WillEisner.com

Judges Named for 2012 Eisner Awards - The Eisnershpritz

2011-12-01T22:26:21Z

Six Comics Field Veterans Make Up Nomination Committee

SAN DIEGO -- Comic-Con International (Comic-Con) is proud to announce that the judging panel has been named for the 2012 Will Eisner Comic Industry Awards. This blue-ribbon committee will select the nominations to appear on the Eisner Awards ballot. This year's judges are: Brigid Alverson comics journalist and reviewer; Calum Johnston, the owner of Strange Adventures: Comix & Curiosities, in Nova Scotia; Jesse Karp, school librarian, teacher, reviewer and author; Larry Marder, comics industry veteran; Ben Saunders, professor, curator and author; and Mary Sturhann, secretary on the Board of Directors of Comic-Con International.

The judges will meet in San Diego in late March to select the nominees that will be placed on the Eisner Awards ballot. The nominees will then be voted on by professionals in the comic book industry, and the results will be announced in a gala awards ceremony on Friday, July 13 at Comic-Con in San Diego.

Read more at the official web page.

2011 Eisner Award winners announced! - The Eisnershpritz

2011-07-23T09:51:56Z

The 23rd annual Will Eisner Comic Industry Awards were held last night in the Indigo Ballroom at the Hilton San Diego Bayfront. The deserving winners were:

Best Short Story
"Post Mortem," by Greg Rucka and Michael Lark, in I Am an Avenger #2 (Marvel)

Best Single Issue (or One-Shot)
Hellboy: Double Feature of Evil, by Mike Mignola and Richard Corben (Dark Horse)

Best Continuing Series
Chew, by John Layman and Rob Guillory (Image)

Best Limited Series
Daytripper, by Fábio Moon and Gabriel Bá (Vertigo/DC)

Best New Series
American Vampire, by Scott Snyder, Stephen King, and Rafael Albuquerque (Vertigo/DC)

Best Publication for Kids
Tiny Titans, by Art Baltazar and Franco (DC)

Best Publication for Teens
Smile, by Raina Telgemeier (Scholastic Graphix)

Best Humor Publication
I Thought You Would Be Funnier, by Shannon Wheeler (BOOM!)

Best Anthology
Mouse Guard: Legends of the Guard, edited by Paul Morrissey and David Petersen (Archaia)

Best Digital Comic
Abominable Charles Christopher, by Karl Kerschl, www.abominable.cc

Best Reality-Based Work
It Was the War of the Trenches, by Jacques Tardi (Fantagraphics)

Best Graphic Album--New
Return of the Dapper Men, by Jim McCann and Janet Lee (Archaia)
Wilson, by Daniel Clowes (Drawn & Quarterly)

Best Graphic Album--Reprint
Wednesday Comics, edited by Mark Chiarello (DC)

Best Adaptation from Another Work
The Marvelous Land of Oz, by L. Frank Baum, adapted by Eric Shanower and Skottie Young (Marvel)

Best Archival Collection/Project--Strips
Archie: The Complete Daily Newspaper Strips, 1946-1948, by Bob Montana, edited by Greg Goldstein (IDW)

Best Archival Collection/Project--Comic Books
Dave Stevens' The Rocketeer Artist's Edition, edited by Scott Dunbier (IDW)

Best U.S. Edition of International Material
It Was the War of the Trenches, by Jacques Tardi (Fantagraphics)

Best U.S. Edition of International Material--Asia
Naoki Urasawa's 20th Century Boys, by Naoki Urasawa (VIZ Media)

Best Writer
Joe Hill, Locke & Key (IDW)

Best Writer/Artist
Darwyn Cooke, Richard Stark's Parker: The Outfit (IDW)

Best Penciller/Inker or Penciller/Inker Team
Skottie Young, The Marvelous Land of Oz (Marvel)

Best Painter/Multimedia Artist (interior art)
Juanjo Guarnido, Blacksad (Dark Horse)

Best Cover Artist
Mike Mignola, Hellboy, Baltimore: The Plague Ships (Dark Horse)

Best Coloring
Dave Stewart, Hellboy, BPRD, Baltimore, Let Me In (Dark Horse); Detective Comics (DC); Neil Young's Greendale, Daytripper, Joe the Barbarian (Vertigo/DC)

Best Lettering
Todd Klein, Fables, The Unwritten, Joe the Barbarian, iZombie (Vertigo/DC); Tom Strong and the Robots of Doom (WildStorm/DC); SHIELD (Marvel); Driver for the Dead (Radical)

