131 thoughts on “2015 Eisner Award Winners”

1. An Evan Dorkin/Jill Thompson collaboration? To the comic shop I go!

2. Ross could have “crushed it” at Loncon too. But apparently Fandom had a problem with that. Three cheers for Fandom! (head in hands)

3. @Lorcan -Beasts Of Burden is great!

   Well done Lumberjanes, particularly, and all the other winners, too. Western comics are in a pretty awesome place at the moment. Private Eye is well worth checking out, if you follow the link. It’s a pay-what-you-can-or-like deal. with a print edition on the way. A really colourful post-net future-noir set in a society gone hyperprivate.

   Flip off, Brad Torgerson. You put your head in your hands over a kerfuffle about the PRESENTER of the awards, having made yourself, at best, a patsy in an effort at selling the awards themselves out to a military industrialist with a stake in the fundamentally anti-art culture wars. You should weep.

4. Congratulations to the winners!

   As for Johnathan Ross, someone who makes his career telling nasty jokes about fat women has only himself to blame when women aren’t thrilled with the prospect of him as MC. If he did fine at the Eisner’s that’s great; he’s learned better–but, you know, I think I’ll wait for some opinions from women on that.

   And in the meantime, the spectacle of a slate organizer having the chutzpah to “despair” over other people’s behavior… well, self-awareness has never been one of Brad’s strong points, has it?

5. Man, I really need to be reading Lumberjanes. Saga is a good win, but I gotta say I was pulling for Fraction’s Hawkeye, it’s done really good stuff with a meh character. And HOLY CRAP Sandman:Overture lost?! That’s a frickin’ upset.

   Regardless, congrats to all the nominees and to the winners.

   @Nigel – yes, I think that the Western comics world is having a banner year at the moment. A lot of it is from the smaller presses, so it’s a bit hard to keep up sometimes.

   @Brad. Sigh. Anyways, what were your favourite comics of the year? Any preferences in the Eisner’s?

6. @snowcrash – and there’s a fair bit online, too. I have favourites I check every day or week, but if I started straying around and looking at all the good stuff out there, it’s be even more of a catastrophic time-sink that Puppy Wars On File770.

   Oh and Emily Carroll! Spooky and strange!

   I could have sworn Kieron Gillen won something or other, too. Between Uber and The Wicked & The Divine and his run on Young Avengers and loads of other stuff, he’s one of the most daring and enjoyable of the current gen of writers. And Vanity Fair did just did an interview with Kelly-Sue DeConnick, whose Pretty Deadly is a mystical and surreal western and Bitch Planet is an ass-kickin’ Women’s Prison In Spaaaaaace! I think Brad R Torgersen should really check them out when he finishes grieving for The Lost Hugo Presentations Of Jonathan Ross.

7. Ah, silly people who insist on being silly, the point sails directly over your heads.

   If Ross can present the Eisners — and the world does not implode — what does that say about the ridiculous, needlessly vitriolic and hyperbolic, dare I even say asinine response to Ross’s having been named as toastmaster at Loncon 3? Is anyone on the Fandom side even a little bit ashamed of how Ross and his family were treated during that stupidly pointless debacle?

   I am glad Comic Con treated Ross right, and everybody had a good time as a result.

   To repeat what I’ve said elsewhere: there is the world of fans (small f) and the world of Fans (big f) and the world of Fans (big f) continues to diverge from the world of fans (small f).

   Where Ross’s toastmastering is concerned, the world of Fans lost.

   The world of fans won.

   Guess where the future lies?

8. Ah, silly people who insist on being silly, the point sails directly over your heads.

   He says, doing a dramatic action-hero roll to dodge the counterpoint.

   Guess where the future lies?

   Arbitrary distinctions made as wafer-thin justification for the devaluing of the content and purpose of awards themselves in the service of culture war profiteers?

   Read any comics yourself, Brad R Torgersen?

9. Ohhhhh, yeah, I’ll give a +1 for Uber as well. But man, even a single issue can be emotionally draining as all hell sometimes.

