John Law (comics)

John Law is a fictional character created by writer-artist Will Eisner in 1948. Law is an eyepatched, pipe smoking Crossroads Police Department detective, who, with his shoeshine boy sidekick Nubbin, is featured in several adventures planned for a new comic series. These completed adventures were eventually adapted into Spirit stories, with John Law's eyepatch being changed to The Spirit's mask and Nubbin being redrawn to be Willum Waif or other Spirit support characters.

The original John Law stories were first reprinted in 1983 by Eclipse Comics. They were next published in Will Eisner's John Law: Dead Man Walking (2004, IDW), a collection of stories that also features new adventures by writer/artist Gary Chaloner starring John Law, Nubbin, and many other Eisner creations including Lady Luck and Mr. Mystic.