Last week I reviewed this year's Eisner nominees for Kids and Early Readers. Today, finally, I review the nominees for Teens (see my post of May 19 for a summary of all young readers’ categories). The voting deadline, gulp, is this Friday, June 5!

I have to say, I am very sorry not to see Ngozi Ukazu's Flip, one of last year's best graphic novels, in this category. Not to gripe, but, man, Flip is great: a body-swap story about self-loathing, self-love, class, race, gender, privilege, and a bunch of other things we may think we understand but don't, and can't, never enough. It steers into controversy but avoids cant in favor of well-earned, and delightful, characterization. It's laugh-out-loud funny yet sometimes hits like a cold slap. The plot is expertly rigged, knotted and surprising and never obvious. Ngozi is a terrific cartoonist, she knows her characters inside and out, her writing is generous, never cheap, and this is a book I'll always remember. I taught Flip this past semester, and I'll be teaching it again this fall. If you don't know it, check it out!

Even without Flip, oof, this is a VERY hard category to judge. Every book below is good -- not just pretty good but genuinely good: distinctive, memorable, and gutsy. Most are excellent, so I've been wracking my brain trying to decide which one to vote for. This slate is historically strong, as strong a selection of graphic novels as I've ever seen in the Eisners in any category. Choosing is hard!

​Left with his grandparents in the countryside when his parents are in crisis, a young boy, Antoine, strives to avoid provoking his domineering grandfather, a skilled, obsessive, and dangerous hunter. One day, when “Grampy” and Antoine are in the woods foraging for mushrooms (black trumpets, or Craterellus cornucopioides), something inexplicable and magic-realist happens, shifting the tale into a new register: a surreal survival story and a meditation on wildness versus humanity. Bournel-Bosson’s style is compulsively detailed, his figures often grotesque, and the book is a suite of saturated colors, each new scene boasting its own palette. An enigmatic, unnerving parable.

​Overachiever Angelica hides her griefs behind perpetual busyness, until one day she crashes. Then she starts chatting, via socials, with Peri the Bear, costumed mascot of a local theater troupe. His messages comfort her. As the troupe rehearses the fairy tale “East of the Sun and West of the Moon” (which stars a white bear), Angelica wonders, who is Peri underneath that suit? Will they click in person? Nguyen says he set out to create something “fun and frothy,” but this gorgeously cartooned romance, with its superbly written cast and multidimensional plot, wrong-footed me in the best way. Extraordinary.

​This smart-as-hell mystery, set at a girls’ academy in the 1980s, follows Abby, an alienated misfit who reluctantly begins sleuthing after one of the school’s social butterflies winds up dead. What Abby learns unravels the school’s history and careful façade. Tamaki writes competitive young women brilliantly, with a simmering sense of classism, conformism, and the brittleness of friendship. Abby’s queerness, suspected and gossiped about by the other girls, adds a crucial layer; their skulking homophobia cuts like a knife. Goux’s expressive cartooning, done in a delicious pink-and-gray palette, is inventive, exacting, and elegant. This made my early Faves of 2025. 

​The finale of Walden’s Walking Dead spinoff trilogy hits like a hammer. Somehow, its franchise origins only underscore its undiluted Walden-ness. Here, a walled-in town provides a would-be refuge from the zombie plague, a kind of utopian respite, but the vibe is anti-utopian and fierce, as rival leaders argue over what’s best. What is the price of security? What happens when you trade human vulnerability for militarized strength, openness for armored defense? Clementine, savaged by grief, wades into this trouble and begins to lose her moorings. Astringent and harrowing, then again touching, this humane thriller also made my Favorites list.

​This queer romance set in the aughts depicts first love and codependency shadowed by long-suppressed grief. High-school seniors Carson and Ash are the kind of friends whose friendship seems impenetrable to everybody else. At first, I could not grasp their dialogue, but I could tell that Wroten did, and that the two fit together. Gradually, their connection turns to romance; I found myself charmed, but worried for them. The novel is structured as a mix CD of emo bands (each chapter a song) and rife with telling period details. I love the restless pages, kinetic cartooning, and teeming social background.

Alex has disappeared, a suspected runaway or victim. Three of his friends, plus his angry, guilt-haunted brother, team up to find him, and each new chapter takes a different perspective. This novel is very dense, partly due to a cramped format, partly because Young mixes literal supernatural horror with a searching depiction of schizoaffective bipolar disorder and the stigmatizing of mental illness. The cartooning is exquisite, the characterization sensitive, and the pages often stunning (the chapter that reveals Alex’s plight is a terrifying tour de force). Alas, it doesn’t quite work: the horror tropes are distracting, the rules baffling. Sigh.