Best Comics-Related Periodical/Journalism
ComicBookResources, produced by Jonah Weiland
www.comicbookresources.com

Best Comics-Related Book
75 Years of DC Comics: The Art of Modern Mythmaking, by Paul Levitz (TASCHEN)

Best Publication Design
Dave Stevens' The Rocketeer Artist's Edition, designed by Randall Dahlk (IDW)

HALL OF FAME
Judges' Choices: Ernie Bushmiller, Jack Jackson, Martin Nodell, Lynd Ward
Elected: Mort Drucker, Harvey Pekar, Roy Thomas, Marv Wolfman

The Eisner Awards are part of, and underwritten by, Comic-Con International, a nonprofit educational organization dedicated to creating awareness of and appreciation for comics and related popular art forms, primarily through the presentation of conventions and events that celebrate the historic and ongoing contributions of comics to art and culture.

2011 Comic-Con International San Diego - The Eisnershpritz

2011-07-16T08:21:18Z

Friday, July 22
Will Eisner Comic Industry Awards

The 23rd annual Will Eisner Comic Industry Awards will be held Friday, July 22 in the Indigo Ballroom at the Hilton San Diego Bayfront. This year's title sponsor, Advanced Micro Devices (AMD), will be giving out a new Vision A-Series APU notebook computer to one lucky attendee toward the end of the evening. The Eisner Awards, considered the "Oscars" of the comic book industry, will be given out in 28 categories, for works published in 2010.

Saturday, July 23
Will Eisner: Visionary
11:00-12:00, Room 9

Will Eisner -- artist, storyteller, entrepreneur -- played a central role in comics from the Golden Age to the Computer Age. During his career, Eisner reinvented sequential art and himself to overcome obstacles and create new media. A combination of idealist and realist, he led the way and helped create the comics and graphic novels that we know today. Learn about Will Eisner from those who personally knew and worked with him. Join moderator Charles Brownstein (executive director of the CBLDF, author of Eisner/Miller), Denis Kitchen (artist, author, publisher, Eisner's agent and longtime friend), Paul Levitz (writer, former president/publisher of DC Comics), Scott McCloud (artist, author, theoretician about comics and sequential art), Diana Schutz (executive editor, Dark Horse Comics), and Jeff Smith (writer/cartoonist, Bone, Rasl) to learn more about the "Father of the Graphic Novel."

For more information and times, check the official Comic-Con International website.

Disagreeing with Eisner... - The Eisnershpritz

2011-06-16T01:21:07Z

Colin Smith's "Too busy thinking about my comics" blog has a wonderfully sincere and interesting piece comparing Eisner's Spirit work with his later graphic novels:

So; while there's no creator in the history of comics that I respect more than Mr Eisner, I just feel that I'd benefit from owning up to the fact that I think his work on the Spirit is, as a general principle, far, far superior to anything which he produced from the publication of "A Contract With God And Other Tenement Stories" in 1978 onwards.

...and...

The weekly context in which The Spirit's adventures were published demanded both innovation and clarity, emotion and excitement, and just like the very best of any and all popular entertainment, it was largely unpretentious, lacking in worthiness and completely involving. If the message of a typical Spirit tale tended to be somewhat obvious, and most of the themes were never anything other than straight-forward, the storytelling carried the reader onwards towards the story's moral closure with an exceptional vigour. And The Spirit himself, so often decried by Mr Eisner as being no more sophisticated a character than a man in a mask, served so effectively as an everyman, as the reader's POV, as a symbol of an individual caught outside the madness of everyday life trying to impose some sanity upon it. Constantly beaten, wounded, heart-broken, confused, the Spirit moves me far more as a symbol of one type of 20th century person than any of Mr Eisner's later characters do.

Read the full post here.

The Spirit by Wally Wood... - The Eisnershpritz

2011-06-16T00:26:34Z

Rip Jagger's blog has a nice article and pics featuring Wally Wood's splash pages for The Outer Space Spirit...

In 1952 at the end of The Spirit's original run as a newspaper insert, Will Eisner was losing interest in the strip. Television among other things was cutting into the viability of maintaining the strip and Eisner wanted to put his talents elsewhere. Already the strip was being written by Jules Feiffer, so a proper replacement artist needed to be found.

Read the full article here.

Rip also has a short article (with pics) on the Pop-Up Spirit book.

