The narration is lettered as part of the artwork, rather than being set apart in caption boxes, and Eisner makes little use of conventional box-style panels, often avoiding panel borders entirely, delimiting spaces with buildings or window frames instead.
In contrast to comics in the superhero genre, in which Eisner did prominent work early in his career, the characters in A Contract with God are not heroic; they often feel frustrated and powerless, even when performing seemingly heroic deeds to help their neighbors.