Final notes: There are seventeen books, all told, in the three young readers' categories. Over the past week and a half, I've read or reread them all. All but four I got from the Los Angeles Public Library, and believe me, that's a privilege I do not take for granted. To have access to one of the nation's largest municipal libraries, with more than seventy branches, plus a request system that can move books from any one branch to another in a matter of days, is a great gift. I've been able to do these Eisner roundups over the past three years because the Library keeps me supplied! Thank you, LAPL.

FWIW, Teens was the hardest category for me to choose a favorite in. Early Readers was a bit challenging too. Kids, for whatever reason, was easier. But all three categories include more than one book that I would be glad to see win. Teens has, I think, at least four nominees that merit Eisners.

Last year, when the dust cleared, I thought that about two-thirds of the nominees were books of historic heft: titles to be remembered over the long term. I pretty much think the same thing this year. Last year's slate included three or four of my favorite 20th-century graphic novels, and I can say the same this time. This is a great time for book-length comics, and for children's and YA comics.

First, though, I have to say that I would have loved to see Jose Pimienta's Halfway to Somewhere in this category. It's a brave and inventive graphic novel about immigration, assimilation pressure, and cultural and linguistic resistance. Pimienta's deep characterization and refusal of easy answers impressed me, and I'm sorry not to see his book here.

​I reviewed Halfway to Somewhere here on 1/20/2026. If you haven't read it, do seek it out!

Now, on to the nominees:​

A hospital in “Myth Valley” treats creatures from myth and legend: trolls, unicorns, et cetera. Humans are emphatically unwelcome. So, what happens when a human, lost and injured, arrives, then decides that he wants to work there? How will resident Kara Orc hide this human from the hospital’s intimidating chief of medicine, who happens to be her own mother? Cute, antic and fairly predictable, with a Hotel Transylvania-like premise that grants Aung Than license to hijack familiar tales and characters. I dig the crisp cartooning, smart layouts and surprising gags, plus, the welcome attention to medical ethics and narrative medicine.

In a dystopian future, two “left-behind” children wait in the desert for their mother to return from her grinding industrial job in faraway Oasis City. Meanwhile, they reactivate a derelict robot (design-wise, an echo of Lang’s Metropolis) that becomes their doting “AI Mom.” This strange book is at times uncanny, even disturbing, but also sentimental. Its tone is hard to peg. Visually, it’s transporting, its parched world rendered in a gray-to-sepia palette achieved with pencil and toner powder (I was reminded of Tan’s The Arrival). The layouts are smartly uncluttered, the text sparse. The abrupt ending left me dazed, unconvinced.

Twelve-year-old Abby, big sister to four siblings, would like nothing more than to be an only child and hang with her older friends. However, she and her squirrelly sibs are struck with chickenpox and forced to quarantine together. Cue the raw comedy and bruised feelings! This lightly fictionalized memoir, told from the POV of the author’s older sister, happens in Indonesia in the mid-1990s, but you’d hardly know it; this is very much a Raina-style middle-grade sitcom. Lai’s cartooning, however, favors metaphor and hyperbole, and Abby, egocentric and resentful, is a pill. Vivid, funny, with expected lessons but sharp edges. 

O’Neill (The Tea Dragon Society, etc.) has been building a body of work that blends medievalesque high fantasy and Miyazaki-esque pastoralism with anticapitalist, genderqueer, and ecotopian vibes. Community, bonds of obligation, and ritual are abiding themes. The work is subdued, melancholy, and implicitly post-traumatic, yet somehow hopeful. It’s also gorgeously drawn. This may be their best book yet: the tale of a headstrong young ranger who makes a terrible mistake, then atones for it by helping out a young shepherd. Each helps the other live more fully, and freely. This lovely, loving book made my Favorites of 2025. My pick!

A lone raccoon hides in the walls of a restaurant and emulates the human chefs she sees. Imagining herself as “Night Chef,” she cooks while the humans are away. When an egg she wants to cook hatches, revealing a crow chick, Night Chef sets out to take the hatchling home to roost. The journey entails evading an angry (implicitly, rabid) owl, meeting other critters in community, and learning something about her own origins. This aesthetically delicate book, brush-inked and watercolored, is warm, smart, and often surprising. I dig its distinctive characters, telling dialogue, beautifully organic art, and unforced thematic depths.

This book about an after-school comics-making club is many things at once: a Raina-style middle-grade dramedy about kids alone and together, a formalistic metacomic and how-to manual, a loving nudge to young artists’ creativity, and a paean to comics as participatory culture. Basically, it sells the idea of comics, as well as an inclusive communal ethos surrounding comics. The story captures many of the things that, separately, Telgemeier and McCloud have done so well. Perhaps that is why I found it a touch predictable. Still, I expect it will be a very important book for many. Reviewed here on 10/08/2025.