The Spirit as political cartoons... - The Eisnershpritz

2011-04-20T07:56:02Z

The great comics site Diversions of the Groovy Kind has a blog entry featuring some rare single page stories featuring The Spirit:

When Underground Publisher Denis Kitchen got Eisner to let him reprint a couple issues' worth of classic Golden Age Spirit stories, he also managed to get Eisner to create some brand new Spirit material. Instead of brand new 7 page adventures in the classic vein, though, in the first issue (1973) we got an updated Spirit walking (or punching) through a set of single-page strips that are really political cartoons. The Spirit and Ebony are still 100% themselves, but the tone and purpose of the strips are as far removed from the 40s classics as the latest issue of Green Lantern is from the Silver Age GL. I s'pose "re-inventions" aren't always a bad thing, after all...

Read the full article here.

Imprint: The Spirit of the Stone Type - The Eisnershpritz

2011-04-20T07:36:56Z

Imprint, the design website, has a great article on Will Eisner's splash pages, 3D letterforms and his influence on other artists:

But everything changed with the appearance of Will Eisner's "The Spirit" (1940). "The Spirit" was published as a seven-page supplement to the comics section of American Sunday newspapers. As a supplement tucked inside newspapers, "The Spirit" did not depend on being visible on the newsstands. It was not limited by the need for recognizable branding like "Superman".

Mr. Eisner used that extremely cleverly by going in exactly the opposite direction. Not only did he change the masthead of "The Spirit" for every issue, but very soon, the masthead became an integral part of the scene/set.

Read the full article here.

DC's The Source: Moritat on The Spirit - The Eisnershpritz

2011-04-20T07:18:36Z

DC Comics' The Source has a mini interview with Moritat, artist of the monthly The Spirit comic book:

A few years ago, I was catching the train at Broadway Junction to come into the city. Will Eisner walks up and we started talking. He said, "you should come work for me." I said, "I would love to." We talked a few times, but then I got drafted and I went off to Vietnam. So, it's a pleasure to finally work with Mr. Eisner.

Read the full article on DC's blog.

2011 Will Eisner Comic Industry Awards: Nominees Announced - The Eisnershpritz

2011-04-08T09:47:10Z

Comic-Con International (Comic-Con) is proud to announce the nominations for the Will Eisner Comic Industry Awards 2011. 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 heartfelt autobiographical works to books aimed at kids and teens to deluxe hardcover archival editions. Unlike in past years, superheroes are very much in the minority in this year's selections.

Read the full list of nominees at the Comic-Con website.
]]> Return of the Dapper Men, a fantasy hardcover by writer Jim McCann and artist Janet Lee, published by Archaia. It has nods for Best Publication for Teens, Best Graphic Album-New, Best Writer, Best Artist, and Best Publication Design. Two comics series have 4 nominations: Morning Glories by Nick Spencer and Joe Eisma (published by Shadowline/Image) and Locke & Key by Joe Hill and Gabriel Rodriguez (published by IDW). A variety of titles have received 3 nominations, including the manga Naoki Urasawa's 20th Century Boys (VIZ Media), John Layman and Rob Guillory's series Chew (Image), Daniel Clowes's graphic novel Wilson (Drawn & Quarterly), and Mike Mignola's Hellboy titles (Dark Horse).

The creator with the most nominations is Mignola with 5 (including cover artist), followed by Spencer and Hill, each with 4. Several creators have 3: McCann & Lee, Rodriquez, Urasawa, and Clowes, plus writer Ian Boothy (for Comic Book Guy: The Comic Book and other Bongo titles) and cartoonist Jimmy Gownley (for Best Publication for Kids plus coloring and lettering on his Amelia Rules! series). A record 15 creators have 2 nominations each.

DC Comics has the most nominations for a publisher, with its various imprints (DCU, Vertigo, WildStorm) garnering 14 nominations (plus 3 shared). The DC Universe has 5 of those nominations, while the Vertigo imprint has 9, all spread among multiple titles and creators. In addition, 75 Years of DC Comics: The Art of Modern Mythmaking by Paul Levitz, published by TASCHEN, has two nominations. The publishers emerging with the second-most nominations this year with 12 each are Image (led by Chew and Morning Glories) and IDW, which in addition to Locke & Key has double nobs for four titles: Dave Stevens' The Rocketeer Artist's Edition, Polly & Her Pals Sundays, and Darwyn Cooke's Parker: The Outfit. Close behind with 11 nominations each are alt/indy comics publishers Fantagraphics and Drawn & Quarterly. Fantagraphics dominates the U.S. Edition of International Material category with 3 nominees and has 2 nominations each for Carol Tyler's You'll Never Know: Collateral Damage and Jacques Tardi's It Was the War of the Trenches. Besides Wilson, D&Q is on the ballot with two nominations each for Lynda Barry's Picture This, James Sturm's Market Day, and Chris Ware's Acme Novelty Library 20.

