Hyman Eisman (March 27, 1927 – March 27, 2025) was an American
comics artist
A cartoonist is a visual artist who specializes in both drawing and writing cartoons (individual images) or comics (sequential images). Cartoonists differ from comics writers or comics illustrators/artists in that they produce both the literar ...
Popeye
Popeye the Sailor Man is a fictional cartoon character created by E. C. Segar, Elzie Crisler Segar.Paterson, New Jersey
Paterson ( ) is the largest City (New Jersey), city in and the county seat of Passaic County, New Jersey, Passaic County, in the U.S. state of New Jersey.
Comic strips
Eisman entered the
comic strip
A comic strip is a Comics, sequence of cartoons, arranged in interrelated panels to display brief humor or form a narrative, often Serial (literature), serialized, with text in Speech balloon, balloons and Glossary of comics terminology#Captio ...
comic books
A comic book, comic-magazine, or simply comic is a publication that consists of comics art in the form of sequential juxtaposed panel (comics), panels that represent individual scenes. Panels are often accompanied by descriptive prose and wri ...
, he illustrated various
romance comics
Romance comics are a genre of comic book, comic books that were most popular during the Golden Age of Comics. The market for comics, which had been growing rapidly throughout the 1940s, began to plummet after the end of World War II when military ...
for
Charlton Comics
Charlton Comics was an American comic-book publishing company that existed from 1945 to 1986, having begun under a different name: T. W. O. Charles Company, in 1940. It was based in Derby, Connecticut. The comic-book line (comics), line was a divi ...
. He was also the last artist doing '' Little Lulu'' before it was cancelled in 1984.
From 1986 until 2006 (when the strip went into reruns), he wrote and drew '' The Katzenjammer Kids''. An interview with Eisman on his career appeared in '' Hogan's Alley'' #15 (2007).
From 1994 until 2022, he wrote and drew the
Sunday strip
The Sunday comics or Sunday strip is the comic strip section carried in some Western newspapers. Compared to weekday comics, Sunday comics tend to be full pages and are in color. Many newspaper readers called this section the Sunday funnies, t ...
s for ''
Popeye
Popeye the Sailor Man is a fictional cartoon character created by E. C. Segar, Elzie Crisler Segar. In December 2008, Eisman re-introduced the character of Bluto to the ''Popeye'' Sunday strips, as the twin brother of Brutus.
Personal life
In September 1976, Eisman, who lived in
Glen Rock, New Jersey
Glen Rock is a Borough (New Jersey), borough in Bergen County, New Jersey, Bergen County, in the U.S. state of New Jersey. As of the 2020 United States census, the borough's population was 12,133, an increase of 532 (+4.6%) from the 2010 United ...
, became a teacher at the Joe Kubert School of Cartoon and Graphic Art, where he taught until May 2019.
Eisman's first marriage was to Nathalie Adrienne "Adri" Abramson, with whom he had two daughters. Adri, his wife of 42 years, died of cancer in the autumn of 1997.
On June 27, 2004, he married Florenz Greenberg, whose husband had also died in 1997. She was the managing editor at CavanKerry Press, a nonprofit publisher of literary works in
Fort Lee, New Jersey
Fort Lee is a Borough (New Jersey), borough at the eastern border of Bergen County, New Jersey, Bergen County, in the U.S. state of New Jersey, situated along the Hudson River atop The Palisades (Hudson River), The Palisades.
As of the 2020 Uni ...
. Their wedding invitation was a comic strip with Popeye and Olive Oyl. Florenz Greenberg died on October 20, 2013, in Glen Rock.
Eisman had one brother, Morris, who was married to Clarice Roy. Hy's nephews were twins named Michael and David. David had 3 children: Hy's great-nieces, Rebecca and Hilary; and great-nephew, Jonathan (who died in 1997).
Eisman died on March 27, 2025, his 98th birthday.
Awards
Eisman won the 1975
National Cartoonists Society
The National Cartoonists Society (NCS) is an organization of professional cartoonists in the United States. It presents the National Cartoonists Society Awards. The Society was born in 1946 when groups of cartoonists got together to entertain the ...
's Award for Best Humor Comic Book Cartoonist (for Gold Key's ''Nancy'' comic books). In 1983, he received a National Cartoonists Society Award for his work on the ''Little Lulu'' comic book.