2021 Eisner Award Winners
What are the Eisner Awards? The Will Eisner Comic Industry Awards are considered the “Oscars” of the comics world. Named for the pioneering comics creator and graphic novelist Will Eisner, the awards are given out in more than two dozen categories during a ceremony each year at Comic-Con International: San Diego.
Can I find these award winners and nominations at BPL? Yes! Look inside to see winners in each category and where to find them on the shelf or from the library’s digital offerings.
Eisner Award Website Best Continuing Series
Usagi Yojimbo Find it at: YA GN SAKAI or on hoopla
The setting is 17th century Japan, when the age of civil wars has barely ended and the Shogun has established power. The samurai is the ruling class throughout the land, following a warrior's code of honor known as Bushido. Usagi Yojimbo Vol. 1 chronicles this time of settling unrest and political intrigue, told through the story of a wandering and Nominees: masterless samurai named Miyamoto Usagi, • Bitter Root GN WALKER | hoopla aka Usagi Yojimbo! One of the great classics • The Department of Truth GN TYNION | of the last 20 years, perfect for all ages. hoopla • Daredevil hoopla • Gideon Falls GN LEMIRE | hoopla • Stillwater GN ZDARSKY | hoopla Best Limited Series
Superman’s Pal Jimmy Olsen Find it at GN FRACTION Coming to the shelf soon!
Superman's pal Jimmy Olsen is presumed dead--now Jimmy must locate his own suspected murderer before Lex Luthor can seize control of Metropolis. When Jimmy's journalistic connections begin dying in darkly humorous ways, he goes undercover to solve the crimes and host a podcast that pranks the DC Universe's heroes, with especially ill-advised jabs at Batman (like starting a phone-in campaign as to whether Robin should live or die) that draw the Dark Knight's ire. Fraction's set pieces span from Jimmy's impromptu marriage in Gorilla City to a Goldfinger parody and a blood-vomiting Red Lantern cat, all against the backstory of Metropolis's founding by warring clans of Luthors and Olsens. The Nominees: final act pulls all the characters back on stage for a big street fight to determine the future of the Daily Planet. • Barbalien Lieber's art achieves a sharp simplicity of design that • Decorum coming soon echoes great Superman tales from the 1960s, and Nathan Fairbairn's restrained coloring contrasts the • Far Sector coming soon idiosyncratic story beats. This spin on the DC Universe's • Strange Adventures coming soon wackier concepts is joyfully irreverent. • We Live Best New Series
Black Widow Find it at: GN THOMPSON or on hoopla
Something is very wrong with Natasha: She's...happy?! Kelly Thompson. Black Widow. 'Nuff said! The best- selling, Eisner Award-nominated writer of CAPTAIN MARVEL joins rising-star artist Elena Casagrande to change everything for Natasha Romanoff! The Widow has been a spy almost as long as she's been alive. And she's never stopped running, whether she was working for the good guys or the bad. But retirement definitely agrees with the world's deadliest woman as she revels in the perfect life she never dreamed she could have. But Nominees: scratch the surface of that perfect life and you'll find • Crossover GN CATES | hoopla something very wrong lurking beneath it - and a woman like Nat just can't help but scratch. Beyond San • The Department of Truth GN Francisco's Golden Gate Bridge lies a mystery only the TYNION | hoopla Marvel Universe's greatest spy can solve! Prepare for a • Killadelphia hoopla can't-miss thrill ride! • We Only Find Them When They’re Dead hoopla Best Publication for Teens
Dragon Hoops Find it at: YA GN YANG
In his latest graphic novel, Dragon Hoops, New York Times bestselling author Gene Luen Yang turns the spotlight on his life, his family, and the high school where he teaches.
Gene understands stories--comic book stories, in particular. Big action. Bigger thrills. And the hero always wins.
