In the week leading up to the 2017 Will Eisner Awards voting deadline this Friday, the Comics Beat will feature a series of “For Your Consideration” posts highlighting a number of the nominees as a celebration of their well-deserved acknowledgement. We’ll feature some never-before-seen behind the scenes content and some of the books’ gorgeous interiors. We encourage all of our readers to check these titles out and all of the eligible comics industry members to vote for the titles they think best exemplify what make comics great.
Dark Horse acquitted itself well in this year’s Eisners with 13 nominations. Earlier in our Eisner Watch, we highlighted Black Hammer, which is up for the Best New Series award. We also featured a spotlight on that series’ writer, Jeff Lemire who is up for the Best Writer prize for his work on Black Hammer and a number of other titles.
Now, here’s a refresher on the other Dark Horse books up for Eisners this year:
Best Lettering: Todd Klein, Clean Room, Dark Night, Lucifer (Vertigo/DC); Black Hammer (Dark Horse)
Todd Klein has won so many Eisners – 16 – that it’s a running joke as to how he even has room for them all. Simply the greatest.
Best Single Issue/One-Shot: Beasts of Burden: What the Cat Dragged In, by Evan Dorkin, Sarah Dyer, and Jill Thompson (Dark Horse)
Best Painter/Multimedia Artist: Jill Thompson, Wonder Woman: The True Amazon (DC); Beasts of Burden: What the Cat Dragged In (Dark Horse)
Jill Thompson is an Eisner favorite with many wins over the years. Beasts of Burden, her collaboration with Evan Dorkin is a great showcase for her talents, with neighborhood pets taking on supernatural menaces. The mix of cute critters and scary beasts is a Thompson specialty, all painted with verve.
Best Limited Series: Briggs Land, by Brian Wood and Mack Chater (Dark Horse)
Brian Wood talked about urban revolution in his long running DMZ series, but in Brigg’s Land, it’s a rural turf war.
Best Graphic Album—New: Black Dog: The Dreams of Paul Nash, by Dave McKean (Dark Horse)
Best Painter/Multimedia Artist: Dave McKean, Black Dog (Dark Horse)
See our coverage here.
Best U.S. Edition of International Material: Moebius Library: The World of Edena, by Jean “Moebius” Giraud et al. (Dark Horse)
The US comics market has been waiting for updated English language editions of Moebius’s work for a loooong time, and Dark Horse’s deluxe presentation didn’t disappoint. Edena is one of his little known works here but it’s lovely – no surprise from one of the all time greatest – and most influential – cartoonists.
Best U.S. Edition of International Material—Asia: Wandering Island, vol. 1, by Kenji Tsuruta, translated by Dana Lewis (Dark Horse)
This Miyazaki-inspired fantasy features stunningly detailed art. Dark Horse has been published manga for as long as anyone in North America and they are still putting out some top new titles. To get some more awareness for the titles, here’s an extra big 19 page excerpt.
Mikura Amelia is a free-spirited young woman who lives alone with her cat and operates an air delivery service, flying her vintage seaplane to Japan’s small island communities located hundreds of miles out in the Pacific. When her beloved grandfather passes away, she discovers he left her an undelivered parcel, addressed to an island that doesn’t exist . . . or does it? To answer the question, Mikura flies off in search of the truth behind the Wandering Island!
Best Archival Collection/Project—Comic Books:
Fables and Funnies, by Walt Kelly, compiled by David W. Tosh (Dark Horse)
Who doesn’t love Pogo creator Walt Kelly? His whimsical art has a grace and expressiveness that’s rarely been surpassed. This volume collects fairy tales and nursery rhymes comics he made for Dell Comics in the 1940s.
Trump: The Complete Collection, by Harvey Kurtzman et al., edited by Denis Kitchen and John Lind (Dark Horse)
NO not the one you’re thinking of. In a more innocent time, Trump (1956-57) was Harvey Kurtzman’s dreamfollow-up to Mad – published by Hugh Hefner and with a line-up of the greatest cartoonists of the day – Mel Brooks, Will Elder, Jack Davis, Wally Wood. Despite this only two issues saw print. This deluxe edition reprints those and the aborted issue #3. A true lost comics classic.
Check out of all of our 2017 Eisner coverage.
