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2021 Eisner Awards Update

8/13/2021

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The 2021 Eisner Awards were announced in a virtual ceremony or video released on Friday, July 23, part of Comic-Con@Home. The ceremony, hosted (once again) by actor Phil LaMarr, runs just over an hour and can be viewed via YouTube on the Comic-Con International channel:

https://youtu.be/RuVslpoC2nI


This year's was a solid and fairly satisfying Eisner Awards crop, and mostly unsurprising, given the ballot announced on June 9. Out of the thirty-two award categories, I was mildly surprised by five or six. Going into the ceremony, I had strong feelings about just three or four categories. In almost all cases, my daughter Nami was able to call the winner just before LaMarr announced it!

These past few weeks, I’ve been checking out a number of Eisner nominees and winners from my local library, the LAPL. Good reading!
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I congratulate all of this year's winners, and, again, particularly congratulate the nominees in the Academic/Scholarly Work category. Readers, do seek out all the books in that category, especially the Award-winner, Rebecca Wanzo's The Content of Our Caricature, which is innovative and important! As I've said before, when that book came to my mailbox, I stood transfixed and read a whole chapter before even sitting down. The book is brave, startling, and bracing: a must. My congratulations to Dr. Wanzo on this well deserved (further) recognition!
PS. I hope I will be able to write up some of my recent reading here at KinderComics. This is a time of bereavement and struggle for my family, so my writing and reading time is sorely limited, but I do hope to reconnect, here, in this space I've tended for so long. Peace, everybody.
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2021 Eisner Award notes

6/15/2021

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​The nominees for the 2021 Will Eisner Comics Industry Awards – the most prestigious set of awards given within the US comic book and graphic novel industries – were announced on June 9. This year’s judging panel consisted of comics retailer Marco Davanzo, Comic-Con International board member Shelley Fruchey, librarian Pamela Jackson (San Diego State University), creator/publisher Keithan Jones, educator Alonso Nuñez, and comics historian Jim Thompson. As usual, the ballot recognizes an eclectic mix of material, with awards in thirty-two categories, including the following three young-reader categories:

Best Publication for Early Readers (up to age 8)
  • Bear, by Ben Queen and Joe Todd-Stanton (Archaia/BOOM!)
  • Cat Kid Comic Club, by Dav Pilkey (Scholastic Graphix)
  • Donut Feed the Squirrels, by Mika Song (RH Graphic/RH Children’s Books)
  • Kodi, by Jared Cullum (Top Shelf)
  • Lift, by Minh Lê and Dan Santat (Little, Brown Young Readers)
  • Our Little Kitchen, by Jillian Tamaki (Abrams Books for Young Readers)
Best Publication for Kids (ages 9-12)
  • Doodleville, by Chad Sell (Knopf/BFYR/RH Children’s Books)
  • Go with the Flow, by Lily Williams and Karen Schneemann (First Second/Macmillan)
  • Mister Invincible: Local Hero, by Pascal Jousselin (Magnetic Press)
  • Snapdragon, by Kat Leyh (First Second/Macmillan)
  • Superman Smashes the Klan, by Gene Luen Yang and Gurihiru (DC), reviewed here on 7/21/2020
  • Twins, by Varian Johnson and Shannon Wright (Scholastic Graphix)
Best Publication for Teens (ages 13-17)
  • Check, Please! Book 2: Sticks & Scones, by Ngozi Ukazu (First Second/Macmillan)
  • Displacement, by Kiku Hughes (First Second/Macmillan)
  • Dragon Hoops, by Gene Luen Yang (First Second/Macmillan), reviewed here 3/25/2020 
  • Fights: One Boy’s Triumph Over Violence, by Joel Christian Gill (Oni Press)
  • A Map to the Sun, by Sloane Leong (First Second/Macmillan)
  • When Stars are Scattered, by Victoria Jamieson and Omar Mohamed (Dial Books)
Wow, what a list!
This year’s ballot looks smart and interesting to me. As always, I could gripe about oversights, omissions, and puzzling choices. Of course! I’ve been an Eisner judge myself (2013), so I know that the job is challenging, even overwhelming. I get it. The Eisners represent several different communities (after all, they are not a guild prize like the Oscars or the Grammys) and it’s not easy for the yearly ballot to satisfy everyone. That said, I am learning a lot by looking up this year’s nominees.  
In addition to the nominees in the dedicated young-reader categories above, there are nominations in many other categories that may interest followers of children’s and young adult comics. What follows is not an exhaustive list, but just a few items that I noticed:
Best Single Issue: 
  • Stanley’s Ghost: A Halloween Adventure, by Jeff Balke, Paul Storrie, and Dave Alvarez (Storm Kids)
Best Continuing Series
  • Usagi Yojimbo, by Stan Sakai (IDW)
Best Reality-Based Work
  • Dragon Hoops, by Gene Luen Yang
Best Graphic Memoir
  • Banned Book Club, by Kim Hyun Sook, Ryan Estrada, and Ko Hyung-Ju (Iron Circus)
  • When Stars Are Scattered, by Victoria Jamieson and Omar Mohamed
Best Graphic Album—Reprint
  • Herobear and the Kid: The Heritage, by Mike Kunkel (Astonish Factory)
Best Adaptation from Another Medium
  • Superman Smashes the Klan, by Gene Luen Yang and Gurihiru​
Best U.S. Edition of International Material
  • Gamayun Tales I: An Anthology of Modern Russian Folk Tales, by Alexander Utkin, translated by Lada Morozova (Nobrow)
  • Irena Books 2-3, by Jean-David Morvan, Severine Tréfouël, and David Evrard, translated by Dan Christensen (Magnetic Press)
  • When You Look Up, by Decur, translated by Chloe Garcia Roberts (Enchanted Lion Books)
Best Archival Collection/Project—Comic Books
  • Little Lulu: The Fuzzythingus Poopi, by John Stanley et al., edited by Frank Young and Tom Devlin (Drawn & Quarterly), reviewed here 1/18/2021
Best Writer/Artist
  • Pascal Jousselin, Mister Invincible: Local Hero (Magnetic Press)
  • Trung Le Nguyen, The Magic Fish (RH Graphic/RH Children’s Books)
  • Gene Luen Yang, Dragon Hoops
Best Penciller/Inker or Penciller/Inker Team
  • Bertrand Gatignol, Pistouvi (Magnetic Press)
Best Painter/Multimedia Artist (interior art)
  • Jared Cullum, Kodi
  • Decur, When You Look Up
Readers, I urge you to seek out all of these works!