This year's Eisner Award nominees went public on May 15, and my most recent post here listed the nominees in categories that interest me particularly, including those for young readers' books: Early Readers, Kids, and Teens. Since then, I've checked out more than a dozen of these books from the LA Public Library in hopes of reading all nominees in Early Readers, Kids, and Teens before the (yipes) June 5 voting deadline. Wish me luck!​

So far, I've read all the nominated books in Early Readers. See below! It's a strong category. Clicking on a title, BTW, will take you to a publisher's page about that title. I've denoted the book I'm likely to vote for with a ♥​.

This remix of The Ugly Duckling stars a pint-sized dragon, adopted by ducks, who knows he is different but doesn’t understand why. Guided by a friendly bluebird, he quizzes one animal after another to find out just what kind of “duckling” he is (his anxious questions recall P.D. Eastman’s classic Are You My Mother?). The story is simple, affirming, and unsurprising, but Cammuso’s cartooning is lively and assured. His neat three-tier pages, keyed to emerging readers per the TOON schema, have an irresistible rhythmic bounce. The climax, in which questioning gives way to heroism, is a hoot. 

Like the nominees by Cammuso and Fong, this is a funny animal story. It stars Steve the Horse, an irrepressible goofball whom Collier created for a picture book (2017), then recreated for a graphic novel series. This entry (the series’ second) is one of two Steve books published last year. Here Steve adopts a balloon, which he takes for an unhatched egg, while Bob the raccoon, a skeptic, plays the part of the sensible naysayer. The plot is blithely absurd, but what sells it is Steve’s cocky self-belief and enthusiasm, delivered with droll cartooning and sly wit. Dryly, weirdly, hilarious!

A blackout at bedtime sends a parent and child out to gather stars from the night sky. With a bag of borrowed stars, they light up their darkened room -- until they hear the weeping of the moon, now alone in the dark. How can they all share the light? The situations are familiar, and Emberley’s digital colors a touch cloying, but his cartooning is sure and his pages inventive, with staggered, overlapping, sometimes free-floating panels. The vaguely humanlike characters hail from two prior books (one a Geisel Award winner). The approach, while TOON-like, is more complex than Cammuso’s. Charming.

Ostensibly the start of a new series, Wally’s Route depicts an idyllic green community, a sort of suburban Hundred Acre Wood in which anthropomorphic critters hold various jobs (imagine a sylvan Busytown). Wally, a raccoon, is the mail carrier (a benign Postman Pat type), assisted by his friend Bo, a rabbit. Across four quick chapters, Wally delivers mail, helps neighbors, annoys a grumpy one, then catches a cold and must be helped by others. Conflicts are simple, the mood friendly. Fong’s cartooning is decorous, but her pages are dynamic and Catanzaro’s coloring gorgeously mixes brightness and texture. I’d read more.

Santat is often wonderful, yet I came to this book skeptically, wary of yet another corporate superhero riff (mis)targeted at early readers. I was wrong. Somehow, Santat manages to deliver a picture book about emotional regulation (see When Sophie Gets Angry…, The Color Monster, and countless others) that works perfectly well as a Hulk comic. Here the Hulk and his human alter ego Bruce Banner leave each other notes (scrawled in crayon on scraps of paper) that enable them to better understand each other and channel their feelings. This is done with deadpan wit, energy, and formal flair. My pick! 

The nominations for this year's Will Eisner Comic Industry Awards (honoring work published in 2025) were announced last, Friday May 15. ​I look forward to this announcement every year! The Eisners are a great resource when it comes to seeking out great new comics.

Note: clicking on a title below will send you to a publisher's page about that title.

This post is the last in a series of three.

Yesterday I reviewed this year’s Eisner nominees for Early Readers. Today I finish this series by reviewing the nominees for Kids, which in practice mostly means middle-grade readers, roughly 8 to 12 years old (see my post of May 22 for an overview of all the young readers’ categories). As usual, clicking on a book's title will take you to a publisher's page about that book.

Kids is another a very strong category this year, so choosing which book to vote for is hard! See the end for my favorites, and some other notes and reflections. 

​How It All Ends, by Emma Hunsinger (Greenwillow/HarperCollins)
A precocious seventh grader skips directly into high school, then worries that she is not up to the challenge. Her mind runs a mile a minute as she attempts to age up to proper teenagehood. Hilarity ensues, but also a loving relationship with a classmate, another girl, who becomes her lifeline and then some. This is all thematically familiar, but, wow, Hunsinger made me laugh out loud in the first few pages. From then on, I was invested. The novel is uproarious, offhandedly quirky, and sweet. Hunsinger’s loopy characters and freehanded cartooning are delightful, her world humanly weird and vivid.

