Comicon Advent Calendar 2024 Day 3: ‘The Spirit Holiday Special’
by Richard Bruton
Another seasonal entry in Comicon’s 2024 Advent Calendar now, part of our 24 days of festive comics joy… time to open another comics-shaped window now…
You can find all the previous years’ entries in the Comicon Advent Calendar right here. And keep up with all the 2024 Comicon Advent Calendar entries here.
So, let’s take a look behind window number 3 on our advent calendar… Will Eisner’s The Spirit Holiday Special from 2008…
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When the late, great Darwyn Cooke, along with J Bone, brought his vision of the legendary Will Eisner creation, The Spirit, to DC Comics from 2007, it was an unmissable series, packed with Cooke and Bone’s magnificent storytelling that brought Eisner’s finest creation to a whole new audience.
Issue 13 was the Holiday Special, all under that delightful Cooke and Bone cover, showcasing three special tales, from a host of top talent. But only The Cold Depths of the Icicle Heart, written by Gail Simone, and with art by Phil Hester and Ande Parks had that wintry theme.
It’s a cold, cold winter in Central City, and Ice McQueen is making it a deadly kind of cold, running her murderous protection racket and baffling police.
It’s a sort-of wordless seasonal offering in a cold, cold Central City, where Ice McQueen is making it a deadly kind of cold, running her murderous protection racket, with the Spirit about to fall foul of her and her goons…
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Always love it when you get writer and artist collaborating this way to do the silent comics thing, with Jared K Fletcher on letters going all out to keep things interesting with the art where the words would be, playful yet perfectly done all the way through.
And of course Denny Colt doesn’t die again here, but he sure doesn’t find it easy to get help either once he makes it out of the freezing waters… and he’s having trouble remembering exactly who he is…
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But memory or no memory, The Spirit’s always the Spirit, standing up for the little guy and seeing things done just right.
It’s a short and sweet little winter’s tale. But it’s just really, really well done, perfect use of a nearly silent strip, some typically gorgeous artwork from Hester and Park. Quite the perfect little holiday thing.
