116 CONTRACT WITH GOD, A
across the page to protect the activists from harm at the hands of logging company
security forces, only later to refl ect upon what right action consists of when confronted
with the complexities of deforestation and global economies. Th e defense of innocent
life and natural resources, and the need for refl ection and right action are constant
themes in Concrete.
Concrete’s home life is also a recurring source of refl ection and adventure. In order to
continue his career as a travel writer, the thick-fi ngered Concrete hires would-be nov-
elist Larry Munro as his live-in amanuensis and Dr. Maureen Vonnegut as his personal
physician. Munro and Vonnegut become Concrete’s closest associates, and they share
his true identity with few others. Although encased in a rock body, Concrete retains
his human needs for sensuality and love, which he largely directs toward collecting
fi ne art featuring beautiful women. Vonnegut, however, becomes the most immediate
object of Concrete’s aff ection and desire. Th e complex feelings she and Concrete have
for each other in a necessarily unrequited love demonstrate a more intimate dimension
of the ethical dilemmas that run throughout Chadwick’s work. Alternately, Munro’s
occasional lack of ethical conduct in sexual relationships serve as a foil for Concrete’s
own exemplary behavior.
Th e continuity of life through family and other means is another theme that holds
Chadwick’s work together. Concrete makes contact with his mother to let her know
that he is not dead, as the media had reported as a part of his plan secretly to become
Concrete. He also attempts to contact his ex-wife Lisa, but fl ees upon seeing that she
has remarried to a man in a wheelchair. A moment of potential jealousy over his lost
life thus becomes a lesson in humility for Concrete, whose new body aff ords him many
benefi ts even as it makes resumption of his old life impossible. Chadwick seems to rec-
oncile the divide between continuities of normal human life and the life of the artist in
Concrete’s last story arc, Th e Human Dilemma. Concrete gives birth asexually to a child,
a miniature Concrete who grows inside of him. Concrete’s words at the end of “Always
Fences” best express the mature sensibility and wisdom carried throughout Chadwick’s
series: “Every adult must eventually face the limitations of his life. We don’t get to do
and have everything. We play the cards we’re dealt.”
Tim Bryant
CONTRACT WITH GOD, A. A landmark publication, Will Eisner’s A Contract with God
(1978) is frequently referred to as the fi rst graphic novel. Regardless of the legitimacy
of that claim, this collection of four interrelated short stories is remarkable for nu-
merous other fi rsts in the comic book industry. Eisner’s goal was to publish a literary
work in the comic book format, one that did not cater to superheroes and their young
readers, but to the adult population who grew up reading superhero tales and now
needed more mature themes and stories. Unlike other comic books, it was published as
a monograph by a mainstream publisher without prior serialization. Although refused
by his fi rst choice of publishers, Bantam, A Contract with God was published by Baronet
Press in sepia tones and distributed to bookstores rather than comic book shops. Th e