Next Stop, by Debbie Fong (Random House Graphic)
Pia, a shy middle-schooler, takes a summer bus tour to kitschy tourist traps: a cactus-themed park, the World’s Biggest Melon, etc., all leading to an underground lake that, legends say, grants wishes. Unaccompanied by parents, Pia learns to make friends en route, yet harbors a deep grief, its causes revealed through agonized flashbacks. Balancing cynicism against wonder, the layered narrative recalls Sharon Creech: loss is denied, but then processed via travel and friendship. Fong’s artwork is clean and simple-looking yet conveys a tonally complex story, at once farcical, lighthearted, and gripping. The plot, though obvious in hindsight, is quite suspenseful.

Plain Jane and the Mermaid, by Vera Brosgol (First Second/Macmillan)
A feminist fairy tale in a fantastical underwater world: Jane, a young woman turned out of house and home by the patriarchy, literally walks into the sea to rescue the mermaid-abducted man she thinks she is going to marry. This is her alternative to living in a cruel, sexist world without a husband. A colorful, sometimes nightmarish quest results, with the young man cosseted by the beautiful but dangerous mermaids while Jane bonds with a selkie. Brosgol’s typically well-tailored plot and expressive cartooning deliver in spades. Reviewed here on 6/27/2024, this later made my best-of-2024 list for The Comics Journal.

Weirdo, by Tony Weaver, Jr. and Jes & Cin Wibowo (First Second/Macmillan)
In this semi-fictionalized memoir, Tony, an eleven-year-old blerd, attends a super-competitive school where he endures bullying and isolation until, implicitly, a suicide attempt leads to a change of schools and the growth of new friendships with other nonconforming nerds. Together, Tony and his friends rally their school when it is threatened with closure. Rife with visual metaphors, funny details, and character business, this one goes by in a rush; I wish I got to know certain characters better. Bright and affirming, if sometimes vague, it wills itself a happy ending. The art excels at character, less so place or atmosphere. 

Young Hag and the Witches’ Quest, by Isabel Greenberg (Abrams Fanfare)
I was ready for yet another GN about a young witch, but this turned out to be a sly, inventive reweaving of Arthurian legend—a feminist reinvention focused on Morgan le Fay, her granddaughter, and the sword Excalibur, now broken. At once a quest fantasy and a metanarrative, Young Hag stresses roaming and storytelling, with playful nods to myriad intertexts (Spenser, Rosetti’s “Goblin Market,” etc.). The dialogue avoids archaism and the artwork favors penciled immediacy over slickness: no fluid, inflected lines here, just roughhewn scratching. The reversals and twists are ingenious, the art hypnotically cool, and the spirit catching. Wonderful.

Final notes: Going in, I thought Plain Jane would be my vote in this category, but then I read How It All Ends and Young Hag. Damn, choosing is difficult! I have just another day or two to decide...

This year the Eisners' young readers categories are exceptionally rich. Both the Kid and Teen categories are dazzling. IMO, the last few years have shown the wisdom of growing out the young readers' categories to three and making sure that the judging panel always includes at least one expert on young reader's comics. These categories have definitely affirmed their maturity and relevance this year.

Over the past two weeks, I've read or reread sixteen books in these three categories. I borrowed a dozen from LAPL. While I've become pickier about the comics I buy and keep, I'd be happy to have at least ten of these books in my home library so that I could reread them at my leisure. There are so many keepers here.

If you haven't already, please, seek out these comics and read them!

This post is the second in a series of three.

Yesterday I reviewed this year’s Eisner nominees for Teens. Today I review the nominees for Early Readers (see my post of May 22 for an overview of all young readers’ categories). As usual, I’ve tried to describe each book fairly, though at the bottom I do signal my favorites. FYI, clicking on a book's title will take you to a publisher's page about that book.

​​​Bog Myrtle, by Sid Sharp (Annick Press)​
Picture-book and graphic-novel aesthetics mingle in this morbidly clever Gorey-esque fable about two sisters who live in “a hideous, drafty old house,” the spiders they live with, the looming forest outside, and a monstrous “old woman” who guards it. Ultimately, this becomes an impish satire of unchecked capitalism (versus sustainability). It’s in the same wheelhouse as William Steig’s original Shrek! or Eleanor Davis’ Stinky, sly, sharp books that cheerfully embrace the unlovely and weird. It feels too long (150 pages), too arch, and too verbose to be for “early readers,” but it’s a lovely, formally ingenious book, regardless of category.

