For me, a big part of the fun of awards programs like the Eisners is getting the first draft of a shopping list of books I’d like to pick up at some point. Tom Spurgeon has the list of nominees at The Comics Reporter, plus some entertainingly pungent commentary. Ed Cunard makes some fearless predictions at The Low Road.
After looking through the list (via The Beat), here are some knee-jerk reactions:
- The Red Bull will certainly be flowing at DC’s corporate stronghold, won’t it?
- Much as I like Brian K. Vaughan and Ex Machina, I do wish the nominating committee had shared the wealth a little bit. It’s kind of like the Grammy Awards.
- Surely if a very competent cover-band title like Astonishing X-Men can get nominated for best new series, She-Hulk or Street Angel could have gotten a nod.
- Best publication for a younger audience is going to be a bloodbath… a bloodbath, I say!
- Not that it has anything to do with the relative merits of the nominees for best U.S. edition of foreign material, but Vertical’s packaging of Buddha is simply spectacular.
- I’m disappointed that Bryan Lee O’Malley (Scott Pilgrim’s Precious Little Life) didn’t get a nomination for best writer/artist – humor. (Okay, he’s probably more disappointed than I am.)
- Why do painted comics annoy me so much?
- Wait… I must be reading this wrong. Michael Turner got nominated for his covers for Identity Crisis? And Andi Watson didn’t get nominated for Love Fights?
- Nice to see Sean McKeever get a nod for talent deserving of wider recognition.
- I’m trying to remember precisely when Paul Gravett’s magnificent Manga: 60 Years of Japanese Comics was published. Because if it was during the last year, there’s really no excuse for it not to be nominated for best comics-related book.