Other publishers with multiple nominations include Dark Horse (9, plus 2 shared), Archaia (9), VIZ Media (4), and Marvel (3, plus 2 shared); six publishers with 3 nominations: Abrams Comicarts, Bongo, Atheneum/Simon & Schuster, First Second, NBM, and Scholastic/Graphix; and five with 2 nominations: Abstract Studio (Terry Moore's Echo), Disney/Hyperion, McClelland & Stewart (Scott Chantler's Three Generals), TASCHEN, and Vertical. Another two dozen publishers had 1 nomination each. Notably, many of these publishers are mainstream publishing houses and not standard comics industry companies. In addition to the ones mentioned above, they include Amulet Books, Andrews McMeel, Bloomsbury, Crown, Fulcrum Books, Houghton Mifflin Harcourt, Lee & Low, The Library of America, and Yale University Press.

Among this year's nontraditional "discoveries" by the judges are Seymour Chwast's adaptation of Dante's Divine Comedy (Bloomsbury), the "mocumentary" Finding Frank and His Friends by "Clarence 'Otis' Dooley" (Curio & Co.), the Native American anthology Trickster (Fulcrum), Lucidity Press's The Anthology Project, and cartoonist Dave Kellett's Literature: Unsuccessfully Competing Against TV Since 1953.

Named for acclaimed comics creator the Will Eisner, the awards are in their 23rd year of highlighting the best publications and creators in comics and graphic novels. The 2011 Eisner Awards judging panel consists of comics store rep John Berry (Metropolis Comics, Bellflower, California), Comic-Con board of director Ned Cato (geekroundtable.com), librarian Karen Green (Columbia University), comics writer/editor Andy Helfer (The Shadow; Paradox Press), publishing consultant Rich Johnson (previously with DC Comics and Yen Press), and retail manager Chris Powell (Lone Star Comics, Dallas, Texas).

Ballots with this year's nominees will be going out in mid-April to comics creators, editors, publishers, and retailers. A downloadable pdf of the ballot will also be available online, and a special website has been set up for online voting. The results in all categories will be announced in a gala awards ceremony on the evening of Friday, July 22 at Comic-Con International.

Voting in one Eisner Awards category, the Hall of Fame, is already completed. The judges chose the nominees earlier this year, and voting was conducted solely online, with voting ending on March 24.

The Eisner 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.

MoCCA Art Festival this weekend! - The Eisnershpritz

2011-04-06T04:23:04Z

This weekend is the annual MoCCA Art Festival in New York City. Will Eisner Studios has taken a booth where we'll have a "real" Eisner Award on display and we'll be holding a draw to giveaway some of Will's books. There will also be a panel about Will on Sunday at 1.30pm moderated by Charles Brownstein of the CBLDF and featuring Jules Feiffer, Paul Levitz and Denis Kitchen. Stop by and say hello!

For more information about MoCCA and the festival, visit their website.

Will Eisner's New York: pics from opening night - The Eisnershpritz

2011-03-31T09:35:11Z

Gary Dunaier has uploaded a wonderful Flickr photoset from the opening of Will Eisner's New York exhibition at MoCCA. The show is on until June 30.

View the full set of photos here.

Will Eisner's New York: From The Spirit to the Modern Graphic Novel - The Eisnershpritz

2011-03-19T21:57:26Z

The Museum of Comic and Cartoon Art - MoCCA - is proud to announce Will Eisner's New York: From the Spirit to the Modern Graphic Novel, an exhibit showcasing work of the comics and graphic novel master that was inspired by, and which spotlighted, his hometown, the city he always held closest to his heart: New York. The exhibition will run from March 1-June 30, 2011. It is curated by Denis Kitchen and Danny Fingeroth.

From the Golden Age of Comics through the creation of the modern graphic novel (a form he was instrumental in popularizing), you will find New York City at the heart of Will Eisner's work. Whether thinly disguised as "Central City" in the pages of his legendary creation, The Spirit, or more directly presented in his autobiographical graphic novels, New York was portrayed by Eisner as only a native of the city could know it.

This exhibition spotlights the city as reflected in all eras of Eisner's work. It includes Spirit artwork, art from many of his classic graphic novels, including A Contract with God and To the Heart of the Storm, and original paintings by Eisner, as well as art by significant creators who were influenced by him.