​Club Microbe, by Elise Gravel, translated by Montana Kane (Drawn & Quarterly)
This spirited picture-book primer on microorganisms (bacteria, viruses, etc.) has a pleasingly random quality, as if inspired by Gravel’s enthusiasm rather than any pedagogical grand plan. Gravel’s odd examples and transitions, and the way she simultaneously undercuts and indulges in anthropomorphism (giving microbes eyes, for example), make for a book as daffy as it is didactic. The dangers posed by germs are duly noted, yet so is the whole biosphere’s dependence on microbes. The book presupposes an adult chaperone, as it delights in scientific names and glosses concepts such as antibodies and vaccination. Gravel’s wacky cartooning is a strong plus.

Hilda and Twig Hide from the Rain, by Luke Pearson (Flying Eye)
A new Hilda book? Sign me up! This one, though, is different: while still in BD album format, the story is briefer (mostly the events of a single afternoon), the pages less dense, the cartooning looser and even freer. Also, this is a prequel unencumbered by continuity, and really belongs to Hilda’s deerfox friend, Twig. Pearson seems to have rediscovered his characters with this short, sweet episode, which is witty, smart, rambunctious, but also warm and soulful. Call it a “new phase” Hilda book, perhaps an entryway for younger readers. I hope there will be more, because this is terrific.

Night Stories: Folktales from Latin America, by Liniers (TOON Books/Astra Books)
​Argentine comics genius Liniers, always delightful, does another TOON book, this one similar in format to Jaime Hernandez’s The Dragon Slayer (likewise a folktale sampler). Typical of TOON Graphics, it frames charming comics with didactic front and back matter. This one’s rather textbook-like introduction did not prepare me for the funny, spooky comics inside: three brief tales rooted in Argentinean, Brazilian, and Mexican folklore, framed as bedtime stories that two kids tell each other. Liniers’ ink and watercolor cartooning feels scruffy and alive, and he has a knack for droll, offhand details. I wish the stories and book were longer.

Poetry Comics, by Grant Snider (Chronicle Books)
I came to this skeptically, jaded by previous brushes with “poetry comics,” but Snider delivers what he promises: poems that are comics, comics that are poems. Over four cycles (Spring, Summer, Fall, Winter) and about seventy poems, he builds satisfying pages and sequences, varied in layout, graphic rhythm, prosody, metaphor, and mood. The poems (one or two pages each) balance the playful and pensive. Along the way, the child reader implicitly becomes a child poet. The overarching themes are familiar (love of nature, growing up, self-doubt, searching for words) but the delivery is artful. Snider’s simple, sketchy drawings work perfectly.

Final notes: a good category. I started with Bog Myrtle, which I dug, but then Poetry Comics impressed me greatly, appealing to my love of form and of books that encourage art-making among young readers. Ironically, I didn't come to Hilda and Twig, sentimental favorites of mine, until last, and although I was on guard against my own fannish bias there, I think I've finally come to the conclusion that, yes, Hilda and Twig is the one I'll vote for. It's just so good!

I'll be back tomorrow with a final post, about the nominees in the Kids category.

This post is the first in a series of three.

This year's Eisner Award nominations came out on May 15, and my most recent post here listed the nominees in categories that especially interest me, in particular those for young readers' books: Early Readers, Kids, and Teens. Since then, I've been scrounging books from the LA Public Library in hopes of reading all the nominees in those three categories before the (gulp!) June 5 deadline for voting.

Below are this year's nominated books for Teens. This is a fantastic list! Clicking on a book's title will take you to a publisher's informational page about the book. At the end of this post, I'll discuss which book I'm most likely to vote for (or at least the ones I'm having trouble choosing between!). 

Ash’s Cabin, by Jen Wang  (First Second/Macmillan) 
In this morally complex fable for living under the climate crisis, Ash, a disaffected fifteen-year-old fed up with human inertia and corruption, hikes into California's Shasta-Trinity National Forest in hopes of locating a secret cabin built by their late grandfather and staying there forever. Sympathetic, shaded, and beautifully drawn, Ash’s Cabin refuses simplicity and asks to be reread again and again. I found myself, first, chiding Ash for their stubbornness, but then rooting for them: a confounding experience that forced me to check my own moralisms at the door. Reviewed here on 12/05/2024. This made my best-of-2024 list for The Comics Journal.

