2025 Eisner Judges announced: Conte, Helwick, Lemke, Manhoff and Versaci

Robert V. Conte attended his first San Diego Comic-Con in 1990 — promoting the first few comic books he wrote as a teen. In the 35 years since that life-changing experience, he has worn almost every hat imaginable in the comic book industry: editor, journalist, packager, print broker, publisher, and pop culture historian. “Being one of the judges for the 2025 Eisner Awards is an opportunity of a lifetime,” Robert says. I’m proud to have read over 100,000 comics and graphic novels since childhood. I am blessed to bring my experience and love for the medium to this iconic event with my gratitude to SDCC.”

Kacy Helwick is the Youth Collection Development Librarian for the New Orleans Public Library. She has been responsible for purchasing all genres of graphic novels for kids and teens, as well as manga and superhero titles for adults, for her library system’s 15 branches for more than a decade. She has reviewed for School Library Journal, read for YALSA’s Great Graphic Novels for Teens list, and served as a committee member for the Stonewall Book Awards. She currently volunteers as a content editor on the librarian-run comics review site NoFlyingNoTights.com and is treasurer of the American Library Association’s Graphic Novels & Comics Round Table.

Meg Lemke is the comics and graphic novels reviews editor at Publishers Weekly, where she regularly writes and edits comics features, and she co-hosts PW’s comics and pop culture podcast More to Come. She’s acted as series editor for the Illustrated PEN series (PEN America) and curated comics programs at PEN World Voices Festival, for the French Comics Association, and for over a decade at the Brooklyn Book Festival. She’s a member of the National Book Critics Circle and has served on judging committees for the Excellence in Graphic Literature Award and the NBCC Leonard Prize. Previously, she was a book editor at Teachers College Press at Columbia University, editing their language and literacy series; Seven Stories Press; and Houghton Mifflin, where she launched the Best American Comics series.

Eitan Manhoff is the owner of Cape and Cowl Comics, which he opened in Oakland, CA, in 2015. Before opening his own store, Eitan worked in comic book stores on and off for 20 years, with employment stints at Captain Nemo’s Comics in San Luis Obispo, CA, Treasures of Youth by Scott in Hayward, CA, and Crush Comics in Castro Valley, CA. Eitan is currently a member of the ComicsPro board of directors and is the director of promotions for the organization. Cape and Cowl won the Will Eisner Spirit of Comics Retail Award in 2023 after being a finalist in 2018, 2019, and 2022.

Rocco Versaci is an English professor at Palomar College in north San Diego County, where he regularly teaches a comics-themed literature course that he created in 2001. He is the author of This Book Contains Graphic Language: Comics as Literature, and his comics-related writing has appeared in The English Journal, The International Journal of Comic Art, and the books Teaching Visual Literacy, More Critical Approaches to Comics: Theories and Methods, and EC Archives: Two-Fisted Tales, Volume 2. In addition, he has presented his work on comics at the Comic Arts Conference at Comic-Con, at the National Council of Teachers of English National Convention, and as part of the Hudson Strode Speaker Series at the University of Alabama. He is also the co-founder of the North County Cartoonists Collective and editor of that group’s comic, Jollies.