Eisner Award (the "Oscars" of comics) Judges Announced

 

Congratulations, Katie (friend and co-author) and all her fellow judges. 

The six judges (introduced below) are all well-deserved and well-respected judges. They will meet in April to decide and announce this year's Eisner nominees.  Industry members will vote and the award ceremony will be held with much celebration and gala at the San Diego Comic Con in July.

The Will Eisner Comic Industry Awards, considered the “Oscars” of comics, turn 25 in 2013. The most prestigious of the industry’s awards, the Eisners are given out at a gala ceremony on the Friday night of Comic-Con International: San Diego.

The Awards encompass more than two-dozen categories covering both works and creators. Nominees are chosen by a blue-ribbon committee of judges, and the winners are chosen by professionals in the comics industry. Started in 1988, the awards are named for Will Eisner, the legendary creator of “The Spirit” and giant of the graphic novel. The Eisner Awards administrator is Jackie Estrada.

Judges Named for 2013 Eisner Awards

The judges will meet in San Diego in early April to select the nominees that will be placed on the Eisner Awards ballot. The nominees will then be voted on by professionals in the comic book industry, and the results will be announced in a gala awards ceremony on Friday, July 19 at Comic-Con in San Diego.

Six Comics Experts Make Up Nominating Committee. This year's judges are:

Dr. Katie Monnin, assistant professor of literacy at the University of North Florida. She has written four books about teaching comic books and graphic novels in 21st-century classrooms: Teaching Graphic Novels (2010, a finalist for ForeWord's Educational Book of the Year Award), Teaching Early Reader Comics and Graphic Novels (2011), Using Content Area Graphic Texts for Learning (2012), and Teaching Reading Comprehension with Graphic Texts (2013).  Her next book, Get Animated! Teaching Children's Cartoons in the Elementary Classroom is set to be released fall 2013.

Michael Cavna, award-winning writer, editor, and artist with The Washington Post, for which he writes the popular "Comic Riffs" cartoon blog. As a journalist, his favorite interviews have included Bill Watterson, Neil Gaiman, Tim Burton, Marjane Satrapi ,and Hayao Miyazaki. As a cartoonist, Cavna—a San Francisco native and UCSD alum—began working professionally at age 12 and has drawn for numerous syndicates and national publications. He wrote the main text for the 2012 anthology book Team Cul de Sac: Cartoonists Draw the Line at Parkinson's (Andrews McMeel).

Charles Hatfield, professor of English at California State University, Northridge. Charles is the author of two books, the Eisner Award–winning Hand of Fire: The Comics Art of Jack Kirby (2011) and Alternative Comics: An Emerging Literature (2005). He has written essays on comics for many academic, trade, and fan publications and has written reviews for The Comics Journal and various comics blogs. Charles is co-editor of The Superhero Reader (coming in 2013 from the University Press of Mississippi), and is currently collaborating on two other books. He serves on the Modern Language Association’s Discussion Group on Comics and Graphic Narratives as well as the editorial boards for several academic journals and book series in comics studies. (Photo courtesy photographer Lee Choo & CSU Northridge.)

Adam Healy, co-owner of Cosmic Monkey Comics in Portland, Oregon. Adam has been in comics retailing since 2003 and became co-owner (with Andy Johnson) of Cosmic Monkey in 2007. The popular store prides itself on the diversity of material it carries and on the comfortable environment it offers its customers. Adam has degrees in Psychology and Sociology, and is most proud of the Science, Foreign Language, and All-Ages sections of his store.

Frank Santoro, author of the graphic novel Storeyville (published by Picturebox) and a columnist for The Comics Journal. He co-founded the comics criticism magazine ComicsComics with Dan Nadel and Timothy Hodler. He has also created a correspondence course for comic book makers and has taught drawing at Parsons School of Design. His comics have been published in Kramers Ergot, Mome, and The Ganzfeld. He has exhibited at the Carnegie Museum of Art in Pittsburgh and at The Fumetto Festival in Switzerland. He lives and works in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania.

John Smith, co-coordinator of the Attendee Registration Department, Comic-Con International: San Diego. John is a lifelong comics fan who has been involved with Comic-Con since 1991, when he started as a volunteer in the registration department. He has been co-registrar since 1997. For the last five years he has also been a judge for the Russ Manning Promising Newcomer award. His comics collecting days go back to childhood, when he lived in Los Angeles and regularly went to Cherokee Book Store on Hollywood Boulevard to buy back issues.