2014 Eisner Award Nominations Announced

Will Eisner Comic Industry Awards 2014 Nominees

Will Eisner Comic Industry Awards

Comic-Con International is proud to announce the nominations for the Will Eisner Comic Industry Awards 2014. The nominees, chosen by a blue-ribbon panel of judges, reflect the wide range of material being published in comics and graphic novel form today, from history (real and imagined) to science fiction to autobiography.

Three titles lead the list with more than 3 nominations each: Marvel’s Hawkeye, Image’s Saga, and DC/Vertigo’s The Wake. Hawkeye is nominated for Best Continuing Series, Best Writer (Matt Fraction), and Best Penciller/Inker and Best Cover Artist (David Aja). Saga has received nods for Best Continuing Series (which won the category in 2013), Best Writer (Brian K. Vaughan), and Best Painter and Cover Artist (Fiona Staples). And The Wake is nominated for Best Limited Series, Best Writer (Scott Snyder), Best Penciller/Inker (Sean Murphy), and Best Cover Artist (Sean Murphy/Jordie Bellaire). Bellaire is also nominated in the Best Coloring category, for her work on The Wake and on numerous titles for other companies.

Titles garnering 3 nominations include Fantagraphics’s Love and Rockets: New Stories #6 (Best Short Story, Single Issue, Writer/Artist for Jaime Hernandez), Top Shelf’s March: Book One, by John Lewis, Andrew Aydin, and Nate Powell (Best Publication for Teens, Reality-Based Work, and Penciller/Inker), and Candlewick’s Bluffton: My Summers with Buster, by Matt Phelan (Best Publication for Teens, Graphic Album–New, and Writer/Artist).

Other titles with multiple nominations are East of West (Jonathan Hickman and Nick Dragotta, Image), Nowhere Men (Eric Stephenson and Nate Bellegarde, Image), Pretty Deadly (Kelly Sue DeConnick and Emma Ríos, Image), Sex Criminals (Matt Fraction and Chip Zdarsky, Image), Hip Hop Family Tree (Ed Piskor, Fantagraphics), Today Is the Last Day of the Rest of Your Life (Ullie Lust, Fantagraphics), The Adventures of Superhero Girl (Faith Erin Hicks, Dark Horse), The Fifth Beatle (Vivek J. Tiwary, Andrew C. Robinson, and Kyle Baker, Dark Horse), Richard Stark’s Parker: Slayground (Darwyn Cooke, IDW), Genius, Illustrated: The Life and Art of Alex Toth (Dean Mullaney and Bruce Canwell, LOAC/IDW), Rachel Rising (Terry Moore, Abstract Studio), The Art of Rube Goldberg (Abrams ComicArts), The Encyclopedia of Early Earth (Isabel Greenberg, Little, Brown), Watson and Holmes (New Paradigm), The Complete Don Quixote (Rob Davis, SelfMadeHero), When David Lost His Voice (Judith Vanistendael, SelfMadeHero), Hilda and the Bird Parade (Luke Pearson, Nobrow), and High Crimes (Monkeybrain).

Among publishers, Image and Fantagraphics top the list with the most nominations. Image has 17 plus 3 shared. In addition to the nods for Saga, East of West, Nowhere Men, Pretty Deadly, and Sex Criminals, nominated Image titles include Lazarus (Rucka and Lark) and Rat Queens (Wiebe and Upchurch). Fantagraphics’s 18 nominations—besides Love and Rockets, Hip Hop Family Tree, and Today Is the Last Day)—are spread among such titles as Good Dog (Graham Chaffee), Julio’s Day (Gilbert Hernandez), Goddam This War (Tardi and Verney), The Heart of Thomas (Moto Hagio), and several archival collections.

Dark Horse ranks third with 12 nominations (plus 1 shared), including 2 for publisher Mike Richardson (Best Anthology for Dark Horse Presents and Best Limited Series for 47 Ronin with Stan Sakai). IDW’s 9 nominations include 5 in the archival categories, with 3 of Scott Dunbier’s Artist’s Editions up for Best Archival Collection–Comic Books and 2 of Dean Mullaney’s Library of American Comics collections up for Best Archival Collection–Comic Strips. Mullaney has 4 nominations in all.

DC and its Vertigo imprint are next with 8 nominations plus 2 shared, the majority going to The Wake. Ranking next is SelfMadeHero with 7 nods (including 3 for When David Lost His Voice and 2 for The Complete Don Quixote), followed by Marvel’s 6 (plus 4 shared), led by Hawkeye. Drawn & Quarterly’s 6 nominations include books by Peter Bagge, Tom Gauld, Rutu Modan, and Art Spiegelman.

Other publishers with multiple nominations include First Second, Nobrow, and Top Shelf (4 each) and Abstract Studio, BOOM!, Candlewick, and TOON Books (3 each). Eleven publishers have 2 nominations each, and another 31 companies or individuals have 1 nomination each.

Individual creators with the most nominations are David Aja, Matt Fraction, Gilbert Hernandez, Sean Murphy, Matt Phelan, Nate Powell, and Fiona Staples, all with 3. Nineteen creators can boast of 2 nominations.

Named for acclaimed comics creator the Will Eisner, the awards are celebrating their 26th year of highlighting the best publications and creators in comics and graphic novels. The 2014 Eisner Awards judging panel consists of comics retailer Kathy Bottarini (Comic Book Box, Rhonert Park, CA), author/educator William H. Foster (Untold Stories of Black Comics), reviewer Christian Lipski (Portland, OR Examiner), Comic-Con International board member Lee Oeth, library curator Jenny Robb (Ohio State University Billy Ireland Cartoon Library and Museum), and Eisner Award-nominated cartoonist/critic James Romberger (Post York, 7 Miles a Second).

Voting for the awards is held online, and the ballot will be available soon at www.eisnervote.com. All professionals in the comic book industry are eligible to vote. The deadline for voting is June 13. The results of the voting will be announced in a gala awards ceremony on the evening of Friday, July 25 at Comic-Con International.

The voting in one Eisner Awards category, the Hall of Fame (LINK), is already completed. The judges chose the nominees earlier this year, and voting was conducted online.

The Will Eisner Comic Industry Awards are presented under the auspices of Comic-Con International, a nonprofit educational organization dedicated to creating awareness of and appreciation for comics and related popular artforms, primarily through the presentation of conventions and events that celebrate the historic and ongoing contributions of comics to art and culture. Jackie Estrada has been administrator of the Awards since 1990. She can be reached at jackie@comic-con.org.