But Gene doesn't get sports. As a kid, his friends called him "Stick" and every basketball game he played ended in pain. He lost interest in basketball long ago, but at the high school where he now teaches, it's all anyone can talk about. The men's varsity team, the Dragons, is having a phenomenal season that's been decades in the making. Each victory brings them closer to their ultimate goal: the California State Nominees: Championships. • Check, Please! YA GN UKAZU Once Gene gets to know these young all-stars, he realizes • Displacement YA GN HUGHES | hoopla that their story is just as thrilling as anything he's seen on a comic book page. He knows he has to follow this epic to its • Fights hoopla end. What he doesn't know yet is that this season is not only • A Map to the Sun going to change the Dragons's lives, but his own life as well. • When Stars are Scattered YA GN JAMIESON Best Humor Publication
Superman’s Pal Jimmy Olsen Find it at GN FRACTION Coming to the shelf soon!
Superman's pal Jimmy Olsen is presumed dead--now Jimmy must locate his own suspected murderer before Lex Luthor can seize control of Metropolis. When Jimmy's journalistic connections begin dying in darkly humorous ways, he goes undercover to solve the crimes and host a podcast that pranks the DC Universe's heroes, with especially ill-advised jabs at Batman (like starting a phone-in campaign as to whether Robin should live or die) that draw the Dark Knight's ire. Fraction's set pieces span from Jimmy's impromptu marriage in Gorilla City to a Goldfinger parody and a blood-vomiting Red Lantern cat, all against the backstory of Metropolis's founding by warring clans of Luthors and Olsens. The final act pulls all the characters back on stage for a big Nominees street fight to determine the future of the Daily Planet. • The Complete Fante Bukowski Lieber's art achieves a sharp simplicity of design that echoes great Superman tales from the 1960s, and GN VAN SCI | hoopla Nathan Fairbairn's restrained coloring contrasts the • Department of Mind-Blowing Theories idiosyncratic story beats. This spin on the DC Universe's wackier concepts is joyfully irreverent. GN GAULD | hoopla • FANGS GN ANDERSEN • Wendy, Master of Art GN SCOTT • What If We Were… hoopla Best Anthology
Menopause: A Comic Treatment Find it at: GN 618.175 CZERWIEC 2020 Coming to a shelf near you!
Like so many other issues surrounding women's reproductive health, menopause has been treated as a cultural taboo. On the rare occasions that menopausal and perimenopausal women are depicted in popular culture, they are stereotypically cast as the butt of demeaning jokes that encourage us to laugh at their deteriorating bodies and emotional volatility. The result is that women facing menopause often feel isolated and ashamed. In a spirit of community and support, this collection of comics presents a different view of menopause that enables those experiencing it to be seen and to feel empowered.
Balancing levity with sincerity, these comics unapologetically depict menopause and all its attendant symptoms, from hot flashes and vaginal dryness to forgetfulness, social stigma, anxiety, and shame. Created from a variety of perspectives, they represent a range of life experiences, ages, gender identities, ethnicities, and health conditions. The common thread uniting these stories is the affirmation that, while we can and should laugh at Nominees ourselves, no one should be ashamed of menopause. The comics in this book • Guantanamo Voices GN B MIRK | hoopla encourage us to share our experiences and to support one another, and ourselves, through self-care and community. • Hey, Amateur! GN 646.7 HEIR 2020 • Now hoopla Featuring works by a host of pioneering and up-and-coming comics artists, Menopause is a perfect foil to the simplistic, cheap-joke approach society at large has taken to this much-derided women's health issue. Readers will revel in the sly humor and universal truths found here. Best Reality-Based Work
Kent State: Four Dead in Ohio Find it at: GN 378.77137 BACKDER 2020 or on hoopla
