The winners of the 2021 Eisner Awards were announced Friday night at the San Diego Comic-Con. A mostly comic book affair here are the winners in some categories we regularly cover here at TDC.
Best Reality-Based Work
- WINNER: Kent State: Four Dead in Ohio, by Derf Backderf (Abrams)
- Big Black: Stand at Attica, by Frank “Big Black” Smith, Jared Reinmuth, and Améziane (Archaia/BOOM!)
- Dragon Hoops, by Gene Luen Yang (First Second/Macmillan)
- Invisible Differences: A Story of Asperger’s, Adulting, and Living a Life in Full Color, by Mme Caroline and Julie Dachez, translation by Edward Gauvin (Oni Press)
- Paying the Land, by Joe Sacco (Metropolitan/Henry Holt)
- Year of the Rabbit, by Tian Veasna, translation by Helge Dascher (Drawn & Quarterly)
Best Graphic Memoir
- WINNER: The Loneliness of the Long-Distance Cartoonist, by Adrian Tomine (Drawn & Quarterly)
- Banned Book Club, by Kim Hyun Sook, Ryan Estrada, and Ko Hyung-Ju (Iron Circus)
- Dancing After TEN: A Graphic Memoir, by Vivian Chong and Georgia Webber (Fantagraphics)
- Ginseng Roots, by Craig Thompson (Uncivilized)
- I Don’t Know How to Give Birth! by Ayami Kazama, translated by Julie Goniwich (Yen Press)
- When Stars Are Scattered, by Victoria Jamieson and Omar Mohamed (Dial Books)
Best Adaptation from Another Medium
- WINNER: Superman Smashes the Klan, adapted by Gene Luen Yang and Gurihiru (DC)
- Constitution Illustrated, by R. Sikoryak (Drawn & Quarterly)
- Parable of the Sower: The Graphic Novel Adaptation, by Octavia E. Butler, adapted by Damian Duffy and John Jennings (Abrams)
- Sapiens: A Graphic History: The Birth of Humankind, vol. 1, adapted by Yuval Noah Harari, David Vandermeulen and Daniel Casanave (Harper Perennial)
- Slaughterhouse-Five, by Kurt Vonnegut, adapted by Ryan North and Albert Monteys (Archaia/BOOM!)
Best Archival Collection/Project—Strips
- WINNER: The Flapper Queens: Women Cartoonists of the Jazz Age, edited by Trina Robbins (Fantagraphics)
- Gross Exaggerations: The Meshuga Comic Strips of Milt Gross, by Milt Gross, edited by Peter Maresca (Sunday Press/IDW)
- Krazy & Ignatz 1919-1921 by George Herriman, edited by RJ Casey (Fantagraphics)
- Little Debbie and the Second Coming of Elmo: Daily Comic Strips, August 1960–September 1961, by Cecil Jensen, edited by Frank Young (Labor of Love)
-
Pogo The Complete Syndicated Comic Strips: Volume 7: Pockets Full of Pie, by Walt Kelly, edited by Mark Evanier and Eric Reynolds (Fantagraphics)
Best Archival Collection/Project—Comic Books
- WINNER: The Complete Hate, by Peter Bagge, edited by Eric Reynolds (Fantagraphics)
- Art Young’s Inferno, by Art Young, edited by Glenn Bray (Fantagraphics)
- Atlas at War! edited by Michael J. Vassallo (Dead Reckoning)
- Corto Maltese: The Ballad of the Salty Sea, by Hugo Pratt, translation by Dean Mullaney and Simone Castaldi (EuroComics/IDW)
- Little Lulu: The Fuzzythingus Poopi, by John Stanley, edited by Frank Young and Tom Devlin (Drawn & Quarterly)
- Man and Superman and Other Stories, by Harvey Kurtzman, edited by J. Michael Catron (Fantagraphics)
Best Comics-Related Journalism/Periodical
- WINNER: Women Write About Comics, edited by Nola Pfau and Wendy Browne, www.WomenWriteAboutComics.com
- Alter Ego, edited by Roy Thomas (TwoMorrows)
- Back Issue, edited by Michael Eury (TwoMorrows)
- The Comics Blog, by Michael Cavna and David Betancourt, https://www.washingtonpost.com/entertainment/comics/
- The Comics Journal, edited by RJ Casey, Kristy Valenti, and Gary Groth (Fantagraphics)
- PanelxPanel magazine, edited by Hassan Otsmane-Elhaou, PanelxPanel.com
Best Comics-Related Book
- WINNER: Invisible Men: The Trailblazing Black Artists of Comic Books, by Ken Quattro (Yoe Books/IDW)
- American Daredevil: Comics, Communism, and the Battles of Lev Gleason, by Brett Dakin (Comic House/Lev Gleason)
- Ditko Shrugged: The Uncompromising Life of the Artist Behind Spider-Man and the Rise of Marvel Comics, by David Currie (Hermes Press)
- Drawing Fire: The Editorial Cartoons of Bill Mauldin, edited by Todd DePastino (Pritzker Military Museum & Library)
- The History of EC Comics, by Grant Geissman (TASCHEN)
- Masters of British Comic Art, by David Roach (2000AD)
Best Academic/Scholarly Work
- WINNER: The Content of Our Caricature: African American Comic Art and Political Belonging,by Rebecca Wanzo (New York University Press)
- Comic Art in Museums, edited by Kim A. Munson (University Press of Mississippi)
- Comic Studies: A Guidebook, edited by Charles Hatfield and Bart Beaty (Rutgers University Press)
- Webcomics, by Sean Kleefeld (Bloomsbury)
- Who Understands Comics: Questioning the Universality of Visual Language Comprehension, by Neil Cohn (Bloomsbury)
Best Webcomic
- WINNER: Crisis Zone, by Simon Hanselmann, https://www.instagram.com/simon.hanselmann/
- BFF, by Clément C. Fabre, Joseph Saffiedine, and Thomas Cadène, translation by Emma Wilson, https://www.webtoonfactory.com/en/webtoons/114-bff-saison-1/
- DPS! Only, by Vel, https://tapas.io/series/dpsonly/info
- Isle of Elsi, by Alec Longstreth, https://www.isleofelsi.com/comics/ioe4/page-208/
- The Kiss Bet, by Ingrid Ochoa, https://www.webtoons.com/en/romance/the-kiss-bet/ep-1-the-kiss-bet/viewer?title_no=1617&episode_no=1
- The Middle Age, by Steve Conley, middleagecomic.com
All the winners (and nominees) can be seen at Comics Beat.
And a hat tip to Amazon for the book covers.