   Gillen’s Young Avengers is the best. Kid Loki! Hawkeye (anod hor great that she’s just that – not Kid Hawkeye, or She-Hawkeye or whatever)! Prodigy! And of course, Miss America:

   Princess. I’ve seen the way you look at me. You’re not that straight

   .

   ETA: Yes yes, Brad, we get it. People who don’t like what you like should just shut up and bugger off. And shock horror that some people find Ross’s humour offensive! That humour can be subjective? UNPOSSIBLE!!!

   But seriously, what do you think of the Eisners – did your favourites win? Were you surprised that Sandman: Overture didn’t? What’s some comics that you’ve read recently that you like?

10. Most recent Uber was a kick in the head (aren’t they all), but it isn’t as if TW&TD is a joyride, either, from that point of view. He has a very meticulous way of crafting his stories that can be utterly merciless in their cleaving to emotional and narrative logic. Young Avengers was like mainlining the zeitgeist.

    (If Brad R Torgersen isn’t familiar with the comics scene, he could do worse than check out the links to both the Carroll story and the Vaughan/Martin online GN. Poles apart – dark folk-horror and glossy sci-fi noir, but superb works. I’m not even being sarky, either.)

11. If I could pick just one comic that satisfies my sensibilities — in 2015 — it wouldn’t be from Marvel, nor DC, nor any of the smaller lines. It would be Pearls Before Swine by Stephan Pastis. He’s the guy who most closely resembles Berke Breathed, in the common man funnybone department. Like Breathed, Pastis seems to know when a sacred cow needs to be slaughtered. Of course, Berke was way ahead of his time.

12. A new troll! Finally I can take a break!

13. Ah, silly people who insist on being silly, the point sails directly over your heads.

    You really are good at describing yourself here. You are, without a doubt, one of the most cluelessly unself-aware dumbasses around. Based on the tweet of a single person, from an event you didn’t attend, and clearly have no understanding of given that you nominated a pile of shit in the Hugo Best Graphic Story category, you decide that Ross would have been great for Loncon.

    Given the completely shitty quality of the nominees you wedged onto the Hugo ballot with your slate, you should be hiding in shame. You’ve got no business telling anyone what is good or not, since your “tastes” are nothing but crony butt-kissing to get your friends Hugo nominations. You are responsible for the worst collection of Hugo nominees ever put forward. The only thing you should be doing is apologizing over and over again for foisting absolutely shitty crap onto Hugo voters.

14. Subtext becoming text there, Brad R Torgersen. Huge Bloom County fan, here, EVEN THOUGH I’m sure Breathed would be TOTALLY sympathetic to the Puppies and see the dignity and justice inherent in their cause. Hairy fishnuts, Brad R Torgersen. Hairy fishnuts indeed.

15. Brad R. Torgersen:

    “If I could pick just one comic that satisfies my sensibilities — in 2015 — it wouldn’t be from Marvel, nor DC, nor any of the smaller lines. It would be Pearls Before Swine by Stephan Pastis.”

    What, no Zombie Nation? Isn’t that still the absolute best comic a puppy can find? A comic so fantastic it leaves everything else behind? The greatness so obvious for everyone who loves it as soon as they see it?

16. A new troll! Finally I can take a break!

    Oh, keep digging, BrianZilla. You’ll get out of that hole any time now.

17. Oh lord, I forgot Zombie Nation. So did everyone else by the sound of it.

    (Is there any greater disservice you can do a creator than put work that’s simply not ready for prime time up for a major international award, submitting it to that sort of scrutiny, with people nominating it admitting to not even having read it and the organisers of the slates not only not bothering to defend the work or the choosing of that work, but actively pretending it doesn’t exist? Jesus.)

18. Zombie Nation is germane to SF/F while Pearls Before Swine is not. A few of us still think the field’s so-called Most Prestigious Award, should actually go to works which have at least a modicum of recognizable SF/F about them.

19. @Brad

    If I could pick just one comic that satisfies my sensibilities — in 2015 — it wouldn’t be from Marvel, nor DC, nor any of the smaller lines. It would be Pearls Before Swine by Stephan Pastis.

    Oh okay. Seems a bit old school, but whatever gets your goat. Not really a follower of much newspaper style comic strips nowadays, used to like Dilbert et al, but I think I stopped roughly when I stopped getting physical newspapers.

