The first wave of nominations for 2009’s Great Graphic Novels for Teens list is up, and it includes my beloved Sand Chronicles (Viz). Anyone can nominate a title, though creators and publishers can’t nominate their own works.

I like a lot of things about this particular award, but I really appreciate the fact that the nomination process is ongoing. It seems like worthy books that come out early in the process are less likely to be forgotten.

The Young Adult Library Services Association is wasting no time. You can nominate a title for next year’s Great Graphic Novels for Teens list right here. Just one caveat: “Nominations from authors or publishers for their own works will not be accepted.”

Via Tom Spurgeon, the American Library Association’s Young Adult Library Services Association has posted its 2008 list of 43 Great Graphic Novels for Teens, including stand-alone books and ongoing series, along with a top 10 drawn from those.

I’ll probably compose a longer reaction later, but my first impression is that a lot of the entries could compose a good chunk of the list of my favorite ongoing manga series.

The final roster of nominees for this year’s list of Great Graphic Novels for Teens is available for perusal. It’s an amazing list, and I don’t envy the people who have to whittle it down to finalists.

I thought it might be interesting to see how the nominations broke down by publisher. Keep in mind that some figures represent multiple volumes of a single series, but I decided to go for just a book-by-book breakdown. In the case of some publishers, I kept imprints separate (like DC with its super-hero universe, Vertigo and Minx books), particularly if they had very different target audiences.

Tokyopop leads the pack with 23 books nominated. [I initially put that at 24, but Kevin Melrose is better at counting than I am.] Del Rey took second place with 11, followed closely by Viz with 10, CMX and DC with 9 each, and Go! Comi with 8. First Second and Marvel each took 7 spots on the list.

Three nominations: Digital Manga, HarperCollins, Image, Minx, Vertical.

Two nominations: Dark Horse, Fantagraphics, Hyperion, Oni, Penguin, Vertigo, Villard, Virgin.

One nomination: Abrams, ADV, Archaia, Arthur Levine, Atheneum, Aurora, Candlewick Press, Devil’s Due, Drawn & Quarterly, Fiery Studios, Frances Foster Books, Graphix, Henry Holt, Hill and Wang, Ice Kunion, Juné, Last Gasp, NBM, Riverhead Trade, Sparkplug, Top Shelf, Viking, Viper.

There are some new entries among the nominations for the Young Adult Library Services Association’s Great Graphic Novels for Teens list, presenting the usual interesting range of entries. Self-published books, works from new and newish graphic novel arms of big publishing houses, spandex sagas, mopey autobiography, anthologies, manga and manhwa, fact-based, historical, chatty, wordless, highbrow, lowbrow — you name it, it’s there.

Last time I took a look, I predicted that Kazuhiro Oakmoto’s promising Translucent (Dark Horse) would show up before long, and my psychic powers are confirmed. Please ignore the fact that none of my other predictions have yet come to pass and gape in awe at my awesome psychic powers.

And hey, remember Spider-Man: Reign (Marvel), with its full-frontal nudity (later… um… excised) and toxic seminal fluid? It’s nominated, as is the collection of Marvel mega-event Civil War. And before you say, “It’s just a list of nominations,” remember that the defining capes bummer of last year, DC’s Identity Crisis, actually made the top ten in 2007. This would fall under the category of, “Shows what I know about what teens probably actually like.”

One of the many nice things about the Young Adult Library Services Association is that they don’t compartmentalize graphic novels in their awards process. I took a quick look at the nominees for the 2008 round of Best Books for Young Adults and found the following:

I’m particularly happy to see Glacial Period in there, and I think Re-Gifters is the best of Minx’s initial offerings. Gene Yang’s American Born Chinese made the top 10 in last year’s Best Books list.

The American Library Association’s Young Adult Library Services Association has added some nominations to its roster for the next round of Great Graphic Novels for Teens. The inclusion of Yellow Tanabe’s Kekkaishi (Viz) should make someone very happy.

Personally, I’m glad to see Yuji Iwahara’s King of Thorn (Tokyopop) and Yuki Urushibara’s Mushishi (Del Rey) make the short list. It’s an interesting mix of mainstream and indie, manga, manhwa, global and lots of flavors of “other.” (I’ll become tense if the next round doesn’t include Fumi Yoshinaga’s Flower of Life from DMP. Just so you know.)

If I were given to making predictions, I’d say that I suspect that Ai Morinaga’s My Heavenly Hockey Club (Del Rey), Tadashi Kawashima and Adachitoka’s Alive (Del Rey), Hideaki Sorachi’s Gin Tama (Viz), Satoru Akahori and Yukimaru Katsura’s Kashimashi (Seven Seas), and Kazuhiro Okomoto’s Translucent (Dark Horse) will show up before the nominations are over.