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On a personal note, I'm honored that the book I co-edited with Bart Beaty, Comics Studies: A Guidebook (Rutgers University Press), has been nominated for an Eisner in the category Best Academic/Scholarly Work. This is a testimony to the superb work of our co-contributors: Jan Baetens, Isaac Cates, Mel Gibson, Ian Gordon, Martha Kuhlman, Frenchy Lunning, Brian MacAuley, Matt McAllister, Andrei Molotiu, Philip Nel, Roger Sabin, Kalervo Sinervo, Marc Singer, Theresa Tensuan, Shannon Tien, Darren Wershler, Gillian Whitlock, and Benjamin Woo.

​Our Guidebook is in excellent company. The other nominees for Best Academic/Scholarly Work are:

  • Comic Art in Museums, edited by Kim A. Munson (University Press of Mississippi), a groundbreaking volume that I feel lucky to be part of
  • The Content of Our Caricature: African American Comic Art and Political Belonging, by Rebecca Wanzo (New York UP), a stunning book, and winner of the 2021 Kovács Book Award given by the Society for Cinema and Media Studies
  • Webcomics, by Sean Kleefeld (Bloomsbury), a terrific resource that I have reviewed recently and look forward to using in my teaching ASAP
  • Who Understands Comics: Questioning the Universality of Visual Language Comprehension, by Neil Cohn (Bloomsbury), a vital contribution to the research on comics literacy

More than one of these books has fundamentally changed the way I look at my field. Again, readers, I urge you to check out these thought-provoking works. Also, check out the work in the other comics scholarship category, that of Best Comics-Related Book:
  • 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)
  • Invisible Men: The Trailblazing Black Artists of Comic Books, by Ken Quattro (Yoe Books/IDW)
  • Masters of British Comic Art, by David Roach (2000AD)
There is so much to learn here!
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2020 Eisner Award Nominees

6/18/2020

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Update, June 29, 2020: Due to a technical or information-security problem, the Eisner Award voting has been restarted from scratch on a new online platform, and the new deadline for votes extended until tomorrow, Tuesday, June 30, at 11:59pm Pacific. Reportedly, voters who previously cast a ballot have been sent emails inviting them to vote again. I'm voting again at this very moment!
Voting for this year’s Will Eisner Comic Industry Awards (the Eisners for short) will soon end, so file this post under "belated." Sigh. Unfortunately, the current COVID-19 lockdown and related stresses have slowed me down, so this comes late.
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But: onward. This year’s list of Eisner nominees (announced on June 4) is another extraordinary snapshot of a (as ever) divided field that encompasses multiple, sometimes divergent, communities, a field that often feels like many fields at once. Having been an Eisner judge (2013), I can attest to what a joy and challenge it is to access, read, and debate so many different kinds of comics with other judges assembled from several different disciplines. If the final results of the Eisner voting are often an index of popularity, or simply of the kinds of comics that get noticed readily in shops, the ballot is less predictable and more expansive, reflecting the painstaking efforts of longtime Eisner Award Administrator Jackie Estrada and the diverse, carefully-selected judging panels she recruits. Those panels are typically balanced to include comics creators, retailers, journalists, critics, and scholars, and, once recruited, are fully autonomous and, in my experience, absolutely honest about what they like and don’t. It’s a great, once-in-a-lifetime gig.

