This Friday evening is the 23rd annual Will Eisner Comic Industry Awards–the most significant awards in American comics, voted on by comics professionals. This year’s Eisners are being awarded in 29 categories, and since half the fun of this sort of thing is guessing in advance who’s going to win, here are my picks and notes on the nominees. (Disclaimer: I won an Eisner in 2008, and was on the nominating panel in 2001.)
Best Adaptation from Another Work
The Book of Genesis Illustrated, by R. Crumb (Norton)
Charles Darwin’s On the Origin of Species: A Graphic Adaptation, adapted by Michael Keller and Nicolle Rager Fuller (Rodale)
Fahrenheit 451, by Ray Bradbury, adapted by Tim Hamilton (Hill & Wang)
Richard Stark’s Parker: The Hunter, adapted by Darwyn Cooke (IDW)
West Coast Blues, by Jean-Patrick Manchette, adapted by Jacques Tardi (Fantagraphics)
Cooke already has two Eisners under his belt, and the comics community loves him. The Tardi and Crumb are both nicely done, but The Hunter is the likely leader.
Best Anthology
Abstract Comics, edited by Andrei Molotiu (Fantagraphics)
Bob Dylan Revisited, edited by Bob Weill (Norton)
Flight 6, edited by Kazu Kibuishi (Villard)
Popgun vol. 3, edited by Mark Andrew Smith, D. J. Kirkbride, and Joe Keatinge (Image)
Syncopated: An Anthology of Nonfiction Picto-Essays, edited by Brendan Burford (Villard)
What Is Torch Tiger? edited by Paul Briggs (Torch Tiger)
Popgun has more ties to the Eisner-voting scene, but Abstract Comics deserves special commendation: Molotiu has effectively pieced together a whole new subgenre.
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Best Archival Collection/Project-Strips
Bloom County: The Complete Library, vol. 1, by Berkeley Breathed, edited by Scott Dunbier (IDW)
Bringing Up Father, vol. 1: From Sea to Shining Sea, by George McManus and Zeke Zekley, edited by Bruce Canwell (IDW)
The Brinkley Girls: The Best of Nell Brinkley’s Cartoons 1913-1940, edited by Trina Robbins (Fantagraphics)
Gahan Wilson: 50 Years of Playboy Cartoons, by Gahan Wilson, edited by Gary Groth (Fantagraphics)
Prince Valiant, vol. 1: 1937-1938, by Hal Foster, edited by Kim Thompson (Fantagraphics)
Queer Visitors from the Marvelous Land of Oz, by L. Frank Baum, Walt McDougall, and W. W. Denslow, edited by Peter Maresca (Sunday Press)
Archival collections of comic strips are the best they’ve ever been right now, and almost all of these are exquisite books. But Sunday Press’s enormous, beautifully produced books are the Criterion Collection of newspaper strips, and Queer Visitors collects some fascinating work that’s never looked this good before.
Best Archival Collection/Project-Comic Books
The Best of Simon & Kirby, by Joe Simon and Jack Kirby, edited by Steve Saffel (Titan Books)
Blazing Combat, by Archie Goodwin et al., edited by Gary Groth (Fantagraphics)
Humbug, by Harvey Kurtzman et al., edited by Gary Groth (Fantagraphics)
The Rocketeer: The Complete Adventures deluxe edition, by Dave Stevens, edited by Scott Dunbier (IDW)
The TOON Treasury of Classic Children’s Comics, edited by Art Spiegelman and Francoise Mouly (Abrams ComicArts/Toon)
Stevens and The Rocketeer are particular favorites in the community that votes on the Eisners, and the IDW collection did right by them. That TOON Treasury is a genuinely wonderful book, though–not just an archive but a creative piece of curation, with a lot of fantastic material that had totally fallen between the cracks.
Best Coloring
Steve Hamaker, Bone: Crown of Thorns (Scholastic); Little Mouse Gets Ready (Toon)
Laura Martin, The Rocketeer: The Complete Adventures (IDW); Thor, The Stand: American Nightmares (Marvel)
David Mazzucchelli, Asterios Polyp (Pantheon)
Alex Sinclair, Blackest Night, Batman and Robin (DC)
Dave Stewart, Abe Sapien, BPRD, The Goon, Hellboy, Solomon Kane, Umbrella Academy, Zero Killer (Dark Horse); Detective Comics (DC); Luna Park (Vertigo)
Stewart’s the obvious pick here, although Mazzucchelli gets special consideration for making his color design one of the central story elements of Asterios Polyp.