Big Jim and the White Boy, by David F. Walker and Marcus Kwame Anderson, color by Isabell Struble  (Ten Speed)
This is not so much a retelling of Huckleberry Finn as an adventure story intertwined with Twain’s novel: a reimagining of the characters Jim and Huck, their origins, and their relationship. Framed by sequences of the aged Jim and Huck sharing their story during the Depression, and then again by the reflections of a 21st-century descendant, Big Jim depicts the traveling pair as Underground Railroad agents and soldiers against slavery whose long-buried history must be told. It’s a statement about how history gets made, and remade — suspenseful, complex in its sympathies, and bittersweet. The visual storytelling is expert and absorbing.

The Deep Dark, by Molly Knox Ostertag (Scholastic)
This magic-realist novel charts a slowburn romance between two young women: Nessa, bright, determined, and transfem, and her childhood friend Magdalena (Mags), now elusive and withdrawn, whose family harbors a frightful secret. Nessa comes back to town hoping to reconnect, but Mags can’t embrace the opportunity; something in (literally) her cellar is eating at her. This is by far Ostertag’s best-written, most persuasive book — to me, the only one that doesn’t feel rushed. She writes deftly about race, culture, and gender, and conjures a beautiful Mojave Desert setting. The two leads are wholly convincing, the cartooning gorgeous. A new classic.

The Gulf, by Adam de Souza (Tundra Books)
Thematically parallel to Ash’s Cabin, yet tonally and aesthetically very different, this Canadian GN follows a group of runaway high-schoolers who escape to a rustic island. There they hope to join a commune and opt out of social expectations and the heartless grind of capitalism. One of them, Olivia — impulsive, at times furious, and complex — is the story’s driver, but all the characters are well realized. De Souza captures their confusion, cluelessness, and changeability so well that I sometimes wanted to shake them! I love De Souza’s scratchy cartooning, artfully limited color palette, and powerful sense of environment and space. 

Lunar New Year Love Story, by Gene Luen Yang and LeUyen Pham (First Second/Macmillan)
This winsome romcom, another structurally ingenious graphic novel written by Gene Yang, is sumptuously drawn by LeUyen Pham, whose Vietnamese heritage informs the book’s choice of protagonist and depiction of diverse Asian American communities. The plot is rigged: a young Vietnamese American woman, Valentina, traumatized by the revelation of family secrets, rejects the once-loved rituals of Valentine’s Day (her namesake) and swears off romance. However, connections made through the joyful practice of lion dance test her resolve. The story is typically charming, though daubed with Yang’s usual darkness, and the hoped-for climax arrives by unconventional means. A robust, delightful collaboration.

Out of Left Field, by Jonah Newman (Andrews McMeel)
In this frank coming-out story, a nerdy high schooler goes out for his school’s baseball team while closeting his gayness. Newman charts the anxious social maneuvering of teens with secrets while evoking adolescent homophobia (including internalized homophobia) in a sharp and knowing way. The story skirts cliché, with an open-ended denouement that does not quite exonerate its morally confused protagonist but foretells an out and happy future. The depiction of teen sex (and sex talk) startled me with its openness, though the visuals are not explicit. Alas, Newman’s cartooning feels bland and sterile, and is no match for his writing.

​Final notes: This is such a hard category to choose from — an excellent list of books! I was glad to read every one of them. I came in with a bias toward Ash's Cabin (Jen Wang's best book, IMO), but in the last week have read two or three others that I'd be almost equally likely to vote for. At the moment, I'm divided between Ash's Cabin and The Deep Dark (a new high for Molly Knox Ostertag). Big Jim is going to be remembered as a landmark book, rightly so, and The Gulf is a tremendous feat of cartooning.

The above books are affirming, progressive, and either explicitly or implicitly political, yet also complex, layered, and unpredictable. Several are challenging in ways that "adult" graphic novels usually don't manage. Most are splendidly designed and graphic beautiful. One hell of a ballot.

Wish me luck as I race against time to finish reading all the Early Reader and Kid nominees!

​The nominations for this year's Will Eisner Comic Industry Awards (celebrating work published in 2024) were announced a week ago, on May 15. ​As ever, I'm looking up and seeking out things to read. It’s an excellent, wide-ranging ballot, with props to this year’s judges: editor, writer, and historian Robert V. Conte; librarian and ALA comics advocate Kacy Helwick; critic, editor, and podcaster Meg Lemke; comics retailer and ComicsPro board member Eitan Manhoff; and scholar and professor Rocco Versaci. I know from experience that judging the Eisners is one hell of a job.

​I’m not conversant with everything, or even most of the things, on this  year's ballot. Who could be? What follows is a personal inventory that I first posted to Facebook the day after the ballot was announced. Bear in mind that the ballot includes more than 150 words, divided into 32 categories: 

Again, it’s a phenomenal list. I'll try to read every nominee in the young readers’ categories (below) in time to vote by the deadline, June 5 (note that prospective new Eisner voters must apply by May 29). Besides the young readers' categories, I've also listed the categories for publications about​ comics, which are particularly important to me.