In my case, I spent a long weekend in a San Diego hotel conferring with my fellow judges. This year’s panel, however, has had to judge remotely, connecting via social media and Zoom (I can’t imagine). The process reportedly took two months longer than usual. But the panel sounds like it was an amazing group: journalist and scholar Jamie Coville; graphic novel reviewer Martha Cornog; my friend, scholar/teacher/designer Michael Dooley; comics writer and novelist Alex Grecian; podcaster and Comic-Con volunteer Simon Jimenez; and retailer and festival organizer Laura O’Meara. Michael has some telling comments and reflections on this year’s process, and his own values and priorities as a judge, in a PRINT magazine interviewer with Steven Heller that came out last week (worth a look). I agree with Michael that the list of nominees is the important thing, “the news that  readers can most usefully use”; like him, I didn’t particularly care about who won the final voting, but loved taking part in the crafting of the ballot. This year’s list is an excellent and illuminating guide to this particular moment in comics.
As I said, the comics community often feels like several disparate communities: different, even conflicting, publics and aesthetic formations. The Eisners, unlike guild awards such as the Oscars or Tonys, are voted on by a wide, dispersed group not held together by membership in a professional body, and the judging and voting processes reflect that. Jackie Estrada has deliberately set out to recruit diverse judges that can represent some of the many publics that make up the comics field and yet can also dialogue across boundaries and bring some focus to the awards. The continuing excellence of the yearly ballots bears out the wisdom of her efforts – congratulations, once again, to the judges and Jackie for a job well done!
Of particular interest to KinderComics are the nominees in the young readers’ categories, and this year they’re terrific:

​Best Publication for Early Readers

  • Comics: Easy as ABC, by Ivan Brunetti (TOON), which I’ve already used as a textbook
  • Kitten Construction Company: A Bridge Too Fur, by John Patrick Green (First Second/Macmillan)
  • The Pigeon HAS to Go to School! by Mo Willems (Hyperion Books)
  • A Trip to the Top of the Volcano with Mouse, by Frank Viva (TOON)
  • ¡Vamos! Let's Go to the Market, by Raúl the Third (Versify/Houghton Mifflin Harcourt)

Best Publication for Kids

  • Akissi: More Tales of Mischief, by Marguerite Abouet and Mathieu Sapin (Flying Eye/Nobrow)
  • Dog Man: For Whom the Ball Rolls, by Dav Pilkey (Scholastic Graphix)
  • Guts, by Raina Telgemeier (Scholastic Graphix)
  • New Kid, by Jerry Craft (Quill Tree/HarperCollins)
  • This Was Our Pact, by Ryan Andrews (First Second/Macmillan)
  • The Wolf in Underpants, by Wilfrid Lupano, Mayana Itoïz, and Paul Cauuet (Graphic Universe/Lerner Publishing Group)
(I confess to some disappointment here. Where is Luke Pearson's Hilda and the Mountain King? Where's Jen Wang's superb Stargazing?)

Best Publication for Teens

  • Harley Quinn: Breaking Glass, by Mariko Tamaki and Steve Pugh (DC)
  • Hot Comb, by Ebony Flowers (Drawn & Quarterly)
  • Kiss Number 8, by Colleen AF Venable and Ellen T. Crenshaw (First Second/Macmillan)
  • Laura Dean Keeps Breaking Up with Me, by Mariko Tamaki and Rosemary Valero-O'Connell (First Second/Macmillan)
  • Penny Nichols, by MK Reed, Greg Means, and Matt Wiegle (Top Shelf)
I also want to note that Lois Lowry’s classic dystopia for young readers, The Giver, has been adapted by P. Craig Russell into a graphic novel nominated in the category Best Adaptation from Another Medium. In addition, children’s and YA comics creators were nominated in several other categories:
  • Mariko Tamaki (Laura Dean Keeps Breaking Up with Me; Harley Quinn: Breaking Glass; Archie) for Best Writer
  • Raina Telgemeier (Guts) and Tillie Walden (Are You Listening?) for Best Writer-Artist
  • Rosemary Valero-O'Connell (Laura Dean Keeps Breaking Up with Me) for Best Penciller/Inker
  • Léa Mazé (Elma, A Bear’s Life, Vol. 1) for Best Painter/Digital Artist
  • Lorena Alvarez (Hicotea) and Molly Mendoze (Skip) for Best Coloring
  • Jim Campbell (Lumberjanes: The Shape of Friendship; At the End of Your Tether; etc.), Stan Sakai (Usagi Yojimbo), and Tillie Walden (Are You Listening?) for Best Lettering
A few more observations:
All told, there are some 180 Eisner nominees this year, spread over thirty-one categories (again, the full list is here). This year’s judges have moved even farther afield that usual, testifying to the increasing impact of not only children’s and YA comics but also digital comics, native webcomics, and other sectors beyond the traditional comic book shop. The ballot strays off the usual beaten paths and is an education in itself. While there are a number of categories in which I do not have a strong opinion (teaching through the pandemic has curtailed my comics reading these past few months), I’m greatly impressed by the lists for Best Short Story, Best Webcomic, Best Archival Collection/Project—Strips, Best Graphic Album—New, and the three journalistic and scholarly categories: Best Comics-Related Periodical/Journalism, Best Comics-Related Book, and Best Academic/Scholarly Work.
In fact, I just have to list the nominees in the following three categories, which are incredible:

Best Academic/Scholarly Work

(This is a great year for comics studies titles. Dig the diversity of topics and publishers!)
  • 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) - I'm proud to co-edit, with Jared Gardner, the OSUP's Studies in Comics and Cartoons series, which published this volume!
  • Women’s Manga in Asia and Beyond: Uniting Different Cultures and Identities, edited by Fusami Ogi et al. (Palgrave Macmillan)

Best Webcomic

(As soon as the ballot came out, I went and read or re-read all the nominees, Wow!)
  • 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

Best Short Story

(Again, a rich, revelatory list!)
  • “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
Finally, I commend the judges for inducting artists Nell Brinkley and E. Simms Campbell into the Eisner Hall of Fame, and for nominating fourteen others, out of which four will be inducted by the voters: Alison Bechdel, Howard Cruse, Moto Hagio, Don Heck, Jeffrey Catherine Jones, Francoise Mouly, Keiji Nakazawa, Thomas Nast, Lily Renée Peter Phillips, Stan Sakai, Louise Simonson, Don and Maggie Thompson, James Warren, and Bill Watterson. (That’s a hard list to choose from!)
A final note: The Eisner winners were to be have been announced at the usual gala ceremony on Friday night (July 24) during the San Diego Comic-Con; now, however, they will be announced online instead, sometime in July I hear, most likely as part of Comic-Con@Home. Details TBA. 
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Too Long in Exile

7/29/2019

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KinderComics, alas, has been away for too long. This spring and summer, I have had to channel my energies elsewhere. I hate to admit it, but my academic-year workload does not make room for frequent blogging, and when the summer or intersession comes around, well, then I end up having to advance or complete other long-simmering projects. Lately I’ve had to cut back, refocus, and make a point of not driving myself nuts! Still, I am going to push for several reviews this summer; I want to keep KinderComics alive. The field of children’s comics is too important, and my interest in it too intense, to let go.
I’ll have a review of 5 Worlds: The Red Maze up later this week, and then a few (probably short) ones between now and Labor Day, in order to keep the engine humming. Thank you, readers, for checking out or revisiting KinderComics. I’ll keep pushing.
There has been a great deal of news on the children's comics front during my four-month absence. Would that I could go into all these stories in detail:
  • HarperCollins Children’s Books has announced HarperAlley, a new graphic novel imprint to be directed by Andrew Arnold, former art director and editor at First Second (Publishers Weekly's Calvin Reid has the story here). Arnold envisions a bold publishing program that will put out "about 10 books a season, or about 30 books a year." Wow.
  • Random House Graphic, a new comics imprint heralded back in May 2018 and headed by Gina Gagliano (also a veteran of First Second), recently announced (just in time for Comic-Con International) its debut list, i.e. its first set of releases, due starting in January 2020. (Newsarama has the press release here, and you can find out about the first four titles at RH Graphic's new website, here.)
  • DC has cancelled its middle-grade imprint, DC Zoom, and young adult imprint, DC Ink, only months after publishing the first books in those lines (and after announcing many forthcoming titles: see articles here and here). Announced to great fanfare in February 2018, the two imprints seemed to signal a commitment to original graphic novels for young readers, and showed early signs of commercial success, yet have fallen prey to a corporate reorganization (which also includes the closing of Vertigo, DC's historic imprint for older readers and creator-owned titles). From here on out, DC titles for middle-grade readers will be published with the age rating label "DC Kids" (ouch), while DC titles for young adults will simply be labeled "DC." (Heidi MacDonald has the story, at The Beat, here.) Don't get me started on DC.
  • University Press of Mississippi has announced the pending publication of With Great Power Comes Great Pedagogy: Teaching, Learning, and Comics, a scholarly essay collection edited by Susan Kirtley, Antero Garcia, and Peter Carlson. This interdisciplinary volume promises to do something unusual in the professional literature: bridge the gap between K-12 and higher-education perspectives. Look for it in February 2020.
Besides all that news, awards have been given out:
  • The Excellence in Graphic Literature Awards announced their 2019 winners at the Denver Pop Culture Con on June 1. They include Tiger vs. Nightmare by Emily Tetri, The Eye that Never Sleeps by Marissa Moss and Jeremy Holmes, Crush by Svetlana Chmakova, The Faithful Spy by John Hendrix, Illegal by Eoin Colfer and Andrew Donkin, Hey, Kiddo by Jarrett Krosoczka, Monk! by Youssef Daoudi, and Berlin by Jason Lutes. The Book of Year went to Berlin, while the diversity-themed Mosaic Award went to the first book ever reviewed on this blog, The Prince and the Dressmaker by Jen Wang. Full details can be found in the Pop Culture Classroom's press release, here.
  • Winners of the 2019 Will Eisner Comic Industry Awards were announced at Comic-Con International on July 19. Best Publication for Early Readers (up to age 8) went to Johnny Boo and the Ice Cream Computer, by James Kochalka; Best Publication for Kids (ages 9–12) went to The Nameless City: The Divided Earth, by Faith Erin Hicks; Best Publication for Teens (ages 13–17) went to The Prince and the Dressmaker, by Jen Wang, who also won the award for Best Writer/Artist. Other award-winners that may particularly interest advocates of children's and YA comics include Giant Days, by John Allison, Max Sarin, and Julia Madrigal, for Best Continuing Series and Best Humor Publication; Brazen: Rebel Ladies Who Rocked the World, by Pénélope Bagieu, for Best U.S. Edition of International Material; and Umami, by Ken Niimura, for Best Digital Comic. It was a bang-up night for First Second, which won in five categories. See the full official list of winners here.
  • Tillie Walden's superb On a Sunbeam won the Los Angeles Times Book Prize for Graphic Novel/Comics, awarded on April 12 on the eve of the LA Times Festival of Books. See the official Prize announcements, including other nominees, here.
My gosh, what a busy and exciting field. Keeping up is a challenge! I hope to do a better job going forward.

