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2020 Eisner Award Nominations

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D. D. Degg June 5, 2020 1 minute 0 comments

Comic Con International: San Diego has announced the nominees for this year’s Will Eisner Awards. Like most of this year’s conventions and gatherings the San Diego Comic-Con will take a different format, but some things remain – award presentations among them. Mostly comic book related this year has a number of comic strip and more broad-based cartooning interests sprinkled in the mix.

Of the five Best Short Story nominations, four are webcomics:

Best Short Story

• “Hot Comb,” by Ebony Flowers, in Hot Comb (Drawn & Quarterly)
• “How to Draw a Horse,” by Emma Hunsinger, The New Yorker, https://www.newyorker.com/humor/daily-shouts/how-to-draw-a-horse
• “The Menopause,” by Mira Jacob, The Believer, https://believermag.com/the-menopause/

• “Who Gets Called an ‘Unfit’ Mother?” by Miriam Libicki, The Nib, https://thenib.com/who-gets-called-an-unfit-mother/

• “You’re Not Going to Believe What I’m About to Tell You,” by Matthew Inman, The Oatmeal, https://theoatmeal.com/comics/believe

(Of the above I have only read Inman’s Oatmeal contribution and know it is worthy of the nomination.)

The Best Humor Publication contains a couple online comics (which I am familiar with).

Best Humor Publication  

• Anatomy of Authors, by Dave Kellett (SheldonComics.com)
• Death Wins a Goldfish, by Brian Rea (Chronicle Books)
• Minotäar, by Lissa Treiman (Shortbox)
• Sobek, by James Stokoe (Shortbox)
• The Way of the Househusband, vol. 1, by Kousuke Oono, translation by Sheldon Drzka (VIZ Media)
• Wondermark: Friends You Can Ride On, by David Malki (Wondermark)

The Nib magazine (which I get) receives a nomination.

Best Anthology

• ABC of Typography, by David Rault (SelfMade Hero)
• Baltic Comics Anthology š! #34-37, edited by David Schilter, Sanita Muižniece et al. (kuš!)
• Drawing Power: Women’s Stories of Sexual Violence, Harassment, and Survival, edited by Diane Noomin (Abrams)
• Kramer’s Ergot #10, edited by Sammy Harkham (Fantagraphics)
• The Nib #2–4, edited by Matt Bors (Nib)

I have a couple of these comic strip books, and plan on getting a couple more.

Best Archival Collection/Project—Strips

• Cham: The Best Comic Strips and Graphic Novelettes, 1839–1862, by David Kunzle (University Press of Mississippi)
• Ed Leffingwell’s Little Joe, by Harold Gray, edited by Peter Maresca and Sammy Harkham (Sunday Press Books)
• The George Herriman Library: Krazy & Ignatz 1916–1918, edited by R.J. Casey (Fantagraphics)
• Krazy Kat: The Complete Color Sundays, by George Herriman, edited by Alexander Braun (TASCHEN)
• Madness in Crowds: The Teeming Mind of Harrison Cady, by Violet and Denis Kitchen (Beehive Books)
• Pogo, Vol. 6: Clean as a Weasel, by Walt Kelly, edited by Mark Evanier and Eric Reynolds (Fantagraphics)

The “fan” zine nominees have one I subscribe to (Hi, Tom) and a few others I either read/get (though I will be dropping one).

Best Comics-Related Periodical/Journalism

• Comic Riffs blog, by Michael Cavna, www.washingtonpost.com/entertainment/comics/
• The Comics Journal, edited by Gary Groth, RJ Casey, and Kristy Valenti (Fantagraphics)
• Hogan’s Alley, edited by Tom Heintjes (Hogan’s Alley)
• Inks: The Journal of the Comics Studies Society, edited by Qiana Whitted (Ohio State University Press)
• LAAB Magazine, vol. 4: This Was Your Life, edited by Ronald Wimberly and Josh O’Neill (Beehive Books)
• Women Write About Comics, edited by Nola Pfau and Wendy Browne, www.WomenWriteAboutComics.com

My preference to the below are the ones about comic strips.

Best Comics-Related Book

• The Art of Nothing: 25 Years of Mutts and the Art of Patrick McDonnell (Abrams)
• The Book of Weirdo, by Jon B. Cooke (Last Gasp)
• Grunt: The Art and Unpublished Comics of James Stokoe (Dark Horse)
• Logo a Gogo: Branding Pop Culture, by Rian Hughes (Korero Press)
• Making Comics, by Lynda Barry (Drawn & Quarterly)
• Screwball! The Cartoonists Who Made the Funnies Funny, by Paul Tumey (Library of American Comics/IDW)

Best Academic/Scholarly Work

• The Art of Pere Joan: Space, Landscape, and Comics Form, by Benjamin Fraser (University of Texas Press)
• The Comics of Rutu Modan: War, Love, and Secrets, by Kevin Haworth (University Press of Mississippi)
• EC Comics: Race, Shock, and Social Protest, by Qiana Whitted (Rutgers University Press)
• The Peanuts Papers: Writers and Cartoonists on Charlie Brown, Snoopy & the Gang, and the Meaning of Life, edited by Andrew Blauner (Library of America)
• Producing Mass Entertainment: The Serial Life of the Yellow Kid, by Christina Meyer (Ohio State University Press)
• Women’s Manga in Asia and Beyond: Uniting Different Cultures and Identities, edited by Fusami Ogi et al. (Palgrave Macmillan)

For some reason I stopped reading Producing Mass Entertainment in the middle of the book. I recently picked it up again and find it fascinating as Christina, in discussing the Pulitzer and Hearst Kids, tells more about George Luks’ Yellow Kid than I think I have ever read before.

I’m afraid I know little about most webcomics.

Best Webcomic

• Cabramatta, by Matt Huynh, http://believermag.com/cabramatta/
• Chuckwagon at the End of the World, by Erik Lundy, https://hollowlegcomics.tumblr.com/chuckwagon
• The Eyes, by Javi de Castro, https://www.javidecastro.com/theeyes
• Fried Rice Comic, by Erica Eng, https://friedricecomic.tumblr.com
•  reMIND, by Jason Brubaker, https://is.gd/T7rafM
• Third Shift Society, by Meredith Moriarty, https://www.webtoons.com/en/supernatural/third-shift-society/list?title_no=1703

The entire list is at Comic-Con.org, where you will find such popular authors as Mo Willems, Jerry Craft, and Raina Telgemeier receiving nominations in their comic appropriate categories.