Frank Miller doesn't like DC's "The Best of The Spirit" because it's in color, he prefers The Spirit in black and white as Warren and Kitchen Sink Press printed The Spirit.
GABRIEL MACHT: I bought the "best of" Spirit collections. When I got to set, Frank said, "Listen, I don't want you to look at those. I'm not crazy about the coloring." He wasn't a fan. He liked the black and white. So he gave me his best picks, and I read through all of those Spirit comics and put them up in my trailer. You couldn't see any wall. It was all comics.
http://www.wizarduniverse.com/091908macht.html
And Will Eisner himself preferred The Spirit in black and white. Eisner said, “I prefer The Spirit in black and white — I prefer all of my work in black and white, to be honest with you. I believe the black line is a more pure contact with the reader. Color tends to obliterate or interfere with the flow of the story. I try very hard to make emotional contact with my reader early and to maintain an intense relationship as the story goes on. I find that anything that interferes with that is counterproductive.” (From Comic Book Artist, in an article by Jon B. Cooke)
http://comicfoundry.com/?p=820
So I recommend the black and white Spirit magazines published by Warren and Kitchen Sink Press and the black and white Spirit comic book-sized comics published by Kitchen Sink and the black and white Spirit: The Origin Years published by Kitchen Sink (the first issue reprints the origin story in glorious black and white). It's all black and white reprints of Eisner's 1940-1953 Spirit newspaper strips.
And, although it's in color and apparently wont be released until January, I also recommend DC's The Spirit Special #1 because it's only $2.99 and collects four stories that influenced Frank Miller's
The Spirit movie into one book. 1947's "Sign of the Octopus," which the battle with the Octopus in the film is influenced from, 1949's "Black Alley," which influenced the shadowy noir look in the film, "Sand Saref" and "Bring in Sand Saref," both from 1950, in which The Spirit narrates, in typical noir style, the tale of how he and Sand Saref grew up in the slums and The Spirit having to go up against his long lost love turned to crime is a major component of the movie. "I was just 13 years old when I came across Will Eisner's 'The Spirit,' published by Jim Warren, and was blown away, I thought it was somebody new to comics, because it was so far ahead of anything else coming out. I felt it, religiously. There was one night when I picked up the latest issue of 'The Spirit,' and I was so excited, I had to stop by a lamppost in Vermont where I lived and read it on the spot. That was the Sand Saref story, which is now the basis of this movie." -
Frank Miller speaking with MTV. 