Best Comics-Related Book
Alan Moore: Comics as Performance, Fiction as Scalpel, by Annalisa Di Liddo (University Press of Mississippi)
The Art of Harvey Kurtzman: The Mad Genius of Comics, by Denis Kitchen and Paul Buhle (Abrams ComicArts)
The Art of Osamu Tezuka: God of Manga, by Helen McCarthy (Abrams ComicArts)
Manga Kamishibai: The Art of Japanese Paper Theater, by Eric P. Nash (Abrams ComicArts)
Will Eisner and PS Magazine, by Paul E. Fitzgerald (Fitzworld.US)
That Kurtzman book is a hell of a thing, and Kitchen and Buhle were exactly the right people to put it together.
Best Comics-Related Periodical/Journalism
Alter Ego, edited by Roy Thomas (TwoMorrows)
ComicsAlliance, edited by Laura Hudson
Comics Comics, edited by Timothy Hodler and Dan Nadel
The Comics Journal, edited by Gary Groth, Michael Dean, and Kristy Valenti (Fantagraphics)
The Comics Reporter, produced by Tom Spurgeon
I am biased here, since I’m a regular contributor to ComicsAlliance. There are a couple of other very strong candidates, though–Comics Comics has some of my favorite writers on comics, and The Comics Reporter has been so strong and consistent for so long that it’s as easy to take for granted as, say, Doonesbury.
Best Continuing Series
Fables, by Bill Willingham, Mark Buckingham, Steve Leialoha, Andrew Pepoy et al. (Vertigo/DC)
Irredeemable, by Mark Waid and Peter Krause (BOOM!)
Naoki Urasawa’s 20th Century Boys, by Naoki Urasawa (VIZ Media)
The Unwritten, by Mike Carey and Peter Gross (Vertigo/DC)
The Walking Dead, by Robert Kirkman and Charles Adlard (Image)
20th Century Boys is technically a limited series, but never mind that. Fables is a longstanding favorite of the Eisner-voting community, with well over a dozen trophies to its name so far. But Comic-Con week this year belongs to The Walking Dead, which has a pretty good chance of taking the prize.
Best Cover Artist
John Cassaday, Irredeemable (BOOM!); Lone Ranger (Dynamite)
Salvador Larocca, Invincible Iron Man (Marvel)
Sean Phillips, Criminal, Incognito (Marvel Icon); 28 Days Later (BOOM!)
Alex Ross, Astro City: The Dark Age (WildStorm/DC); Project Superpowers (Dynamite)
J. H. Williams III, Detective Comics (DC)
James Jean has won this category for the last six straight years, but he’s not nominated this year. So perhaps Ross, who won four times between 1996 and 2000, will return for his crown.
Best Digital Comic
Abominable Charles Christopher, by Karl Kerschl,
http://www.abominable.cc
Bayou, by Jeremy Love,
http://zudacomics.com/bayou
The Guns of Shadow Valley, by David Wachter and James Andrew Clark,
http://www.gunsofshadowvalley.com
Power Out, by Nathan Schreiber,
http://www.act-i-vate.com/67.comic
Sin Titulo, by Cameron Stewart,
http://www.sintitulocomic.com/
I’m guessing Sin Titulo takes this one–it’s a nifty comic, and Stewart probably has broader name recognition in the voting community than the other nominees.
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Best Graphic Album-New
Asterios Polyp, by David Mazzucchelli (Pantheon)
A Distant Neighborhood (2 vols.), by Jiro Taniguchi (Fanfare/Ponent Mon)
The Book of Genesis Illustrated, by R. Crumb (Norton)
My mommy is in America and she met Buffalo Bill, by Jean Regnaud and Émile Bravo (Fanfare/Ponent Mon)
The Photographer, by Emmanuel Guibert, Didier Lefèvre, and Frédéric Lemerier (First Second)
Richard Stark’s Parker: The Hunter, adapted by Darwyn Cooke (IDW)
This one’s tricky, because it’s an incredibly strong slate. If the Eisner voters were “people who don’t read comics much,” it’d go to Crumb’s Genesis, a really nicely executed project that’s basically a victory lap for a great artist. If they were “the art-comics scene,” it’d go to Mazzucchelli’s widely acclaimed Asterios Polyp. But I bet the prize goes to Parker: The Unter… unless voters go for Parker in the “Adaptation” category, and Asterios here.