    Reminds me when many years ago, one of the local newspapers reprinted the entire Walt Simonson Raganarok Saga from the Mighty Thor as a daily comic strip – with a double page every Sunday. No idea if that was even remotely legal, but it did get me started on superhero comics.

    @Cat

    And in the meantime, the spectacle of a slate organizer having the chutzpah to “despair” over other people’s behavior… well, self-awareness has never been one of Brad’s strong points, has it?

    It has been noted that Brad sets very high standards for *other* people’s conduct.

    @Brian Z – yerps, clock out, rest up, and hopefully come back in your old form. It’s been a bit weak lately

    Oh, and

    …should actually go to works which have at least a modicum of recognizable SF/F about them.

    Ladies and gentlemen, Wisdom From the Internet.

20. Beasts of Burden is great and highly deserving of the award. And Little Nemo: Return to Slumberland was also excellent, I’m going to have to congratulate Eric Shanower when I see him at the end of the month.

    This list of winners is definitely something people can look at as a recommendation list. There’s a lot of good books on here.

21. with people nominating it admitting to not even having read it and the organisers of the slates not only not bothering to defend the work or the choosing of that work, but actively pretending it doesn’t exist?

    Brad has never defended any of the nominees from his slate. That is because he can’t. He knows they are all shitty, but he put them on there because they were written by his friends or people he owed favors to. He knows the method they were selected is corrupt and the works themselves are so awful as to be unedefendable, so he dissembles, dodges, evades, and weaves rather than talk about them. Instead, he whines and snivels about anything else he can think of just to try to get onto another topic.

    Brad, it’s not working. We all know you are a corrupt, lying shitstain. Go sit in a dark room and hide in shame.

22. Aaron Pound,

    One might accuse you of rank snobbery, but then that would be stating the obvious.

23. Hi, Torgeson! Do you still think it’s a problem that you can no longer judge SF books by their covers?

24. A few of us still think the field’s so-called Most Prestigious Award, should actually go to works which have at least a modicum of recognizable SF/F about them.

    No you don’t you lying sack of shit. If you did, you would never have put Wisdom from My Internet on your slate. Go fuck yourself.

25. Good point, Brad R Torgersen. Nothing SF/F about anthropomorphic animals. Aside from that, I guess, wow, you trawled through the entirety of the comics canon for the relevant year and Zombie Nation was literally the only work with a modicum of SF/F about it? What an heroic effort on your part. Can’t believe it’s getting a critical drubbing, while totally and utterly non-SF/F works like Saga and Rat Queens and Sex Criminals and Ms Marvel are getting a free pass, genre-wise. People are literally and openly and bare-facedly pretending they’re SF/F! I can see why you’re so disenchanted, with these shenanigans going on.

26. One might accuse you of rank snobbery, but then that would be stating the obvious.

    Coming from you, that’s a compliment. You see, I have read the nominees you wedged onto the Hugo ballot, and they are terrible. Given that you seem to think they were good (but are completely unable to say why they are supposedly good), anyone who reads at above a fourth grade level would likely be a “snob” in your eyes. But since you are unable to actually defend your crony-driven selections, due to your general shittiness as a reader and a writer, you instead resort to fourth-grade level memes in response. Basically, you’re a child who needs a time out. Call us when you finish elementary school. You might be ready to sit at the grown-up table then.

27. Ah, Aaron, don’t get angry at me because Your Hate Mail Will Be Graded set the bar. Don’t be angry at me, either, if stories like “The Water That Falls On You From Nowhere” and “If You Were A Dinosaur, My Love” also set the bar. Clearly, not everything SF/F has to actually be SF/F to earn an award nomination, or even a win. People can be nominated and win SF/F awards for any reason, for anything. That was proven before Sad Puppies 3 came on the scene. But you just keep pounding your plastic fork and knife on your high-chair table, sir. You’ve clearly got the colic.

28. Brad R. Torgersen wrote:

    Zombie Nation is germane to SF/F while Pearls Before Swine is not. A few of us still think the field’s so-called Most Prestigious Award, should actually go to works which have at least a modicum of recognizable SF/F about them.

