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.