Best Graphic Album-Reprint
Absolute Justice, by Alex Ross, Jim Krueger, and Doug Braithwaite (DC)
A.D.: New Orleans After the Deluge, by Josh Neufeld (Pantheon)
Alec: The Years Have Pants, by Eddie Campbell (Top Shelf)
Essex County Collected, by Jeff Lemire (Top Shelf)
Map of My Heart: The Best of King-Cat Comics & Stories, 1996-2002, by John Porcellino (Drawn & Quarterly)
No contest here: this is four decent-to-good books and one great one, Eddie Campbell’s massive, intoxicating omnibus of his semiautobiographical Alec comics.
Best Humor Publication
Drinky Crow’s Maakies Treasury, by Tony Millionaire (Fantagraphics)
Everybody Is Stupid Except for Me, And Other Astute Observations, by Peter Bagge (Fantagraphics)
Little Lulu, vols. 19-21, by John Stanley and Irving Tripp (Dark Horse Books)
The Muppet Show Comic Book: Meet the Muppets, by Roger Langridge (BOOM Kids!)
Scott Pilgrim vol. 5: Scott Pilgrim vs. the Universe, by Brian Lee O’Malley (Oni)
The sole nomination for Scott Pilgrim on this year’s Eisner ballot? It’s a shoe-in. Langridge’s Muppet Show series is really good as licensed-property tie-in comics go, though.
Best Lettering
Brian Fies, Whatever Happened to the World of Tomorrow? (Abrams ComicArts)
David Mazzucchelli, Asterios Polyp (Pantheon)
Tom Orzechowski, Savage Dragon (Image); X-Men Forever (Marvel)
Richard Sala, Cat Burglar Black (First Second); Delphine (Fantagraphics)
Adrian Tomine, A Drifting Life (Drawn & Quarterly)
The running joke is that this is the “Todd Klein Award,” since Klein’s won it 15 of the last 17 years. Klein’s not nominated this time, though–and these days comics that are actually hand-lettered are pretty thin on the ground. By far the most inventive comics lettering of last year, though, was in Mazzucchelli’s Asterios Polyp.
Best Limited Series or Story Arc
Blackest Night, by Geoff Johns, Ivan Reis, and Oclair Albert (DC)
Incognito, by Ed Brubaker and Sean Phillips (Marvel Icon)
Pluto: Urasawa X Tezuka, by Naoki Urasawa and Takashi Nagasaki (VIZ Media)
Wolverine #66-72 and Wolverine Giant-Size Special: “Old Man Logan,” by Mark Millar, Steve McNiven, and Dexter Vines (Marvel)
The Wonderful Wizard of Oz, by Eric Shanower and Skottie Young (Marvel)
As much as I’d love to see this go to Pluto, the commercial juggernaut that was Blackest Night is not to be denied here.
Best New Series
Chew, by John Layman and Rob Guillory (Image)
Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep? by Phillip K. Dick, art by Tony Parker (BOOM!)
Ireedeemable, by Mark Waid and Peter Krause (BOOM!)
Sweet Tooth, by Jeff Lemire (Vertigo/DC)
The Unwritten, by Mike Carey and Peter Gross (Vertigo/DC)
These are all underdog series, rather than commercial blockbusters. The one whose fans are most enthusiastic about it, though, is probably The Unwritten.
Best Painter/Multimedia Artist (interior art)
Émile Bravo, My mommy is in America and she met Buffalo Bill (Fanfare/Ponent Mon)
Mauro Cascioli, Justice League: Cry for Justice (DC)
Nicolle Rager Fuller, Charles Darwin on the Origin of Species: A Graphic Adaptation (Rodale Books)
Jill Thompson, Beasts of Burden (Dark Horse); Magic Trixie and the Dragon (HarperCollins Children’s Books)
Carol Tyler, You’ll Never Know: A Good and Decent Man (Fantagraphics)
Thompson is a seven-time Eisner laureate, and the odds-on favorite. Tyler’s work on You’ll Never Know, though, is absolutely stunning, although it may not have been seen by as many voters.