    Wow, it’s too easy. Like Wisdom From My Internet,Brad? Please quote the modicum of recognizable SFF about that. I have no doubt you’ll be able to, since you remember what you found so admirable about it that you (or someone–who chose the slate, again?) slated it.

    Funny that you admire Michael Z. Williamson’s writing so much and yet can’t remember Soft Casualty was eligible. If you’d let us, the other Hugo nominators might have remembered that for you, the way we remembered the Heinlein biography and Three Body Problem for you.

29. Brad R. Torgersen on July 11, 2015 at 5:55 am said:
    Ah, Aaron, don’t get angry at me because Your Hate Mail Will Be Graded set the bar. Don’t be angry at me, either, if stories like “The Water That Falls On You From Nowhere” and “If You Were A Dinosaur, My Love” also set the bar. Clearly, not everything SF/F has to actually be SF/F to earn an award nomination, or even a win. People can be nominated and win SF/F awards for any reason, for anything. That was proven before Sad Puppies 3 came on the scene. But you just keep pounding your plastic fork and knife on your high-chair table, sir. You’ve clearly got the colic.

    ‘He did it first’ stops being a valid excuse sometime around the age of 3, you know.

30. I think I’m going to adopt the Brian Z Rule (two comments that don’t reference for every one that does) regarding BRT also. Purely for myself, of course. But I don’t want to be all BRT all the time.

    I am not much of a comic reader. But a friend of mine turned me onto Stand Still Stay Silent which I have really been enjoying. Post apocalyptic story with magic, monsters and cats. A team of brave adventurers ragtag underfunded explorers go out into the monster infested ruins seeking ancient knowledge treasure.

31. Aaron, don’t get angry at me because Your Hate Mail Will Be Graded set the bar. Don’t be angry at me, either, if stories like The Water That Falls On You From Nowhere and If You Were A Dinosaur, My Love also set the bar.

    Ah Brad, you really shouldn’t expose just how little you read by making comparisons like this. You see, Your Hate Mail Will Be Graded did include SFF related material. So did The Water That Falls On You From Nowhere and If You Were a Dinosaur, My Love. They were all also much better writing than anything on the SP3 slate. It is clear that you didn’t bother to read any of them, or if you did, you weren’t unable to understand them. That’s understandable I suppose, since you seem unable to understand anything written for anyone older than the age of eight. If You Were a Dinosaur, My Love was a better Hugo nominee, by itself, than everything that got nominated from the SP3 slate combined.

    And, once again, you are completely unable to explain why you think the nominees from your slate are good. No, you just run to the tired and worn-out Puppy exclamation of “But Scalzi!” and “But Swirsky!” and “But Chu!” It doesn’t do you any favors to display your lack of education like that, but then again, you’re too uneducated and too stupid to realize that. The difference between you and non-Puppies is that non-Puppies can (and have) explained why they love the books you deride. On the other hand, you can only say what you dislike, and are unable to articulate any reason why the shit you’ve put on the Hugo ballot is any good. I suspect this is because you are unable to do so, in large part because you probably haven’t read any of it, and in part because you’re not a good enough writer.

    How about you actually try to explain what about Wisdom from My Internet is SFF, and why it is good. I don’t think you will be able to do either. No, I think you’ll just lie, dodge, weave, evade, and dissemble again. Because that’s what you do.

32. @Brad – is Magical Realism no longer a genre in SF&F? For someone who rails against gatekeeping, you’re awfully fond of it aren’t you?

    As for the Hate Mail book, haven’t read it, a bit before my time, and doesn’t seem like something I would be interested in. I have read Wisdom from My Internet though. What exactly are it’s SF&F chops?

    I do like how your entire attitude is that it’s bad when *they* do it. To repeat, you certainly set high standards for other peoples behaviour.

    FWiW, I think you should give Garth Ennis a try – esp his Preacher and Punisher runs. Incredibly well written, and they may be in line with your sensibilities. I know DC and Marvel get a bad rap, but they do heave some gems in their collections.