From bestselling author Derf Backderf comes the untold story of the Kent State shootings-timed for the 50th anniversary. On May 4, 1970, the Ohio National Guard gunned down unarmed college students protesting the Vietnam War at Kent State University. In a deadly barrage of 67 shots, 4 students were killed and 9 shot and wounded. It was the day America turned guns on its own children-a shocking event burned into our national memory. A few days prior, 10-year-old Derf Backderf saw those same Guardsmen patrolling his nearby hometown, sent in by the governor to crush a trucker strike. Using the journalism skills he employed on My Friend Dahmer and Trashed, Backderf has conducted extensive interviews and research to explore the lives of these four young people and the events of those four days in May, when the country seemed on the brink of tearing apart. Kent State: Four Dead Nominees: in Ohio, which will be published in time for the 50th • Big Black: Stand at Attica anniversary of the tragedy, is a moving and troubling story about the bitter price of dissent-as relevant today as it was in GN 365.97479 SMITH 2020 | hoopla 1970. • Dragon Hoops YA GN YANG | hoopla • Invisible Differences GN 618.92 DACHEZ 2020 • Paying the Land GN 971.2004 SACCO 2020 • Year of the Rabbit GN TIAN Best Graphic Album - New
Pulp Find it at: GN BRUBAKER or on hoopla
A gorgeous original graphic novel from the bestselling creators of Kill Or Be Killed, My Heros Have Always Been Junkies, and Criminal. Max Winters, a pulp writer in 1930s New York, finds himself drawn into a story not unlike the tales he churns out at five cents a word-tales of a Wild West outlaw dispensing justice with a six-gun. But will Max be able to do the same when pursued by bank robbers, Nazi spies, and enemies from his past? One part thriller, one part meditation on a life of violence, Pulp is unlike anything award-winning Nominees: Brubaker and Phillips have ever done before. • The Book Tour GN WATSON | hoopla This celebration of pulp fiction set in a world on the brink is another must-have hardcover from one of • Dragman comics' most acclaimed teams. • Flake GN DOOLEY • Labyrinth GN ARGON | hoopla • Paul at Home GN RABAGLIATI Best Adaptation from Another Medium
Superman Smashes the Klan Find it at: YA GN YANG
The year is 1946, and the Lee family has moved from Chinatown to Downtown Metropolis. While Dr. Lee is eager to begin his new position at the Metropolis Health Department, his two kids, Roberta and Tommy, are more excited about being closer to the famous superhero Superman! Tommy adjusts quickly to the fast pace of their new neighborhood, befriending Jimmy Olsen and joining the club baseball team, while his younger sister Roberta feels out of place when she fails to fit in with the neighborhood kids. She's awkward, quiet, and self- conscious of how she looks different from the kids around her, so she sticks to watching people instead of talking to them. While the Lees try to adjust to their new lives, an evil is stirring in Metropolis- the Ku Klux Klan. The Klan targets the Lee family, beginning a string of terrorist attacks. They kidnap Tommy, attack the Daily Planet, and even threaten the local YMCA. But with the help of Roberta's keen skills of observation, Superman is able to fight the Klan's terror, while exposing those in power who support Nominees: them--and Roberta and Superman learn to embrace their own unique features that set them apart. • Constitution Illustrated • GN 970.980 SIKORYA 2020 • Parable of the Sower GN BUTLER | hoopla • Sapiens: A Graphic History GN 909 HARARI 2020 #1 • Slaughterhouse-Five GN VONNEGUT | hoopla Best US Edition of International Material
Goblin Girl Find it at: GN 616.8527 ROMANOV 2020 or on hoopla
A dating site match goes really wrong in this troubling, funny graphic memoir. Things seem to be looking up when Moa Romanova ― broke, depressed, and living in a squat above an old store ― matches with a very famous celebrity on a popular hook-up site. Not only does the 53- year-old man like Moa ― he also immediately validates and motivates her in a way that not Nominees: even her therapist does, even offering to help • Altitude financially support her artistic ambitions. However, Moa soon discovers that there are • Gamayun Tales I strings attached. Drawn in a style that's de • Irena Books 2-3 Chirico by way of the '80s, Romanova's relatable • When You Look Up graphic memoir is a thought-provoking debut. • The Winter of the Cartoonist GN BIO ROCA ROCA 2020 Best US Edition of International Material (Asia)
Remina Coming Soon
An unknown planet emerges from inside a wormhole, and its discoverer, Dr. Oguro, christens the body Remina after his own daughter. His finding is met with great fanfare, and Remina herself rises to fame. However, the object picks up speed as it moves along in its curious course, eliminating planets and stars one after another, until finally Earth Eisner Award Nominations itself faces extinction Is the girl Remina the • I Had That Same Dream Again true cause of the catastrophe? • I Wish I Could Say “Thank You” • A Journal of My Father • Ping Pong • Spy x Family YA GN ENDO