Best Penciller/Inker or Penciller/Inker Team
Michael Kaluta, Madame Xanadu #11-15: “Exodus Noir” (Vertigo/DC)
Steve McNiven/Dexter Vines, Wolverine: Old Man Logan (Marvel)
Fiona Staples, North 40 (WildStorm)
J. H. Williams III, Detective Comics (DC)
Danijel Zezelj, Luna Park (Vertigo/DC)
As far as mainstream comics art goes, there’s good, and then there’s great, and then there’s J.H. Williams III on Detective.
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Best Publication Design
Absolute Justice, designed by Curtis King and Josh Beatman (DC)
The Brinkley Girls, designed by Adam Grano (Fantagraphics)
Gahan Wilson: 50 Years of Playboy Cartoons, designed by Jacob Covey (Fantagraphics)
Life and Times of Martha Washington, designed by David Nestelle (Dark Horse Books)
Queer Visitors from the Marvelous Land of Oz, designed by Philippe Ghielmetti (Sunday Press)
Whatever Happened to the World of Tomorrow? designed by Neil Egan and Brian Fies (Abrams ComicArts)
As usual, this is a really lovely batch of books. But that Gahan Wilson design, with the artist’s face smooshed up against the “glass” pane of its slipcase, is just about the best thing I’ve seen all year.
Best Publication for Kids
Lunch Lady and the Cyborg Substitute, by Jarrett J. Krosoczka (Knopf)
The Secret Science Alliance and the Copycat Crook, by Eleanor Davis (Bloomsbury)
Tiny Tyrant vol. 1: The Ethelbertosaurus, by Lewis Trondheim and Fabrice Parme (First Second)
The TOON Treasury of Classic Children’s Comics, edited by Art Spiegelman and Francoise Mouly (Abrams ComicArts/Toon)
The Wonderful Wizard of Oz hc, by L. Frank Baum, Eric Shanower, and Skottie Young (Marvel)
I love the TOON Treasury, but The Wonderful Wizard of Oz is a shoe-in for this one: an unexpected commercial hit, written by a guy the comics community adores, the brilliant Eric Shanower.
Best Publication for Teens
Angora Napkin, by Troy Little (IDW)
Beasts of Burden, by Evan Dorkin and Jill Thompson (Dark Horse)
A Family Secret, by Eric Heuvel (Farrar Straus Giroux/Anne Frank House)
Far Arden, by Kevin Cannon (Top Shelf)
I Kill Giants tpb, by Joe Kelly and JM Ken Niimura (Image)
Thompson and Dorkin have a lot of goodwill in the comics community, and a lot of Eisners between them; Beasts of Burden is a successful stretch for both of them.
Best Reality-Based Work
A Drifting Life, by Yoshihiro Tatsumi (Drawn & Quarterly)
Footnotes in Gaza, by Joe Sacco (Metropolitan/Holt)
The Impostor’s Daughter, by Laurie Sandell (Little, Brown)
Monsters, by Ken Dahl (Secret Acres)
The Photographer, by Emmanuel Guibert, Didier Lefèvre, and Frédéric Lemerier (First Second)
Stitches, by David Small (Norton)
This is why the Eisner categories might need a little pruning: this category and “Best Writer/Artist–Nonfiction” do overlap considerably. Footnotes in Gaza and The Photographer are both brilliant and devastating in their own ways; still, A Drifting Life might have an edge among voters, since it’s all about Tatsumi’s life as a cartoonist.
Best Short Story
“Because I Love You So Much,” by Nikoline Werdelin, in From Wonderland with Love: Danish Comics in the 3rd Millennium (Fantagraphics/Aben Maler)
“Gentleman John,” by Nathan Greno, in What Is Torch Tiger? (Torch Tiger)
“How and Why to Bale Hay,” by Nick Bertozzi, in Syncopated (Villard)
“Hurricane,” interpreted by Gradimir Smudja, in Bob Dylan Revisited (Norton)
“Urgent Request,” by Gene Luen Yang and Derek Kirk Kim, in The Eternal Smile (First Second)
Derek Kirk Kim and Gene Luen Yang have both won Eisners before, which I’m guessing gives them something of an advantage here.