A sad postscript

When it comes to public-facing scholarship and comics criticism, one of the most inspiring figures to my mind was the late Derek Parker Royal, co-creator, producer, and editor of The Comics Alternative podcast. Derek, a major critic of Philip Roth, Jewish American literature and culture, and graphic narrative, passed away recently, leaving a grievous sense of loss in the hearts of many. He was a scholar, innovator, and facilitator of a rare kind, generous, engaged, and prolific, and will be greatly missed in the comics studies community. He brought many people into that community; for example, at the Comics Studies Society conference in Toronto last weekend, his longtime collaborator Andy Kunka spoke movingly of how Derek encouraged him to enter the field. I will think of Derek whenever I post here, and the soaring example that he set.
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RIP Derek. Thank you for your scholarship, your advocacy, and your spirit.

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Comic-Con 2018: What's on the Program?

7/16/2018

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San Diego's mammoth Comic-Con International is happening this coming week, July 18-22, once again filling the city's Convention Center, harborfront, Gaslamp Quarter, and myriad hotels with thousands and tens of thousands of pop culture fans and purveyors. I, though a CCI veteran, will be sitting out Comic-Con this year, for financial and personal reasons, but, as usual, I have been skimming the Con program with interest. It's my way of staying in touch. Studying the CCI program reminds me of the delights and frustrations of the Comic-Con experience, the sheer scale of the thing, and the uneasy overlapping of fan communities that make CCI such a beast. 

I've learned to look out for specific things in the program and focus on them ruthlessly, while filtering out literally hundreds of other things. The personalized online scheduling provided by SCHED.org, with its color-coding and organization by day, venue, and category, makes filtering that much easier. This year I have a particular eye for the following:
  • The third annual Comic Conference for Educators and Librarians (CCEL), that is, the slate of librarian and educator-focused sessions that will once again be happening during the run of CCI but offsite, at San Diego's Central Library, specifically its Shiley Special Events Suite. The CCEL has become a great new tradition. It begins on Wednesday evening (Preview Night) and continues through Sunday. I gather that it can serve as a professional development event for librarians and teachers. CCEL is actually a free public event, i.e. you do not need a Comic-Con badge to attend, but space is limited, so attendees must either register in advance for each day or have valid Comic-Con badges (CCI badge-holders are not required to register).
  • The academic sessions that comprise the Comic Arts Conference, one of the longest-lived annual academic gatherings in comics studies. These will be happening in the Convention Center's Room 26AB.
  • The sessions put on by the nonprofit Comic Book Legal Defense Fund, featuring CBLDF executive director Charles Brownstein, editorial director Betsy Gomez, and others. These will mostly be in the Convention Center's Room 11.
  • The 30th annual Will Eisner Comic Industry Awards, which will be given out, per tradition, in a lavish ceremony on Friday night at the Hilton Bayfront. (I wrote about this year's slate of nominees back in April.)
  • Sessions featuring certain of Comic-Con's special guests: Thi Bui, Emil Ferris, Liniers, Jason Lutes, Carol Tyler, Noah Van Sciver, Tillie Walden, Jen Wang, and my CSU Northridge colleague, Randy Reynaldo. (Plus, wow, Raina Telgemeier and Molly Ostertag are each doing a bunch of panels.)
This year I note an especially strong emphasis on progressive political issues, including questions of diversity and inclusion, representation, social justice, geek activism, the challenges of bullying and incivility, and the pitfalls of cultural appropriation. I also see, as expected, a continuing emphasis on children's and YA publishing, which have become crucial parts of Comic-Con. 
What follows is a list of particular panels I'd be trying to get to if I were at Comic-Con, aside from the obvious spotlights on individual artists (Bui, Ferris, Liniers, Walden, Wang, Reynaldo) and graphic novel publishers that I admire (e.g. Abrams, Drawn & Quarterly). Clicking on the panels' titles will take you to online descriptions:

Teaching with Comics: An Interactive Workshop for Educators
Wednesday, July 18, 4:00-6:00pm, San Diego Central Library, Shiley Suite

This workshop opens the CCEL, and seems to be becoming an annual tradition. It's a great way for educators to kick off their San Diego experience. This involves dear colleagues of mine, speaking on important things and facilitating hands-on activities, and would be an unmissable Must for me were I able to attend CCI. Per the program:
Peter Carlson (Green Dot Public Schools), Susan Kirtley (Portland State University), and Antero Garcia (Stanford University) lead this hands-on workshop for integrating comic books in your classrooms. Using contexts from K-12 to higher education instruction and communities of comic scholars, this action-packed workshop guides participants through approaches to teaching comics and teaching with comics while including the voices of Nhora Lucia Serrano (MIT Press), Johnathan Flowers (Southern Illinois University), and Ben Bolling (University of North Carolina) to share key strategies, theories, and scholarship on comics pedagogy.

Writing and Drawing the Past
Thursday, July 19, 10:00-11:00am, Convention Center Room 32AB

Featuring Thi Bui, Jason Lutes, Noah Van Sciver, and Jen Wang, and moderated by Abraham Riesman.

Art During the Holocaust
Thursday, July 19, 1:30-2:30pm, Convention Center Room 4

An examination of WW2-era art and propaganda, including the perspectives of Holocaust survivor Ruth Goldschmiedova Sax and her daughter, author Sandra Scheller.

The Treasury of British Comics: Can a Forgotten Archive Teach Us about Comics in the 21st Century?
Thursday, July 19, 2:00-3:00pm, Convention Center Room 29AB

A panel on Britain's tradition of weekly comic papers, described here as a "missing link between American comics, European comics, and manga."

YA Comics FTW!
Thursday, July 19, 3:30-4:30pm, Convention Center Room 4

Featuring Jen Wang, Scott Westerfeld, and Tillie Walden.

Splashing Ink on Museum Walls
Thursday, July 19 , 4:00-5:00pm, Convention Center Room 29AB

A topic of particular interest to me, given my curatorial experience, plus a strong lineup, a sharp moderator, and a peek into the coming Comic-Con Center for Popular Culture. Per the program:
Do comics belong in museums? Lots of major art and cultural institutions seem to think so, with ambitious new shows and comic art museums springing up everywhere, including one spearheaded by Comic-Con itself. Artist/writer Emil Ferris (My Favorite Thing Is Monsters), Kim Munson (editor, From Comics to Frames: Comic Art in Museums), writer/editor and exhibition consultant Ann Nocenti, and SDCC museum director Adam Smith converse about the future of comics on display, moderated by Rob Salkowitz (Forbes, Full Bleed).
[Having recently met with Adam Smith to discuss the SDCC museum, I'm excited about where this conversation could go.]

Superstars in Children's Graphic Novels
Thursday, July 19, 5:30-6:30pm, Convention Center Room 26AB

Featuring Raina Telgemeier, Jarrett Krosoczka, Aron Steinke, Molly Ostertag, Ian Boothby, and Gale Galligan.

Transformation Magic: Transgender Life in Comics from Street Level to the Stratosphere
Thursday, July 19, 6:00-7:00pm, Convention Center Room 28DE

This strikes me as a great breakthrough: "What do comics both indie and mainstream have in store for the transgender community in a politically fraught climate? How can trans comics artists best serve their creative and financial interests in an industry that has yet to fully embrace them?" Tied into Prism Comics and the trans comic anthology We're Still Here.

How to Read Nancy (with Paul Karasik and Mark Newgarden)
Thursday, July 19, 7:00-8:00pm, Convention Center Room 28DE

A work of obsessive genius and a very useful textbook!

Meet the Makers: Kids' Comics Extravaganza
Friday, July 20, 11:00am-12:00pm, San Diego Central Library, Shiley Suite

Aron Steinke, Jennifer Holm, Jordan Crane, and Heidi Arnhold talk process!

Revolutionary Ink: The 50th Anniversary of Underground Comix
Friday, July 20, 1:30-2:30pm, Convention Center Room 8

Featuring Mary Fleener, Denis Kitchen, Trina Robbins, Ron Turner, Carol Tyler, Robert Williams, and moderator Charles Brownstein.

Trends in Graphic Novel Publishing
Friday, July 20, 2:00-3:00pm, San Diego Central Library, Shiley Suite

Peggy Burns (Drawn & Quarterly), Margot Wood (Oni Press), Emily Meehan (Disney Publishing Worldwide), and, I think, Gina Gagliano (Random House Graphic) in conversation. Sponsored by the Children's Book Council Graphic Novel Committee.

