The Forbidden Planet International Blog Log

The pre-eminent awards shortlist for all of Comicdom, the Eisners, have been announced. It is a massive and pretty diverse list. Below is a truncated version of the official press releases. The full text and the full nominations shortlists in detail can be found at the San Diego ComicCon International website. Our heartiest congratulations to all of the many writers, artists, creators, pencillers, inkers, letterists and all of the other folk who create our beloved medium and who are shortlisted here, with special congratulations to those nominated in the new category of Best Digital Comic. The Eisners are, of course, named for the great Will Eisner, who we sadly lost so recently.

Writer Brian K. Vaughan tops the list of nominees for the 2005 Will Eisner Comic Industry Awards with seven nominations for his work. Five of the nominations are for his new series from WildStorm, Ex Machina, in which an ex-superhero becomes mayor of New York City (Best New Series, Continuing Series, Single Issue, Serialized Story), while two are for the longer-running Vertigo series Y: The Last Man (Continuing Series, Serialized Story). Vaughan is nominated for Best Writer, while Ex Machina also received a nod for Best Colouring (by J. D. Mettler). The art team on Ex Machina, Tony Harris and Tom Feister, share four nominations.

Close behind Vaughan with five nominations is Kyle Baker—although three are competing against each other: Best Humour Publication for Plastic Man, Kyle Baker Cartoonist, and the graphic novel Birth of a Nation. Baker is also up for Best Title for a Younger Audience for Plastic Man, as well for Best Writer-Artist–Humour.

Also tapped for five nominations is John Cassady, cited for Best Penciller/Inker on both Astonishing X-Men and Planetary. Astonishing X-Men is nominated for Best Serialized Story, New Series, and Continuing Series, while Planetary is up for Best Serialized Story. Astonishing’s writer, Joss Whedon, is also nominated for Best Writer, giving him four total nods.

Two other creators have four nominations: Eric Powell for The Goon (Best Single Issue, Continuing Series, Humour Publication, and Writer/Artist–Humour) and Stan Sakai (Best Writer/Artist and Lettering for Usagi Yojimbo; Best Comics-Related Book and Publication Design for The Art of Usagi Yojimbo).

Chris Ware is up for three awards for McSweeney’s Quarterly #13: Best Short Story, Anthology, and Publication Design. He is also the topic of the Best Comics-Related Publication nominee: Chris Ware, by Dan Raeburn. Other creators with three nominations are Frank Quitely for WE3 (Best Limited Series, Penciller/Inker, Cover Artist); Seth (Best Graphic Album–Reprint and Best Publication Design for Clyde’s Fans vol. 1 and Publication Design for The Complete Peanuts); and Juanjo Guarnido for Blacksad Book 2 (Best Graphic Album–New, Best U.S. Edition of Foreign Material, and Best Painter).

Creators with two nominations each include Geof Darrow, Dan Clowes, Warren Ellis, Pia Guerra/José Marzan Jr., Troy Hickman, Teddy Kristiansen, David Lapham, Steve Niles, Johnny Ryan, art Spiegelman, Ben Templesmith, Doug TenNapel, Craig Thompson, Brian Wood/Becky Cloonan, and Michael Zulli.

DC and its various imprints racked up the most company nominations, with 22 full nominations and shares of several others. The nominations for Ex Machina and Planetary give DC’s WildStorm imprint 7 full nominations, while DC’s Vertigo line has 11 full nominations, including multiples for Y the Last Man, Fables, WE3, and the graphic novel It’s a Bird. Dark Horse, boosted by the four mentions each for Powell and Sakai, has 16 full nods plus several partial ones. Image did well with 10 nominations, including two each for Doug TenNapel’s graphic novel Tommysaurus Rex and the Troy Hickman anthology Common Grounds.

Ballots will be going out in late April to comics creators, editors, publishers, and retailers. The results will be announced in a gala awards ceremony on the evening of Friday, July 18 in Ballroom 20 at the San Diego Convention Center. The ceremony will be dedicated to the late Will Eisner and will feature several tributes to the man in whose name the awards are given.