Best Single Issue (or One-Shot)
Brave & the Bold #28: “Blackhawk and the Flash: Firing Line,” by J. Michael Straczynski and Jesus Saiz (DC)
Captain America #601: “Red, White, and Blue-Blood,” by Ed Brubaker and Gene Colan (Marvel)
Ganges #3, by Kevin Huizenga (Fantagraphics)
The Unwritten #5: “How the Whale Became,” by Mike Carey and Peter Gross (Vertigo/DC)
Usagi Yojimbo #123: “The Death of Lord Hikiji” by Stan Sakai (Dark Horse)
The sentimental vote here goes to Captain America #601, which the great Gene Colan has suggested will be his final comic book. My dark-horse pick, though, is Ganges #3, an absolutely brilliant, uncategorizable thing; who knows if there are enough Huizenga buffs to push it over the top?
(More on Techland: Is Comic-Con Headed to Anaheim?)
Best U.S. Edition of International Material
My mommy is in America and she met Buffalo Bill, by Jean Regnaud and Émile Bravo (Fanfare/Ponent Mon)
The Photographer, by Emmanuel Guibert, Didier Lefèvre, and Frédéric Lemerier (First Second)
Tiny Tyrant vol. 1: The Ethelbertosaurus, by Lewis Trondheim and Fabrice Parme (First Second)
West Coast Blues, by Jean-Patrick Manchette, adapted by Jacques Tardi (Fantagraphics)
Years of the Elephant, by Willy Linthout (Fanfare/Ponent Mon)
Regnaud and Bravo’s book has three nominations; so does The Photographer. I bet one of them takes it–and, if it were up to me, that would be the enormously inventive The Photographer.
Best U.S. Edition of International Material-Asia
The Color Trilogy, by Kim Dong Haw (First Second)
A Distant Neighborhood (2 vols.), by Jiro Taniguchi (Fanfare/Ponent Mon)
A Drifting Life, by Yoshihiro Tatsumi (Drawn & Quarterly)
Oishinbo a la Carte, written by Tetsu Kariya and illustrated by Akira Hanasaki (VIZ Media)
Pluto: Urasawa X Tezuka, by Naoki Urasawa and Takashi Nagasaki (VIZ Media)
Naoki Urasawa’s 20th Century Boys, by Naoki Urasawa (VIZ Media)
Both this and the other international category would be a lot stronger if they were telescoped into one. The only way somebody other than Urasawa takes this one, though, is if the fans of Pluto and 20th Century Boys split the vote.
Best Writer
Ed Brubaker, Captain America, Daredevil, Marvels Project (Marvel) Criminal, Incognito (Marvel Icon)
Geoff Johns, Adventure Comics, Blackest Night, The Flash: Rebirth, Superman: Secret Origin (DC)
James Robinson, Justice League: Cry for Justice (DC)
Mark Waid, Irredeemable, The Incredibles (BOOM!)
Bill Willingham, Fables (Vertigo/DC)
Brubaker won this in 2007 and 2008, Willingham in 2009; Geoff Johns has never won an Eisner before, but this has been his year as a commercial juggernaut. I would also love to hear the arguments for Cry for Justice, because I have not yet seen anyone articulate why they liked it in an unironic way.
Best Writer/Artist
Darwyn Cooke, Richard Stark’s Parker: The Hunter (IDW)
R. Crumb, The Book of Genesis Illustrated (Norton)
David Mazzucchelli, Asterios Polyp (Pantheon)
Terry Moore, Echo (Abstract Books)
Naoki Urasawa, Naoki Urasawa’s 20th Century Boys, Pluto: Urasawa X Tezuka (VIZ Media)
A very tough match between Cooke’s beautifully executed lowbrow pulp and Mazzucchelli’s beautifully executed highbrown aesthetic philosophy, perhaps with Urasawa sneaking in as the spoiler.
Best Writer/Artist-Nonfiction
Reinhard Kleist, Johnny Cash: I See a Darkness (Abrams ComicArts)
Willy Linthout, Years of the Elephant (Fanfare/Ponent Mon)
Joe Sacco, Footnotes in Gaza (Metropolitan/Holt)
David Small, Stitches (Norton)
Carol Tyler, You’ll Never Know: A Good and Decent Man (Fantagraphics)
Tyler’s You’ll Never Know and Sacco’s Footnotes in Gaza are both among the most magisterial, emotionally powerful graphic novels I’ve ever seen; they both deserve to win this one.