The Daily Cartoonist

Industry news for the professional cartoonist

2020 Eisner Award Nominations

D. D. Degg09 mins

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

(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

 

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.

Top