Our next press release comes from Fanfare/Ponent Mon, and I have a sturdy tradition of shameless favoritism towards press releases from this fine publisher. This time around, it’s a run-down of their well-deserved Eisner nominations, which provides an opportunity for me to remind you that My Mommy Is in America and She Met Buffalo Bill is just grand in every conceivable way and should really win at least one of the awards for which it’s nominated.
Here’s hoping that Summit of the Gods (written by Baku Yumemakura and illustrated by Jiro Taniguchi) gets nominated for something next year. I actually liked it better than Taniguchi’s A Distant Neighborhood and am looking forward to the next volume.
AN IMPRESSIVE SEVEN 2010 EISNER AWARD NOMINATIONS FOR FANFARE / PONENT MON
INDUSTRY DISTINGUISHES THE LITTLE COMPANY THAT DOES
Ami and Stephen would like to thank Jackie Estrada and the 2010 Eisner Award panel for all their hard (and fast) reading!
Since Fanfare / Ponent Mon’s founding in 2003, the company has dedicated itself to publishing quality translations of some of the choicest European and Japanese graphic novels available for mature readers. With just four titles published in 2009 the recent announcement of seven 2010 Eisner Award nominations means Fanfare / Ponent Mon has put to rest any thoughts that it is merely the little company that could but rather the little company that does!
Receiving the second most nominations overall with three, My Mommy Is in America and She Met Buffalo Bill by Jean Regnaud (W) and Émile Bravo (A) was honored in the categories:
This bittersweet tale of a five-year-old’s childhood struggles while overcoming his mother’s absence is a powerful, yet sensitive, tour-de-force made all the more moving by Bravo’s deceptively innocent artwork.
978-84-96427-85-3 — $25.00 / £13.99 — 120pp FC HC
Years of the Elephant by Willy Linthout was distinguished in two categories:
In his native Belgium, Willy Linthout is a household name through his cartoon Urbanus with over 130 albums and 10 million copies in print. But this graphic novel is far from his daily work. It is a poignant, heartbreaking tale of the creator’s emotional survival in the years following his son’s suicide and is
presented in Linthout’s rough pencils, the author’s way of conveying that he, too, is not yet whole from the tragedy.
978-84-92444-30-4 — $18.95 / £11.99 — 164pp B/W SC
Since its inception. Fanfare / Ponent Mon has released several titles by Jiro Taniguchi – the fourth volume of the artist’s ambitious adaptation of The Times of Botchan makes its debut at the MoCCA Arts Festival as we go to press – so the company is most pleased to see the work of one of Japan’s contemporary manga masters honored with two nominations:
Jiro Taniguchi was previously honored by a nomination for The Walking Man (2007), The Ice Wanderer and Other Stories (2008) and The Quest for the Missing Girl (2009). He also had a story in the nominated anthology Japan as Viewed by 17 Creators (2007).
This two-volume work tells the tender and haunting story of a middle-aged businessman who finds himself reliving his days as a fourteen-year-old but with his adult memories intact. He returns to the period immediately before his father mysteriously leaves the family behind and naturally wonders whether he can now change this course of events. Or will events change him?
It is an affecting tale that showcases both Taniguchi’s sensitive storytelling and his beautifully detailed artwork.
978-84-92444-29-8 $23.00 / £12.99 208pp B/W SC
With many thanks to our creators and good luck to ALL nominees
http://www.comic-con.org/cci/cci_eisners_main.shtml