The Eisner nominations were announced yesterday and I thought I’d take a nationalistic look at how Canadians were represented beyond just highlighting their names in red.

The big individual Canadian creator nominee of this year is IAN BOOTHBY, who is nominated three times this year:
– Best Humor Publication for The Comic Book Guy: The Comic Book (with US creators John Delaney and Dan Davis)
– Best Graphic Album – Reprint for The Simpsons/Futurama Crossover Crisis with fellow Canuck artist James Lloyd and American Steve Steeres Jr.
– Best Writer for Comic Book Guy: The Comic Book, Futurama, the Simpsons and Simpsons Super Spectacular.

Comment: Boothby, a perennial JSA Writer nominee, was not nominated for a Shuster in 2011, which clearly must have inspired the Eisner judges to imbalance this injustice by nominating him for three awards this year.

The big Canadian publisher of the year is, without any surprise, DRAWN & QUARTERLY, their books featuring the work of American cartoonists Dan Clowes, James Sturm, Lynda Barry and Chris Ware have garnered a whopping 11 nominations this year:
– Lynda Barry’s Picture This: The Near-sighted Boy is nominated for Best Reality-Based Work, Best Painter/Multimedia Artist (interior art)
– Dan Clowes’ Wilson is nominated for Best Graphic Album – New, Best Writer/Artist and Best Letterering
– James Sturm’s Market Day is nominated for Best Graphic Album – New, Best Writer/Artist
– John Stanley’s Thirteen (Going on Eighteen) is nominated for Best Archival Collection/Project – Comic Books
– Brecht Evans’ The Wrong Place is nominated for Best Painter/Multimedia Artist (interior art)
– Chris Ware’s The Acme Novelty Library 20: Lint is nominated for Best Lettering and Best Coloring

Comment: Montreal’s D+Q consistently proves year after year that they are producing some of the best looking books on the market, and they have been extremely successful in attracting some of the most innovative and best-known American cartoonists to work with them. Kudos to publisher Chris Oliveros, publicity and marketing director Peggy Burns and the rest of the team. Sadly, no D+Q books by Canadian creators were nominated for Eisner Awards this year. D+Q has been a perennial nominee for the Joe Shuster Award for Outstanding Publisher and won it in 2006, 2007 and 2008.

Two Generals by SCOTT CHANTLER, published by McClelland and Stewart garnered two nominations:
– Best Reality-Based Work
– Best Publication Design by JENNIFER LUM

Comment: Chantler’s Two Generals helped earn him two Joe Shuster Nominations this year, and Jennifer Lum’s innovative design stands out on the rack, recreating the look and feel of a journal.

DARWYN COOKE received two nominations this year for Richard Stark’s Parker: The Outfit:
– Best Writer/Artist
– Best Lettering

Comment: Canada’s comics ambassador to the world, Darwyn Cooke, rightly deserves the nomination for Best Writer/Artist for his second adaptation of a Parker novel. He’s also nominated for a Joe Shuster Award this year for Outstanding Cartoonist.

Other Canadian nominees:

– BLAKE BELL‘s Fire and Water: Bill Everett and the Birth of Marvel Comics, published by Fantagraphics, is nominated for Best Comics-Related Book
– Tumor, illustrated by Canadian NOEL TUAZON, published by Archaia, is nominated for Best Graphic Album – Reprint
– Superboy, written by JEFF LEMIRE, published by DC, is nominated for Best New Series
– “Little Red Riding Hood” from Image Comics’ Fractured Fairy Tales, illustrated by CAMILLA D’ERRICO is nominated for Best Short Story
– The Anthology Project from Canadian publisher LUCIDITY PRESS is appropriately nominated for Best Anthology
– ASHLEY SPIRES‘ Binky to the Rescue, published by Canadian publisher KIDS CAN PRESS is nominated for Best Publication for Kids

Comments: Bell’s book is fantastic and fascinating, Lemire is also nominated for three Joe Shuster Awards this year – one of which is Outstanding Writer for his work on Superboy and the Atom, Camilla D’Errico is nominated this year for Outstanding Artist for a list of works that includes the Fractured Fairy Tale story, and Binky to the Rescue is also nominated for the Joe Shuster Comics for Kids Award, and the book’s publisher is also nominated for Outstanding Publisher..

Finally, KARL KERSHL has been nominated for his webcomic The Abominable Charles Christopher, as has CANAAN GRAAL for his webcomic Max Overacts.

Comments: Karl won last year’s Joe Shuster Award for Outstanding Webcomics Creator and is nominated again this year. Last year’s Eisner winner was Sin Titulo by Cameron Stewart, which won the JSA for Outstanding Webcomics Creator in 2009. We might see a trend continuing. Our webcomics coordinator, Andrew Walsh told us to keep an eye out for Max Overacts, and sure enough, it’s been nominated for an Eisner!

Congratulations to all of the Canadians nominated for Eisners! Ceremony takes place in July during the San Diego Comic Con International. I’ll see you there!