{"id":1434,"date":"2009-04-07T07:37:47","date_gmt":"2009-04-07T11:37:47","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.benzilla.com\/?p=1434"},"modified":"2009-04-07T14:43:36","modified_gmt":"2009-04-07T18:43:36","slug":"post-eisner-nomination-wrap-up","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.benzilla.com\/?p=1434","title":{"rendered":"Post-Eisner Nomination Wrap-up"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"snc00093-small1\"<\/a><\/p>\n

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It’s probably not kosher to divulge a whole lot of information on the goings-on of the Eisner Awards nomination process, but given that the call for submissions notes that the nominations will be “announced in April,” and it’s now April, I feel that I can safely reveal that the nomination weekend is now over and that the official announcement will be forthcoming.\u00a0 As with every year, there’ll be a lot of online back and forth about what did and didn’t get on the list, but what was as interesting to me as the actual nominating process was the preparatory experience: reading basically every graphic novel published by every major publisher in the 2008 calendar year.\u00a0 Here are a few observations borne of that experience, in no particular order:<\/p>\n

1) The amount of comics published in a single year is truly stunning.<\/strong> Before the nominations I (and the other judges as well) tried to read through pretty much all the graphic novels that generated significant press in 2008.\u00a0 Even narrowing things down by this criteria, there were easily more than 100 books of genuine interest to get through–and that’s not even getting into serialized comics.<\/p>\n

2) Production values on graphic novels have never been higher.<\/strong> Lots and lots of the books I read for this year’s awards were really beautiful.\u00a0 Among the most popular flourishes I noted were “french flaps,” “belly bands,” and covers that mixed glossy and matte finishes.\u00a0 The standard “trade paperback” format looked positively anemic by comparison.\u00a0 The archival stuff of course was beyond stunning–the hardcover Hellboy<\/em> collection, the slip-cased Umbrella Academy<\/em> book, the Scorchy Smith<\/em> book,etc.–but what struck me as far more important was that the baseline<\/em> for a decent-looking regular old graphic novel is now pretty damn high.<\/p>\n

3) Closely related to item two, above: pretty much everything that looked incredible production-wise was printed in China or Singapore.<\/strong> Some of the old guard publishers are still having their books printed by Diamond-friendly printers like Brenner and Quebecor, but there’s just no way they can compete with the prices you can get from Asian printing. A fifteen dollar book printed in North America is likely to be 150 pages, black and white vs. a fifteen dollar book printed in Asia that’ll likely be 200 or more pages, full color, great paper stock, with french flaps and other flourishes.<\/p>\n

4) There are a hell of a lot of periodical\/serialized comics being published these days that you’re probably unaware of if you’re not into superhero stuff.<\/strong> As mentioned, I read a sizable quantity of graphic novels and Manga stuff before I flew out for nominations weekend, and just figured I’d be able to “brush up” on monthly comics once I got there and figured out what was in the running and what wasn’t–but, damn<\/em>, there’s a heck of a lot of stuff to sort through.\u00a0 Some is really good, some is really bad, but if you’re someone who mainly reads comics in graphic novel form–or once things have been collected in trade paperbacks– you’re probably unaware of the true quantity of monthly books that are out there.<\/p>\n

5) Is there some sort of favoritism\/politics going on at the big comics publishers? <\/strong> Being an “indie guy” I have no knowledge of the politics of what goes on a big “mainstream” comics publishers,\u00a0 but I was really surprised that a few of them didn’t send copies of everything<\/em> they’d put out in the previous year.\u00a0 I can’t imagine that this is a financial concern–it seems more like a deliberate snub to those folks they didn’t<\/em> send books from.\u00a0 There were at least two people who’d done great work (I thought, anyway) for a couple of mainstream publishers in 2008 who I really wanted to champion, but without their company’s having sent their books along for the judges to read, there really wasn’t much I could do.\u00a0 To be fair, though, it’s probably better to formally submit a select few items than to submit everything<\/em>, regardless of quality. (Edit, based on some comments: note that publishers can only submit<\/em> five books per category; what I’m wondering about is why not just go ahead and send<\/em> in all your output?)<\/p>\n

6) There’s a lot of breadth to the comics art form and, chances are, whatever you’re into is just a small subset of the whole.<\/strong> I went into the judging with the idea that there were a number of key books that were basically just “shoe-ins” in the big categories like “Graphic Album New,” but was really taken aback when some of the other folks dismissed some of this stuff pretty casually. (And I’m sure the other folks had exactly the same thoughts about some of the work that I<\/em> didn’t take to as well.)\u00a0 It’s easy I think, if you’re into some particular type of comics, to become entrenched in that area and not see the comics world as a whole, from the perspectives of other individuals who may have interests that are 180 degrees from your own.<\/p>\n

7) There’s some really great foreign material being published today<\/strong>.\u00a0 I was certainly aware that folks like Fanfare Ponent Mon and First Second were regularly cranking out great-looking English editions of foreign material, but it wasn’t until I saw all of this stuff piled up in heaps that I realized just how much of it there is and just how great a lot of it is.\u00a0 It’s amazing to think back, say, twenty years or so to the anemic volume of European and Japanese stuff being reprinted here and compare it just to last year’s output with stuff like Trave<\/em>l, Gus and His Gang<\/em>, Little Nothings<\/em>, Disappearance Diary<\/em>, Bourbon Island<\/em>, tons of great Tezuka, etc.<\/p>\n

8) 2008 was a banner year for books about comics and about comics-making<\/strong>.\u00a0 Here’re just a few: coffee table art books on both Kirby and Ditko, a spectacular biography of Bill Mauldin, The Ten Cent Plague<\/em>, Drawing Words and Writing Pictures<\/em>, Lynda Barry’s What It Is<\/em>, and my own personal favorite: Most Outrageous<\/em>.<\/p>\n

9) Big book publishers have decided that “graphic novel memoir” is the current cash cow.<\/strong> – I guess it’s a natural thing for folks to see what’s been successful in the past and then emulate that, so I probably shouldn’t be surprised that a lot of prose publishers with fledgling graphic novel divisions have decided–likely, based on the success of books like Fun Home<\/em> and Persepolis<\/em>–that their initial forays into the world of comics should be memoir.\u00a0 In some cases, though, it’s pretty ridiculous: one major book publisher, for example, submitted their entire 2008 output and every single book was memoir–every one<\/em>.<\/p>\n

All that said, now that it’s over, I’m really looking forward to digging into my stack of new books from 2009 that I’ve had to ignore until now…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

It’s probably not kosher to divulge a whole lot of information on the goings-on of the Eisner Awards nomination process, but given that the call for submissions notes that the nominations will be “announced in April,” and it’s now April, I feel that I can safely reveal that the nomination weekend is now over and … <\/p>\n

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