The San Diego Comic-Con (Comic-Con International) announced this years winners of the Eisner Awards in a virtual ceremony. There were no series or creators that dominated the awards though Raina Telgemeier (Guts), Lynda Barry (Making Comics), and Stan Sakai (Usagi Yojimbo) were among those winning two awards. Stan Sakai was also inducted into the Hall of Fame.
Some award winners and nominees in selected categories include:
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)
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)
Best Comics-Related Periodical/Journalism:
Comic Riffs blog, by Michael Cavna
“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
Best Webcomic
“Cabramatta,” by Matt Huynh
“Chuckwagon at the End of the World,” by Erik Lundy
“The Eyes,” by Javi de Castro
“Fried Rice Comic,” by Erica Eng
“reMIND,” by Jason Brubaker
“Third Shift Society,” by Meredith Moriarty
Multiversity Comics has the full list of category winners and nominees.
The 2020 Hall of Fame inductees for 2020:
The Judges’ Choices were Nell Brinkley and E. Simms Campbell. The elected inductees were Alison Bechdel, Howard Cruse, Louise Simonson, Stan Sakai, Don and Maggie Thompson, and Bill Watterson.
The awards did not happen without some controversy. From The Hollywood Reporter:
What organizers described as “an anomaly” that closed online voting for the Will Eisner Comic Industry Awards early in June was actually an error that cross-linked certain accounts and allowed voters not only to see personal information listed in the linked account but to change the other person’s vote.
The voting for this year’s winners was not without incident, having been shut down suddenly on the last day of voting and later reopened for a short window, with all previous votes thrown out due to what Comic-Con referred to as an “anomaly.”
After speaking with numerous Eisner voters regarding their experiences with this year’s voting, The Beat has uncovered what appears to be multiple issues with the voting process, and that Comic-Con was aware of the issues within a week of the vote opening.
