Three UPM Titles Nominated for Eisner Awards

Nominations for the 2013 Will Eisner Comic Industry Awards have been announced and three UPM titles are being considered in the category of Best Educational/Academic Work. The nominated titles from UPM are Autobiographical Comics: Life Writing in Pictures, by Elisabeth El Refaie; Crockett Johnson & Ruth Krauss: How anUnlikely Couple Found Love, Dodged the FBI, and Transformed Children’sLiterature, by Philip Nel; Lynda Barry: Girlhood Through the LookingGlass, by Susan E. Kirtley.

The nominees, chosen by a blue-ribbon panel of judges, reflect the wide range of material being published in comics and graphic novel form today, from crime noire to autobiographical works to cartoon adventures.

Autobiographical Comics: Life Writing in Pictures offers a close reading eighty-five works of North American and European autobiographical comics; works that cover a broad range of subject matters and employ many different artistic styles. 

Crockett Johnson and Ruth Krauss: How an Unlikely Couple Found Love, Dodged the FBI, and Transformed Children’s Literature is an illustrated biography of the innovative children's literature creators. Johnson and Krauss were a husband-and-wife team that created such popular children's books as The Carrot Seed and How to Make an Earthquake. Separately, Johnson created the enduring children's classic Harold and the Purple Crayon and the groundbreaking comic strip Barnaby.

  

Lynda Barry: Girlhood Through the Looking Glass is a critical biography of Lynda Barry who is best known for her long-running comic strip Ernie Pook's Comeek. Kirtley examines the artist's career and contributions to the field of comic art and beyond. The study specifically concentrates on Barry's recurring focus on figures of young girls, in a variety of mediums and genres.

UPM finds itself in excellent company in the Education category. Other nominees include fellow university press publications Comics Versus Art, by Bart Beaty from University of Toronto Press and The Poetics of Slumberland, by Scott Bukatman from University of California Press.

This is only the second year the Eisner’s have included an academic category. Last year, Hand of Fire: The Comic Art of Jack Kirby by Charles Hatfield shared the award with Cartooning: Philosophy & Practice, by Ivan Brunetti (Yale University Press).  

The Will Eisner Comic Industry Awards are considered the “Oscars” of the comics world. Named for acclaimed comics creator the Will Eisner, the awards are celebrating their 25th year of highlighting the best publications and creators in comics and graphic novels. The 2013 Eisner Awards judging panel consists of reviewer Michael Cavna, academic/author Charles Hatfield (Cal State Northridge), retailer Adam Healy (CosmicMonkey, Portland, OR), author/educator Katie Monnin (Teaching Graphic Novels), cartoonist/critic Frank Santoro (Storeyville; TCJ), and Comic-Con International registrar John Smith.

The results of the voting will be announced in a gala awards ceremony on the evening of Friday, July 19 at Comic-Con International in San Diego. A full list of nominees can be seen here.