The Spirit is a fictional masked crimefighter created by cartoonist
Will Eisner. He first appeared June 2, 1940 as the main feature of a 16-page,
tabloid-sized, newsprint comic book insert distributed in the Sunday edition of
Register and Tribune Syndicate newspapers; it was ultimately carried by 20 Sunday newspapers, with a combined circulation of five million copies during the 1940s. "The Spirit Section", as the insert was popularly known, continued until October 5, 1952. It generally included two other, four-page strips (initially
Mr. Mystic and
Lady Luck), plus filler material. Eisner was the editor, but also wrote and drew most entries—after the first few months, he had the uncredited assistance of writer
Jules Feiffer and artists
Jack Cole and
Wally Wood, though Eisner's singular vision for the character was a unifying factor.