LGBTQ Graphic Novels
Friday, July 20, 4:00-5:00pm, San Diego Central Library, Shiley Suite

Aminder Dhaliwal, Molly Ostertag, and Ivy Noelle Weir.

Using Graphic Novels to Cope with Bullying
Saturday, July 21, 10:00-11:00am, San Diego Central Library, Shiley Suite

With Dr. Katie Monnin (Pop Culture Classroom), Raina Telgemeier, Molly Ostertag, Christina "Steenz" Stewart (Archival Quality), teacher Derek Heid , and moderator Tom Racine. 

My First Comic
Saturday, July 21, 12:00-1:00pm, Convention Center Room 29AB

Jen Wang, Matt Loux, Jim Pascoe, and Mairghread Scott “discuss the first comics they read and the journey from reading their first comic to making their first comic.” 

The Comics Revolution (with First Second's Mark Siegel)
Saturday, July 21, 1:00-2:00pm, Convention Center Room 29AB

Adapting Folklore, History, and Myth in Comics
Saturday, July 21, 2:00-3:00pm, San Diego Central Library, Shiley Suite

Johnnie Christmas, Marco Finnegan, John Jennings, Kit Seaton, and moderator Katie Monnin. 

Wimmen's Comix
Saturday, July 21, 3:30-4:30pm, Convention Center Room 26AB

Per the program: In the early 1970s, a group of women proved to the world that underground comix—and mainstream comics—wasn't just a boy's club by publishing the first and longest-running all-women comics anthology, Wimmen's Comix. Trina Robbins, Mary Fleener, Lee Marrs, and Carol Tyler discuss of how they made herstory addressing menstruation, reproductive rights, and countless other topics that their male counterparts were unwilling or unable to tackle. Moderated by Betsy Gomez (CBLDF Presents She Changed Comics).

Alternative Comics Anthologies, Then and Now
Saturday, July 21, 4:30-5:30pm, Convention Center Room 26AB

Great topic, great lineup: Eric Reynolds, Justin Hall, Carol Tyler, Robert Goodin, Manuele Fior, and moderator Rob Salkowitz.

Audrey Niffenegger and Eddie Campbell on Their Bizarre Romance
Sunday, July 22, 10:00-11:00am, Convention Center Room 29AB

The Annual Kirby Tribute, moderated by Mark Evanier
Sunday, July 22, 10:00-11:15am, Convention Center Room 5AB

Of course a tradition for me!

Comics Studies at Michigan State University
​Sunday, July 22, 1:00-2:00pm, San Diego Central Library, Shiley Suite

Ryan Claytor (a friend and colleague of mine) shares information about MSU's expanding comics studies curriculum, including its Comics Studies minor.

Cultivating a Comic Book Culture in Academic Librarianship
Sunday, July 22, 2:00-3:00pm, San Diego Central Library, Shiley Suite

Glad to see my colleague Allison Mandaville on this panel! Per the program: Raymond Pun (librarian), Allison Mandaville (professor of English), Michelle Pratt (library specialist), and Jenny Banh (professor of anthropology) discuss strategies and practices for academic libraries to collaborate with teaching faculty to create a comic book culture in the classroom and in universities today.

Comics Arts Conference #16:
The Culture of Comic-Con: Field Studies of Fans and Marketing
Sunday, July 22, 2:30-3:30pm, Convention Center Room 26AB

Nine student researchers "present initial findings from a week-long ethnographic field study of the intersection of fan practice at the nexus of cultural marketing and fan culture that is Comic-Con 2018." Field experience organized and panel moderated by my colleague, Matthew J. Smith, Director of the School of Communications at Radford University.

Friends, colleagues, readers, whatever your interests, if you're going to Comic-Con I hope you have a rich, productive, exciting experience! Years ago, Tom Spurgeon, at The Comics Reporter, offered a guide to surviving and enjoying CCI, and I think it's still worth a look. If you do go, treat yourself well, and gently, stay watered, take breaks, and set aside some time for friends. It's a huge stampede of an event, but a bit of down time can work wonders.
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2018 Eisner Award Nominees

4/26/2018

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The nominees for the 2018 Will Eisner Comic Industry Awards were announced today, and they make for a fascinating ballot!
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​The Eisners are the leading awards in the comic book and graphic novel industry. Established thirty years ago and given out each summer at San Diego's Comic-Con International, they've been organized by CCI's Jackie Estrada since 1991. The awards are voted on by industry professionals (this year's voting deadline is June 15). This year's winners will be announced in an awards ceremony at CCI on Friday, July 20.

This year's nominees were selected, as usual, by a judging panel representing various sectors and stakeholders in the comics business. The panel included Young Adult librarian and former YALSA President 
Candice Mack, journalist and podcaster Graeme McMillan, comics and pop culture retailer Tate Ottati, writer and comic book creator Alex Simmons, longtime Comic-Con and Cartoon/Fantasy Organization organizer William F. Wilson, and my esteemed colleague, scholar-teacher Nhora Lucía Serrano (with whom I've worked in the Comics Studies Society).

