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Five Biggest Snubs and Five Amazing Surprises from the 2014 Eisner Nominations

By | April 16th, 2014
Posted in Columns | 8 Comments

The 2014 Eisner Awards nominees have been announced, and perhaps more than any year I can remember, it’s pretty hard to disagree with anything they came up with. I’m not just saying that because we earned a nomination, but it’s just a pretty iron clad list of nominees who have done stellar work or are just beautiful works in their own right. This really is an excellent look at the year in comics for 2013, and years down the line, I think people will agree it represents the year well.

With that said, I’d like to underline some books or creators who I feel really deserved representation, while also highlighting some pleasant surprises from the list. Even with the judges doing such a fantastic job, there are still a number of picks (or lack thereof) that stood out to me. Share your thoughts in the comments, and let us know who you’d have really liked to see get a nomination, or the picks that were the most exciting to you.

Five Biggest Snubs

1. Brian K. Vaughan not getting any love for “The Private Eye”

Don’t get me wrong, he was nominated for Best Writer, which is well deserved. But how weird is it that “The Private Eye” wasn’t also featured next to his name? It’s a simple consideration, and it may be entirely tied to what was submitted for him, but it’s a little shocking that – even though he got nominated – they didn’t include all of his work. And it’s not a case like Jordie Bellaire where she does so much work that they can’t list everything, as BKV only had one other book – “Saga” – to his name. I wonder why that happened and what the reasoning behind that was. I’m sure it wasn’t anything nefarious, but it’s a little strange, isn’t it?

Meanwhile, Marcos Martin doing career best work and the book itself, a shoe-in in my mind for the digital/web category, didn’t earn any nominations as well. Given its high profile and stunning quality, this was definitely the snub that stood out most to me.

2. Ive Svorcina gets a nomination for “Thor: God of Thunder”, but Esad Ribic doesn’t

When Esad Ribic was on “Thor: God of Thunder” in 2013, it was inarguably the best looking comic around in my book, thanks to Ribic’s stunning gifts and to Svorcina’s colors. But those two artists are inextricably linked in my mind, and you really truly can’t have one without the other, especially when you consider how much better Svorcina’s colors looked over Ribic’s art rather than Ron Garney’s.

Ribic deserved a nomination, as did Svorcina. But to have one without the other? That’s painting only half the picture in my mind.

3. Speaking of, no Jason Aaron for Best Writer

The writer on that very book, Jason Aaron, was also a curious absence for me. Now, Best Writer was an exceptionally competitive category, with six names making it in and all of them being deserving. But Jason Aaron was Multiversity’s #3 writer of the year, and his work on “Wolverine and the X-Men”, “Amazing X-Men”, and most notably, “Thor: God of Thunder” was more than enough to secure a spot for him in my mind. He’s someone who adds an unbelievable amount of humanity to everything he writes, while always giving stories he writes the appropriate scope and scale necessary to bring the best out of him. He’s just a phenomenally gifted storyteller.

I won’t feel too bad for him though. With “Southern Bastards” on the horizon, I’m pretty sure next year he’ll be back in the running.

4. “Zero” doesn’t get a Best New Series nod

This book from Ales Kot, Jordie Bellaire and a bevy of artists was our #2 pick for Best New Series in comics for 2013, and if you’ve read it, you know why: it isn’t just one of the best new series, it’s one of the absolute best PERIOD. They’ve crafted a book that can shift genres as easily as I type a sentence, jumping from coming of age tale to future tech spy story to gritty war drama with the greatest of ease, always hitting us in our hearts and minds as we learn the life story of superspy Edward Zero. It’s a beautiful book that has big ideas but never loses sight of little moments, and for all those reasons, I was more than a little surprised to not see it earn a nomination.

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Especially considering how much love Image earned overall.

5. No Mignolaverse prime

This is something that bothers me every year. “B.P.R.D.” is the most consistently good comic on the stands, never being less than satisfying and frequently being amongst the absolute best in the business. Yet it never earns nominations for anything, really. It’s a damn shame to not see it represented amongst the best in comics, but there are a number of reasons I think it’s hard for this book to earn votes. For one, it’s been around for a long time, and it is a book that has a lot of internal continuity, so for a panel of judges to try and look at everything that was good in 2013, unless they’re already fans of the book, it’s really difficult for them to just jump in and enjoy it (it’s worth noting that almost nothing that has been around for more than 25 or 30 issues earned a nomination). For another, it is a category hopper, as it has been an ongoing series of mini-series before, and even though it has settled onto being a more traditional ongoing at this point, that past may be confusing to voters.

“B.P.R.D. Vampire” and “Hellboy: The Midnight Circus” were two other books that were certainly deserving of recognition, but the Mignolaverse just doesn’t get a lot of love when it comes to the Eisner Awards.

Five Favorite Surprises

1. Aww yeah “Itty Bitty Hellboy”!

Except here! The Mignolaverse definitely got some love in the form of Franco and Art Baltazar’s all-ages Hellboy comic, which was a ton of fun for both adults (who love the character based gags) and kids (who loved the silliness). This was a deserved nomination, and I’m glad that the Mignolaverse at least earned a little love this year.

2. High times for “High Crimes”

When the first issue of “High Crimes” dropped digitally in January 2013, I tried it out as part of my Monkeybrain Weekly column, and man oh man, I was completely floored by it. This crime story on high is a knockout, with a fantastic premise that works all the better thanks to the exceptional character work from writer Chris Sebela and pitch perfect storytelling by artist Ibrahim Moustafa. Now, it’s a double Eisner nominee, one for Best New Series, and the other Best Digital/Webcomic. It’s a well deserved nomination, and as soon as I heard that it happened, I may or may not have done a little fist pump out of celebration.

3. “Nowhere Men” gets a lot of love

“Nowhere Men” has earned a lot of derision for its frequency of release, but this Image Comics series from writer Eric Stephenson, artist Nate Bellegarde and colorist Jordie Bellaire is undoubtedly one of the finest comics around today. As a total package, you can’t really find much better, and its ability to engage and amaze makes it one of the most hotly anticipated books for me whenever it drops. That all three of Stephenson, Bellegarde and Bellaire earned nominations as well as the book itself for Best Continuing Series shouldn’t really be a surprise, as they’re clearly amongst the best in the business. I’m just glad the judges didn’t hold its release schedule against it, and that they didn’t was a pleasant surprise.

But come on, we couldn’t get Fonografiks in there for Best Letterer? That guy is the glue of the book, and deserved some love in my opinion.

4. “The Creep” and its beautiful package gets a nomination

John Arcudi and Jonathan Case’s “The Creep” didn’t earn any nominations when it first arrived, even though it is one of the best limited series in recent memory. But the 2014 edition made up for it, as “The Creep” earned a nomination for Best Graphic Album – Reprint. Even without factoring in how awesome the book itself is, as a proud owner of “The Creep” and its collected edition, I can say the team at Dark Horse Comics did an absolutely phenomenal job in putting that package together. It’s a beauty that takes the book itself to the next level, and for the team of Arcudi and Case, I’m just glad their work is getting recognized now. Better late than never, I say.

5. Multiversity!

This is kind of cheap, as it’s about us, but I was genuinely surprised about Multiversity earning a nomination. It was a very, very welcome surprise, and something I secretly hoped for, but man, when we were notified, I basically turned into a little kid all over again. I was pretty close to jumping up and down and giggling uncontrollably. I could have picked a number of other awesome surprises, but how could my last one be anything but us earning a nomination? Thanks to the judges for the support. Everyone at Multiversity couldn’t be more proud.


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David Harper

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