LA Public Library, here I come!

Best Publication for Early Readers
​Damn, I haven't read any of these yet!
​​

• ​Bog Myrtle, by Sid Sharp (Annick Press)
• ​Club Microbe, by Elise Gravel, translated by Montana Kane (Drawn & Quarterly)
• Hilda and Twig Hide from the Rain, by Luke Pearson (Flying Eye)
• Night Stories: Folktales from Latin America, by Liniers (TOON Books/Astra Books)
• Poetry Comics, by Grant Snider (Chronicle Books)

Over the past two weeks, the Denver-based nonprofit Pop Culture Classroom has announced the winners of this year's Excellence in Graphic Literature (EGL) Awards. This marks the 7th annual round for the EGL prizes (founded in 2017). 

First, on June 4, the group announced the winners in eight categories, that is, both fiction and non-fiction winners for Children’s (Pre-K to 4th grade), Middle Grade (5th to 8th grade), Young Adult (9th to 12th grade), and Adult (eighteen years and older) books. At the same time, they announced the finalists for their two big prizes that are not age-leveled, the Book of the Year and the Mosaic Award (which focuses on diversity and inclusivity). 

Here is the full list of 2024 EGL winners:

The EGL process does not include public voting, except for a promised "Reader's Choice Award" to be decided by "a public online vote" (I could not find more information about that). In general, the EGLs are decided by professional juries, with the fiction and nonfiction works in each age category judged by a separate jury. Once the category juries have decided upon their finalists and winners, the Book of the Year and Mosaic Award finalists are announced. Those two awards are then judged by the assembled jury chairs in tandem with an EGL Advisory Board (whose current makeup I have not been able to ascertain). Typically, the winners in the several categories also loom large among Book of the Year and Mosaic Award finalists.

The EGLs tout their "clearly defined and transparent process," which apparently relies upon rubrics. I gather that all the age categories are ranked according to common criteria and a consistent four-point scale, while the two big awards are judged somewhat differently. The process gives the appearance of orderliness and predictability, though not all categories have been awarded in past years; perhaps the process is still evolving. The yearly juries seem to have a fair degree of turnover. (For more on the judging criteria and process, see here.)

Ever since the EGLs were announced, I've been on the fence about them. The awards aim to help teachers and librarians identify those comics that "best advance literacy, learning, and social connection—particularly in educational settings," which to my mind sits awkwardly alongside the nominal emphasis on literature, a term that has usually implied a degree of artistic autonomy if not an ars gratia artis stance. The juries seem to consist solely of librarians and educators (past advisors have included publishing pros, comics retailers, and a very few creators). It's a bit puzzling, though potentially a plus too, that the EGL finalists tend to be so different from those of other comics awards, such as the Eisners. There's nothing wrong with that, or with awards that pay attention to educational value (consider for example the NCTE's Orbis Picture Award for children's nonfiction, or the ALA's Geisel Award for beginning readers). But the "graphic literature" tag seems odd when paired up with what appears to be a language-arts approach whose horizons are primarily academic. 

Ah well. This tension (or what I perceive as a tension) is not new. Maybe it's at the root of what we call children's literature.

It may be that I'm simply too biased toward the notion of artistic autonomy to get comfortable with the EGL criteria. That's on me. In the meantime, reviewing this year's list of EGL finalists has gotten me to check out some new books — which is the whole point, right?

(To get the full benefit of the EGLs, check out the whole list of this year's finalists!)

On Friday I reviewed this year’s Eisner Award nominees for Kids (roughly, middle-grade readers). Today I turn to the nominees for Teens, that is, Young Adult books (see my post of May 17 for an overview of all young readers’ categories). Once more, I’ve tried to describe every book fairly, while signaling my favorites. The Teens category is amazing this year!

Of course, this is all about getting ready to cast my votes before the June 6 deadline! (For info on voting, see here).

​​Blackward, by Lawrence Lindell (Drawn & Quarterly).
Four friends run a club for queer, nonbinary, and otherwise “alternative” Black folx. With the help of a bookstore owner, they organize a Black zine fest to build community, while fending off online hate from reactionary, homophobic voices. Blackward is a hilarious, high-spirited mash note to zinesters, organizers, and the kind of friendship that creates new cultural spaces. It’s also a knowing satire of Black community frictions. Lindell’s cartooning is quirky and wild, and sometimes strains to its limits. Yet he uses repetition and braiding to great effect, and the characters are great. I bet this book will change lives. 

