Eisner Award Nominations 2024

The nominations for this year's Will Eisner Comic Industry Awards (celebrating work published in 2023) were just announced yesterday. ​Of course I'm already looking up and bookmarking things I want to read, with a big thank you to judges Ryan Claytor, Chris Couch, Andréa Gilroy, Joseph Illidge, Mathias Lewis, and Jillian Rudes!

I always learn from, and of course debate, the Eisner nominations. Unsurprisingly, there are always some choices that leave me bewildered and omissions that make me sad. But I know what this job is like from the inside out (having served as an Eisner judge in 2013). It's not easy. Yes, it's delightful work, but it's heavy, and it's not casual. It takes a lot of negotiation. Props to the judges for making the tough calls and shining spotlights on so many deserving works.

Below are the nominees in the three categories of special interest to KinderComics, that is, those focused on young readers: Early Readers, Kids, and Teens. I've also noted two other categories of special interest to me that I think are particularly strong this year, Best Graphic Memoir and Best Academic/Scholarly Work. Where possible, I've linked the title of each work to a publisher's webpage, FYI. 

In the weeks ahead, and especially prior to the June 6 voting deadline, I hope to read and comment on many of the nominees in Early Readers, Kids, and Teens categories. Thus far, I've read only a few. I have requests out at my local branch of LAPL for as many of these books as I can get! I've found that bingeing on the Eisner noms each year is a great learning experience!

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Best Publication for Early Readers
​I'm ashamed to say that I haven't read any of these yet!
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• Bigfoot and Nessie: The Art of Getting Noticed, by Chelsea M. Campbell and Laura Knetzger (Penguin Workshop/Penguin Random House)
• Burt the Beetle Lives Here! by Ashley Spires (Kids Can Press)
• Go-Go Guys, by Rowboat Watkins (Chronicle Books)
• The Light Inside, by Dan Misdea (Penguin Workshop/Penguin Random House)
• Milk and Mocha: Our Little Happiness, by Melani Sie (Andrews McMeel)
• Tacos Today: El Toro & Friends, by Raúl the Third (HarperCollins/Versify)

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Best Publication for Kids

• Buzzing, by Samuel Sattin and Rye Hickman (Little, Brown Ink)
• Mabuhay! by Zachary Sterling (Scholastic Graphix)
• Mexikid: A Graphic Memoir, by Pedro Martín (Dial Books for Young Readers/Penguin Young Readers). I've read this one and will be teaching it in Children's Lit this fall. It's excellent.
• Missing You, by Phellip Willian and Melissa Garabeli. translation by Fabio Ramos (Oni Press)
• Saving Sunshine, by Saadia Faruqi and Shazleen Khan (First Second/Macmillan)

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Best Publication for Teens

• Blackward, by Lawrence Lindell (Drawn & Quarterly). I've read this one, which is by an artist that I think I've seen at LA Zine Fest (and at a CSUN event as well). Good to see his book here!
• Danger and Other Unknown Risks, by Ryan North and Erica Henderson (Penguin Workshop/Penguin Random House). I've read this one, and it made my Best of 2023 list over at The Comics Journal.
• Frontera, by Julio Anta and Jacoby Salcedo (HarperAlley)
• Lights, by Brenna Thummler (Oni Press)
• Monstrous: A Transracial Adoption Story, by Sarah Myer (First Second/Macmillan)
• My Girlfriend’s Child, Vol. 1, by Mamoru Aoi, translation by Hana Allen (Seven Seas)

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Best Graphic Memoir
This is the category I'm most prepared for this year, having read four out of the six noms so far. I'm interested to see that several of these could also be nominated in young readers' categories.
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• Family Style: Memories of an American from Vietnam, by Thien Pham (First Second/Macmillan). A wonderful book, again part of my Best of 2023 list. I reviewed it here on June 28, 2023.
• A First Time for Everything, by Dan Santat (First Second/Macmillan)
• In Limbo, by Deb JJ Lee (First Second/Macmillan). Another great one that I reviewed here, back on June 27, 2023. It also made my Best of 2023.
• Memento Mori, by Tiitu Takalo, translation by Maria Schroderus (Oni Press). I haven't read this one yet.
• Sunshine: How One Camp Taught Me About Life, Death, and Hope, by Jarrett J. Krosoczka (Scholastic Graphix). Nor have I read this one.
• The Talk, by Darrin Bell (Henry Holt). And yet another that made my Best of 2023.

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Best Academic/Scholarly Work
A fantastic group this year! Innovative and important work all round.
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• Asian Political Cartoons, by John A. Lent (University Press of Mississippi)
• The Claremont Run: Subverting Gender in the X- Men, by J. Andrew Deman (University of Texas Press)
• Desegregating Comics: Debating Blackness in the Golden Age of American Comics, edited by Qiana Whitted (Rutgers University Press)
• If Shehrazad Drew: Critical Writings on Arab Comics, by George Khoury-Jad (Sawaf Center for Arab Comics Studies and American University of Beirut Press)
• In Visible Archives: Queer and Feminist Visual Culture in the 1980s, by Margaret Galvan (University of Minnesota Press)
• Super Bodies: Comic Book Illustration, Artistic Styles, and Narrative Impact, by Jeffrey A. Brown (University of Texas Press)

I won't begin to make predictions about which books and creators will win. Suffice to say that my reading for the next few weeks will be interesting!

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PS. Among the Eisner noms I've read lately that didn't make my Best of 2023 list, but I wish had, are Mexikid; A First Time for Everything; Bill Griffith's Three Rocks: The Story of Ernie Bushmiller; K. Wroten's Eden II; Tillie Walden's Clementine, Book Two; ​and Kelly Sue DeConnick et al.'s Wonder Woman Historia: The Amazons.

PPS. Among things I dearly wish had made the Eisner ballot? Noah Van Sciver's Maple Terrace; Wes Craig's Kaya; Ryan Holmberg's translation of Tsuge's Nejishiki; Ryan North et al.'s Fantastic Four; Craig Thompson's Ginseng Roots; Tom King and Elsa Charretier's continuing Love Everlasting; Tom Kaczynski's Cartoon Dialectics #4; Joe Kessler's The Gull Yettin; Seth's Palookaville #24; Chantal Montellier's Social Fiction; and Daniel Clowes's Monica. Insert a big Schulzian SIGH here for all of these. <3