Full details here or the MOCCA website.

TCJ.com: Interview with Eisner (1968) - The Eisnershpritz

2011-03-18T22:51:51Z

The very new iteration of The Comics Journal website has been running articles from the Journal's archives and has uploaded a 1968 interview with Will Eisner originally published in The Comics Journal #267, 2005.

Read the full interview here.

Google Celebrates Will Eisner's birthday! - The Eisnershpritz

2011-03-06T09:13:03Z

UPDATE: The Eisner Google Doodle from March 6 created a lot of interest in Will Eisner and this website. Traffic increased incredibly and websites, blogs and tweets spread the news across the globe as different time zones woke to the event. Thank you for your support and interest in the life and legacy of Will Eisner.

To celebrate Will Eisner and his lifetime achievements, Google has dedicated the Google Search Page to Will ~~today~~ on March 6, Will Eisner's 94th birthday.

So when you do an Internet search from the Google Main Search page ~~today~~, instead of seeing the Google logo:

you'll see:

Yes, the eyes are the Google "O's."!

This is great news! Be the first to pass this on to your friends and associates - tweet about it, blog about it, put it on your Facebook wall, or forward this e-mail. Do it now - it'll be here today and gone tomorrow....

And that's not all... Scott McCloud has written a special blog posting for the Official Google Blog. To read it, click here: Official Google Blog.

It's international and can be seen on most Google search pages from Andorra to Zimbabwe and can be read in Afrikaans to Vietnamese! (No, we didn't test them all.)

MoCCA screening of Eisner documentary with Cookes and Fingeroth - Will Eisner Week

2011-02-27T23:45:06Z

The Museum of Comic and Cartoon Art - MoCCA - and The Will and Ann Eisner Family Foundation are proud to announce that, as part of Will Eisner Week, 2011, they will be presenting a screening of the award-winning Documentary "Will Eisner: Portrait of a Sequential Artist," followed by a special panel with the film's makers, Andrew D. Cooke and Jon B. Cooke. The panel will be moderated by Danny Fingeroth, MoCCA's SVP of Education and co-curator of Will Eisner's New York: From the Spirit to the Modern Graphic Novel exhibition, currently on view at MoCCA.

WHEN: Sunday, March 6, 2011
7-9 pm

WHERE: Museum of Comic and Cartoon Art (MoCCA)
594 Broadway, suite 401, New York, NY 10012

COST: General public: $5 / MoCCA members: Free

Space is limited, and reservations are required. To make a reservation, please call MoCCA at 212-254-3511, Tuesday through Sundays, 12 PM to 5 PM. For more information visit www.moccany.org
]]> "Will Eisner: Portrait of a Sequential Artist" is a full-length feature film documentary about the pioneering comics and graphic novel creator that includes interviews with Eisner and many of the foremost creative talents in the U.S., including Kurt Vonnegut, Michael Chabon, Jules Feiffer, Jack Kirby, Art Spiegelman (who also narrates the film), Frank Miller, Stan Lee, and Gil Kane.

Legendary entertainment industry figure Jeffrey Katzenberg has said of the documentary that it is "entertaining and insightful. A great film about a visionary artist!"

About the MoCCA exhibition: Will Eisner's New York: From The Spirit to the Modern Graphic Novel:

From the Golden Age of Comics through the creation of the modern graphic novel (a form he was instrumental in popularizing), you will find New York City at the heart of Will Eisner's work. Whether thinly disguised as "Central City" in the pages of his legendary creation, The Spirit, or more directly presented in his autobiographical graphic novels, New York was portrayed by Eisner as only a native of the city could know it.

This exhibition, curated by Denis Kitchen and Danny Fingeroth, spotlights the city as reflected in all eras of Eisner's work. It includes Spirit artwork, art from many of his classic graphic novels, including A Contract with God and To the Heart of the Storm, and original paintings by Eisner, as well as art by significant creators who were influenced by him, including Jules Feiffer, Art Spiegelman, and Harvey Kurtzman.

Historical context for the over 100 pieces in the exhibit will be provided by wall text by the curators, as well as by a continually running slide show that traces the evolution of Eisner's work.

Like the legendary metropolis itself, there are infinite perspectives from which to look at and appreciate Eisner's work. Will Eisner's New York: From the Spirit to the Modern Graphic Novel provides surprising insights and moving revelations about the artist, his work, and his city.

Exhibition sponsored by The Will and Ann Eisner Family Foundation.