Two UPM Titles Nominated for Eisner Awards

Nominations for the 2016 Will Eisner Comic Industry Awards have been announced and two UPM titles are being considered in the category of Best Educational/Academic Work. Our two nominees this year are Boys Love Manga and Beyond: History, Culture, and Community in Japan edited By Mark Mclelland, Kazumi Nagaike, Katsuhiko Suganuma, and James Welker and Superheroes On World Screens edited by Rayna Denison and Rachel Mizsei-Ward.

This marks the fifth straight year that UPM has had multiple nominees in the Best Academic/Scholarly Work category. 

Boys Love Manga and Beyond is a collection of essays that critically examine the "beautiful boy" love comics that enthralled fans in Japan and then worldwide. In recent decades, "Boys Love" (or simply BL) has emerged as a mainstream genre in manga, anime, and games for girls and young women.Today, a wide range of products produced both by professionals and amateurs are brought together under the general rubric of "Boys Love," and are rapidly gaining an audience throughoutAsia and globally.This collection provides the first comprehensive overview in English of the BL phenomenon in Japan, its history and various subgenres, and introduces translations of some key Japanese scholarship not otherwise available.

Superheroes on World Screens is a collection of essays that explore the many ways in which superheroes no longer belong solely to America. That is to say, many national cultures have created or re-imagined the idea of the superhero and the realm of superheroes now contains many icons whose histories borrow from local folklore and legends. Through analysis of mainly film, television, and computer screens, contributors demonstrate how far superheroes have traveled to inspire audiences worldwide.

UPM is pleased to be joined by three other university presses as nominees in the Best Academic/Scholarly Work category. The Blacker the Ink: Constructions of Black Identity in Comics and Sequential Art, edited by Frances Gateward and John Jennings (Rutgers University Press); Graphic Medicine Manifesto, by M. K. Czerwiec et al. (Penn State University Press); Unflattening, by Nick Sousanis (Harvard University Press). A full list of nominees can be seen here. 

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 28th year of highlighting the best publications and creators in comics and graphic novels. The 2016 Eisner Awards judging panel consists of journalist/reviewer Brian Doherty, comics writer/editor Danny Fingeroth, retailer Jason Grazulis (BSI Comics, Metairie, LA), librarian Jason M. Poole (Webster Public Library, Webster, NY), Comic-Con International board member Natalie Powell, and academic/scholar Carol Tilley (University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign).

Voting for the awards is held online, and the ballot is available at www.eisnervote.com. All professionals in the comic book industry are eligible to vote. The deadline for voting is June 17. The results of the voting will be announced in a gala awards ceremony on the evening of Friday, July 22 at Comic-Con International.

More information about the Eisner Awards can be found at http://www.comic-con.org/awards/eisner-awards-current-info