grandissimo nel giocare sia con la diversa scansione temporale, che si muove dalla singola vignetta alle più pagine, sia con i registri del racconto, che va dal comico al tragico. ( )

Every time I think of New York I cannot help but also think of Natalie Merchant’s song, "Carnival." How could I not? It’s an homage to a great city of contradiction. Her line, “A wild-eyed mystic prophet, on a traffic island, stopped and he raved of saving me” evokes so many conflicting emotions. Thanks to my nephew being born in New York City, I got to waken a dormant love for the Big Apple. Sights, smells, and sounds that are often times distasteful to some (like my husband), fill me with inexplicable energy and ambition. I want to run Central Park like I live on the upper west side. It's as if New York's grit and grime are tangible forms of strength and tenacity that speak loudly to me. In New York, Will Eisner captures perfectly the stark reality of the big city's silent and subtle struggles. You can smell the stench of all corners of New York, hear the frenetic activity in every sentence. But, look and look again very carefully. There is power in what isn't said. Look at the illustration of the people riding the subway. You can almost hear the rattle of the rails; and when the train grinds to a halt during a blackout there's that one guy who doesn't change expression. As the minutes tick by, the people around him slowly start to panic while he stoically stares ahead. There truly is always that one guy and if you were on that train, you would see him. This is a portrait of an important city doing unimportant things, all lovingly expressed in a series of vignettes; the constants of New York: Avenue C which connect the East side to West, the importance of stoops, the sentinels of the City (hydrants, mailboxes, traffic signals, lampposts, windows, and sewers), and the people. You can read the entire thing in minutes, but that only means you have time to read it again and again and again. ( )

"The Block"
"In the big city, /A valley / Formed by the bisection / Of steel and concrete/ Cliff dwellings, / Is called a block. / To its inhabitants / It is the whole world! "
(p 125)

Will Eisner, an early comic creator in the 1930s, also created the first successful graphic novel in 1978. This book [New York, The Big City] was published in the early 1980s and is a collection of vignettes addressing basic issues of any big city in comic form. The simple messages are profound.

Eisner has given us the real world of city life from the view of the inhabitants. The sadness, fear, joy, humor, pain and acceptance of a life crowded together sprawls across the incredible artwork throughout. I was touched by the feeling of life on the edge - vibrant and alive.

This book is a great collection of art and ideas. It is also a remarkable gift given to us by a talented comic writer. Not a city dweller myself, it was moving to read/observe/absorb an insider's interpretation of reality of the daily bumping and overlapping of lives in a unique world of human existence. ( )

http://moloch981.wordpress.com/2010/08/11/new-york/ ( )

Byen er den egentlige hovedperson, i denne kærlighedserklæring til storbyens liv i al dets mangfoldighed. Det viser sig bl.a. i opbygningen, hvor der er kapitler om undergrundsbanen, vinduer, mure og endda en hyldest til lygtepælen som livgivende helle over for mørkets onde kræfter. Konsekvensen er, at der ikke er nogen gennemgående figurer eller historier, og selv om Eisners klasse tydeligt udtrykkes i ganske få billeder, så savner jeg i hvert fald større sammenhæng. ( )