Subcultural engagement for the 21st Century...
Barbelith is a new kind of community (find out more)...
You can login or register.

Underground > Comic Books >

The Eisners - What the fuck?

06:39 / 09.04.04

I usually don't care about awards but glancing through this year's Eisners' nominees list made me a little unconfotable. how can it be representative of the Comics' mainstream of 2003 if it nominates Bendis for most of them for Best Writer [again] and on the other hand doesn't even mention books like THE FILTH?

nice bunch of diversity on the list, but it's still a bit thin. I wonder if the 5 people who chose the nominees have even come across books like that. hm, maybe they did and never liked them. but not even Weston's art? Kieron Dwyer on LAST OF THE INDEPENDENTS? come on, they're genuine Pop objects, the latter having been rated A- by Marc Bernardin from Entertainment Weekly, one of this year's 5 guys... I'm pretty sure there were many other forgotten GNs and minis out there too but hey.

please excuse the extremely fanboyish rant, but this sounds a bit ridiculous to me. I know awards self-serve a medium, but if Comics sees itself the way it still does then there's not much hope of a stronger outreach in the end.

Yotsuba & Benjamin!

11:08 / 09.04.04

Looked pretty good to me.

Although I was disappointed at its Grantlessness, any award nominating body that did not recognize Bendis and Maleev's stunning achievements monthly on Daredevil is much more suspect.

We also get much deserved nods to Quitely, Jill Thompson, Dave Sim, etc. The only weird stuff was a "More Recognition" for Brian Wood (Zuh?) and a nomination for Empire (Euccch) and not Fantastic Four.

Other than that, tip top.

Matthew Fluxington

13:59 / 09.04.04

I'd just like to point out that The Filth got very mixed reviews and was not a best seller by any stretch. Expecting it to be up for industry awards is more than a little unrealistic.

Matthew Fluxington

14:01 / 09.04.04

Also, isn't Bendis synonymous with mainstream comics in 2003? I mean, he writes at least half of them.

Yotsuba & Benjamin!

14:09 / 09.04.04

I completely agree, Flux. A nod for NXM would have been appropriate, though.

Yotsuba & Benjamin!

14:11 / 09.04.04

I'd call Austen more in line with "Mainstream Comics" in the derogatory sense. Even Bendis' worst stuff is merely enjoyable to read. Austen's worst is, well, do I need to elaborate? Worse still is how many Austen-lites there are filling in the other titles on the racks.

Matthew Fluxington

14:49 / 09.04.04

I wasn't using "mainstream" as a derisive term.

Yotsuba & Benjamin!

14:53 / 09.04.04

Yeah, I realized that after I wrote it. I guess you know what I meant though.

Matthew Fluxington

15:02 / 09.04.04

I love NXM to bits, but I'm not sure if the final year of that series was really award worthy. The first year, or the Riot story, maybe, but certainly not the Bachalo or Silvestri storylines.

15:15 / 09.04.04

//I'd just like to point out that The Filth got very mixed reviews and was not a best seller by any stretch. Expecting it to be up for industry awards is more than a little unrealistic.//

point. but I doubt the awards criteria.

//Also, isn't Bendis synonymous with mainstream comics in 2003? I mean, he writes at least half of them.//

not as well as they'd like to think, though.

Yotsuba & Benjamin!

16:56 / 09.04.04

By "they" do you mean, say, me? I mean, I read all of them and, well, my appraisal's above.

17:22 / 09.04.04

What's this Goon comic anyway.

And let's use this thread to pick our winners whether they're in the list or not.

17:48 / 09.04.04

Eh. I don't follow most comics at all anymore, and this is a pretty good indicator of why. I don't think there's much here to get excited about either way. As far as the writers go, I love Alan Moore, but nominating him for League is a little like...well...nominating Johnny Depp for The Pirates of the Carribean. Y'know, good writer, but if you'd never read anything else of his, you wouldn't exactly walk away from it thinking this guy's a genius. And comics must be in a bad way indeed in Ellis and Azz are two of the best writers in the medium. Bah. Wake me next year.

23:29 / 09.04.04

//By "they" do you mean, say, me? I mean, I read all of them and, well, my appraisal's above.//

the judges, sorry.