​Danger and Other Unknown Risks, by Ryan North and Erica Henderson (Penguin Workshop).
Like Mexikid, this made my TCJ Best-of list. Since then, I’ve read many books I wish I had read earlier, so if I were writing that list now, it would look different. This book, though, would still be on it. A brilliantly engineered fantasy about a transformed, postapocalyptic world, Danger offers an adventure in thinking. It rewires a conservative premise (saving the old world) into something wiser (welcoming in the new); ultimately, it’s about embracing change rather than clinging to an idealized past. Ingenious, dizzying, moving, and gobsmackingly drawn by Henderson, this one has captured my heart, and my vote. 

​Frontera, by Julio Anta and Jacoby Salcedo (HarperAlley)
In this blend of realism and magic, a young man, Mateo, slips across the Mexico-US border and crosses the Sonoran Desert, aided by the ghost of another man who died during that crossing almost seventy years earlier. The Border Patrol, vigilantes, and dehydration stand between Mateo and his goal, and he nearly dies, though he gets, and gives, help along the way. Frontera’s magical-realist plot works to refute nativism, as Mateo’s quest conveys complex truths about the geography and politics of the border. The climax, however, is generically heroic and feels forced. Graphically sharp, with stylized naturalism and expressive colors. 

​Lights, by Brenna Thummler (Oni Press)
The third and final volume in the Sheets series (unknown to me until now). A benign ghost is haunted by his inability to remember his own past, and why he died; his two living friends, eighth-grade ghost-hunters, help him recover those memories, while renegotiating their own complicated friendship. Delicately drawn and colored, Lights is also brilliantly written, filled with subtly observed moments of social negotiation and moral decision-making. Thummler is wise to the ways we typecast other people, limiting who they can be, yet the ending poignantly turns stereotype on its head. Stunningly good (and another one I’d vote for).

​Monstrous: A Transracial Adoption Story, by Sarah Myer (First Second)
In this memoir of intercountry adoption, Sarah, a Korean child of a white family living in rural Maryland, struggles against racism, social ostracism, and bullying – and her fear of her own explosive anger. Frankly, given the unrelenting cruelty shown here, I often felt that her violent outbursts, or moments of fierce self-defense, were justified. Graphically, Monstrous is bold, imaginative, and sometimes frightful; drawing, for Myer, is clearly a high-stakes act of self-invention. Yet the story is anchored by retrospective text that seeks to narrate her experience calmly, from a stance of mature judgment, which softens its impact. Still, powerful work. 

My Girlfriend’s Child, Vol. 1, by Mamoru Aoi, translation by Hana Allen (Seven Seas)
In the first volume of this ongoing manga, a high schooler’s unplanned pregnancy upends her life, tipping her into indecision and emotional turmoil that she cannot share with anyone else, even her sympathetic boyfriend. Aoi’s visuals are sensitive and devastatingly acute. Pensive, almost dreamlike, and marked by long wordless passages, the storytelling balances a sweet, idealized style against unyielding facts. Conversations are muted yet quietly agitated; visual metaphors are understated but fraught. The evocation of anxiety, tenderness, and naivete is overwhelming, and the sense of isolation often harrowing. No preaching here, just minutely observed and heartbreaking drama. I’ll be back.

Some final thoughts: I like to treat comics of all varieties, and from all spaces, as cousins, and the comics world as a continuity. I maintain an interest in comics of just about every kind, and I try to follow comics publishing in several sectors. Yet I must admit, it is now impossible for me to “keep up” with comics in the US in any comprehensive way. The Eisner Awards of today, despite their roots in comic book fandom, represent an attempt to spotlight many different kinds of comics, and I appreciate that. Every year I see signs of progress toward greater inclusivity, as well as signs of strain.

As a former judge, I can attest that focusing on and weighing so many different kinds of comics is a huge challenge. The Eisners are not guild awards; the US comics field is not a united (much less unionized) industry, and, as my colleague Benjamin Woo has pointed out, there really isn’t any such thing as a single “comics industry.” Nor is there a single comics community – the Eisners represent, and speak to, several different communities. The job of the judges, each year, is to craft a ballot that acknowledges that complexity and seeks out excellence of many different kinds.

Honestly, I never read so many comics, in such a brief span, as I did when I served as a judge back in 2013. It was joyous work, but hard.

But I know that thinking about the Eisner nominees always gives me a better sense of what’s happening in the field (fields?). And I know that I greatly enjoy this custom of picking out at least a few categories and trying to get up to speed. My favorites in the Teens category are Lights and Danger and Other Unknown Risks, but I’ve enjoyed the whole process.

Congratulations, nominees, and thank you, judges!