To me, the news of the Eisner nominations tends to be more exciting than the award results, because the ballot is such a cross-section of comics culture and always contains surprises. Every Eisner ballot documents a complex process of negotiation and compromise. I know how complex it can be, because in 2013 I served as a judge (along with Michael Cavna, Adam Healy, Katie Monnin, Frank Santoro, and John Smith). It's an experience I will not forget. Judging the Eisners entails reading many, many comics in a short time, then coming together with colleagues--smart, dedicated folks with diverse perspectives and interests--and working across differences to fashion a ballot that gathers up the various strands of long-form comics and represents a fair sample of outstanding work. The judges' final summit (typically a long weekend in April), at least as I experienced it, is about hours and hours of last-minute reading, and then, just as importantly, hours and hours spent around a table hashing out the ballot. Intense, exhausting, and delightful. I remember reading late into the night; I remember chatting and arguing; I remember a room that smelled like paper. Hats off for this year's judges--librarian, journalist, retailer, creator, organizer, and scholar--for their hard work, and for crafting a ballot that reflects exciting changes in the comics field. 
Of particular interest to KinderComics are the young readers' categories:
BEST PUBLICATION FOR EARLY READERS (UP TO AGE 8):
  • Adele in Sand Land, by Claude Ponti, translated by Skeeter Grant (!) and Françoise Mouly (TOON)
  • Arthur and the Golden Rope, by Joe Todd-Stanton (Flying Eye/Nobrow)
  • Egg, by Kevin Henkes (Greenwillow Books)
  • Good Night, Planet, by Liniers (TOON)
  • Little Tails in the Savannah, by Frederic Brrémaud and Federico Bertolucci, translated by Mike Kennedy (Lion Forge/CubHouse)
BEST PUBLICATION FOR KIDS (AGES 9–12):
  • Bolivar, by Sean Rubin (Archaia)
  • Home Time (Book One): Under the River, by Campbell Whyte (Top Shelf)
  • Nightlights, by Lorena Alvarez (Nobrow)
  • The Tea Dragon Society, by Katie O’Neill (Oni)
  • Wallace the Brave, by Will Henry (Andrews McMeel)​
BEST PUBLICATION FOR TEENS (AGES 13-17):
  • The Dam Keeper, by Robert Kondo and Dice Tsutsumi (First Second/Tonko House)
  • Jane, by Aline Brosh McKenna and Ramón K. Pérez (Archaia)
  • Louis Undercover, by Fanny Britt and Isabelle Arsenault, translated by Christelle Morelli and Susan Ouriou (Groundwood Books/House of Anansi)
  • Monstress, by Marjorie Liu and Sana Takeda (Image)
  • Spinning, by Tillie Walden (First Second)
These categories have become quite competitive, reflecting the surge in young readers' comics and the influence of children's and YA librarians, who have generally championed the graphic novel format. Notably, these are categories in which the final Eisner voting does not predictably follow popularity in the direct market (i.e. comic shops) but instead seems to reflect the interests of other communities. There have been strong winners in these categories over the past few years, and this year's nominees are a strong, exciting, varied group. Again, kudos to the judges for selecting such a wide-ranging, unconventional set!
Beyond the above categories, there are children's and YA comics-related nominees in others, such as Best Academic/Scholarly Work (Picturing Childhood: Youth in Transnational Comics, edited by Heimermann and Tullis); Best Comics-Related Book (How to Read Nancy: The Elements of Comics in Three Easy Panels, by Karasik and Newgarden); Best Digital Comic (Quince, by Kadlecik, Steinkellner, and Steinkellner); and Best Short Story (“Forgotten Princess,” by Johnson and Sandoval, Adventure Time Comics #13). Also, some of the above creators are nominated in individual categories: Lorena Alvarez for Best Writer/Artist, Isabelle Arsenault for Best Penciller/Inker, Ramón K. Perez for Best Penciller/Inker, and Federico Bertolucci for Best Painter/Multimedia Artist. In fact, this year may mark a new high point in individual nominations for creators of young readers' comics. The ballot gives me an exciting sense of children's and YA comics as emphatically mainstream and recognized for their artistry and daring as well as their accessibility.
It's such a strong ballot overall, with many startling inclusions. Beyond children's and YA comics, check out "A Life in Comics: The Graphic Adventures of Karen Green" (Best Short Story), or Pope Hats #5 (Best Single Issue), or the startling range of the whole Best Anthology category. Check out (wow) Small Favors in Best Graphic Album--Reprint, or Kindred in Best Adaptation from Another Medium. Or My Brother’s Husband in Best U.S. Edition of International Material—Asia. Among reprints, check out the two gorgeous Sunday Press books (Best Archival Collection/Project—Strips) and Conundrum's Collected Neil the Horse (Best Archival Collection/Project—Comic Books). There are many gutsy choices in this year's list—congratulations, judges, and happy reading, everybody!
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    See Hatfield, comics and children's culture scholar

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