Eisner Awards Celebrate Comics’ Best and Brightest

It’s that time of year again. No, not the annual appearance of that “right jolly old elf”, nor the ringing in of yet another 12 months.

The judging panel for the 2017 Eisner Awards–handed out to mark the best in creative achievement in American comic books–has been named. This august panel will select the nominations that will appear on next year’s Eisner Awards ballot.

These coveted prizes–which will include the Comic Industry’s Hall of Fame–are named in honor of the legendary writer/artist Will Eisner (in case you didn’t know). The awards, voted on by comics professionals, will be presented at next July’s San Diego Comic-Con International.

Among the categories included in the awards, celebration: are Best Writer, Best Writer/Artist,  Best Artist/Penciller/Inker, Best New Series, Best Colorist, Best Letterer, Best Limited Series and Best Anthology.

Some of the winners of the 2016 Eisner Awards included: Walt Kelly’s Fairy Tales, edited by Craig Yoe for Best Writer; Jason Aaron for Best Writer/Artist; Bill Griffith for Best Penciller/Inker;

David Aja for Best Colorist; and Jordie Bellaire for Best Letterer.

This year’s judging panel includes:

* Alan Campbell, a longtime member of the Comic-Con International Board of Directors, who has been involved in staging the San Diego Comic-Con and related events for more than 30 years. He received the Inkpot Award for Fandom Services in 2013.

* Rob Clough, who has been writing about comics since 2001, and has published his works in The Comics Journal, Savant, and Sequential. He also has edited the comics section for another magazine. Clough also was the first guest curator for the Library of Congress at the Small Press Expo in 2012.

* Jamie Newbold is the owner of Southern California Comics in San Diego, which is well-known for providing free comic books to local charities and for bringing its “traveling show” to various community events. Newbold’s more than 40 years of back-issue retailing began in the era of the 1972 San Diego Comic Con.

* Robert Moses Peaslee, associate professor and chair in the Department of Journalism & Electronic Media at Texas Tech University, is the co-editor of Marvel Comics into Film: Essays on Adaptations Since the 1940s and The Joker: A Serious Study of the Clown Prince of Crime. His articles on film and art have been published in various journals.

* Dawn Rutherford is the Teen Services Coordinator for Sno-Isle Libraries in Washington State. She helped organize the 2002 YALSA preconference on Graphic Novels and chaired YALSA’s first Great Graphic Novels for Teens committee. She has presented numerous times at library conferences and the Emerald City Comic Con with her fellow librarians.

* Martha Thomases, a columnist at ComicMix.com, has served as publicity manager for DC Comics, where her work on “The Death of Superman” comics fans everywhere feels the “loss” of the Man of Steel. She also has pioneered comics coverage in various magazines and helped to launch both Vertigo and Milestone. In addition, Thomases created Dakota North for Marvel Comics in the 1980s.