The nominees for the 2012 Will Eisner Comic Industry Awards have been announced. There are 27 categories plus the Hall of Fame.
Two people named to the Hall of Fame are pioneering newspaper cartoonist Rudolph Dirks (The Katzenjammer Kids) and comic book artist Harry Lucey (co-creator of Archie). In addition, the judges have also chosen 14 nominees from which voters will select 4 to be inducted in the Hall of Fame this year. These nominees are Bill Blackbeard, Howard Chaykin, Richard Corben, Carlos Ezquerra, Lee Falk, Bob Fujitani, Jesse Marsh, Tarpe Mills, Mort Meskin, Dennis O’Neil, Dan O’Neill, Katsuhiro Otomo, Trina Robbins, and Gilbert Shelton. More information on the nominees can be found on this page. Online voting is now open (for comics industry professionals).
The nominees were chosen by a panel of judges, this year including reviewer Brigid Alverson, retailer Calum Johnston, librarian Jesse Karp, cartoonist Larry Marder, comics historian Benjamin Saunders, and Comic-Con board of director Mary Sturhann.
This year’s judges added two new categories: Best Publication for Early Readers, and Best Educational/Academic Work. They also dropped four categories from the previous year: Best New Series, Best Adaptation from Another Medium, Best Writer/Artist-Nonfiction, and Best Painter/Multimedia Artist. According to Eisner Awards Administrator Jackie Estrada, “The judges chose to not have the New Series and Painter categories this year because they didn’t find enough contenders that reached the level of quality they were looking for.” However, Estrada says, “the extent and quality of the material submitted in the Kids and Teen categories was so high that the judges felt dividing these books into three categories was warranted.”
Ballots will be going out in mid-April to comics creators, editors, publishers, and retailers. In addition, a downloadable pdf of the ballot will be available online.
All the winners will be announced during an awards ceremony at the San Diego Comic-Con on Friday 13 July.
The full list of nominees is available on this page. For more information about the Eisner Awards, see this page.