Will Eisner
Slippery Eall
The Spirit #392
Register and Tribune Syndicate, 1947
(Black and white version; the original in colour, here)
The Spirit was the first major effort in my life where I was able to do something I wanted to do, and was doing something I thought was meaningful, and at the same time making money on it. They were good years!
Will Eisner, in a 1969 witzend interview, republished in The Comics Journal in 2005