    ETA: Sorry, just realised Preacher may be super-sacrilegious to you, so maybe take those reccs with a grain of salt.

33. Yeah, I’m with the majority of the folks who’ve posted so far. Anyone who could possibly nominate “Wisdom from my Internet” for a Hugo clearly lacks the ability to determine quality works from crap, and therefore should be ignored.

    In my opinion, “Wisdom” was clearly the puppies lifting a leg on the Hugos to say “Look at what we can do when we game the system! Ha, you can’t do a thing about it! We’ll piss all over your awards because we think good stories suck!”

    I had to wade through the garbage that the puppies nominated, and frankly they will not get a pass from me. They’ve yet to tell me what’s good about any of the works they slated dishonestly. They just wanted to poke the Hugos in the eye. Well, they’ve done that, now they can go back to their echo-chamber blogs with their victory and continue their circle-jerk. If they want to visit other sites to flaunt their false prowess, they’d better be ready to be called out for their lies.

34. Just when we think we’re out, we’re puppied back in.

35. Your Hate Mail Will Be Graded set the bar.

    In order to get under the bar, you didn’t really have to borrow a tunneling machine, dig your way to Hell, pluck Wisdom From My Internet out of Satan’s sewer, snatch Zombie Nation from from Beelzebub’s toilet roll, and drive back up again to nominate them for the Hugo. There’s such a thing as trying TOO hard to be drearily awful. But hey, if you want to apply a corrective to an award whose standards you think are slipping, the answer is always to nominate something worse. That usually works, and shows people what a smart and classy person you are.

36. Has anybody else noticed the general practice of leavening the rudest of personal attacks with a “sir” or “ma’am”? Having moved across the country I notice it happening a lot in my new state.

    I hardly ever use them; where I grew up sir and ma’am are extremely formal or indicate a subservient relationship, though we are in practice (based on whether the rest of the remark is rude or not) as likely to be polite and extend honest respect as anyone else.

    Does it strike anyone else as hypocritical, or is this perception on my part just an artifact of my old and new locations?

37. Oh, for those of you who liked Rat Queens from the Hugo Packet, give Order of the Stick a try, if you aren’t already reading it. It’s greeeat, and really builds up to an epic (and ongoing) storyline.

38. Oh, for those of you who liked Rat Queens from the Hugo Packet, give Order of the Stick a try, if you aren’t already reading it.

    Seconded. Order of the Stick is fantastic. The next volume that comes out is likely to get put on my Hugo nominating ballot.

39. Thanks, Cat, that looks great!

    Edit: Yup, Order Of The Stick is pretty amazing.

    I was going to recommend Noelle Stevenson’s Nimona, but I see it’s no longer available in its entirety online, with a print edition on the way. REALLY good, though. Hugo worthy, even.

40. Actually, I like Order of the Stick a lot better than Rat Queens…

41. @Nigel

    You’re totally welcome! When I first discovered Stand Still Stay Silent I spent several days bingeing on it, muttering about my download speed.

    The comments on the pages are often worth reading also. But that can be a real time-sink 🙂

42. @Cat – love the art. I hesitate to hurl time-sinks at people, but Zombie Hunters is quite good.

43. Aaron Pound,

    If your bio at your web page is accurate, you are a government apparatchik, yes? And a confirmed Credentialist? Speaking as someone who works for your Federal bosses in a manner that actually serves the country, I like to think I know a thing or two or even three about telling a good story.

    See, it’s not about how many books you can cram into your head, so that you can utter exclamations of superiority. It’s about providing a worthwhile experience to a body of consumers who are willing to vote with their wallets, to the tune of, “More, please.”

    Dickens was a populist writer, who became a classic. So was Twain. In fact, the bulk of the classic authors from past eras, are merely populists who were so popular, they survived across generations. I want to put Heinlein in that category, though he may be a bit too recent; and is not without his haters in the post-modern era of 2015 SF/F sensibility.

    Because, clearly, “good taste” must be defended by effete churls who produce nothing, build nothing, create nothing, and provide nothing of merit nor value.

44. @Cat

    Oh man. I got started on it, looked up and realized I was going to have to add this one to my regular reading list. I don’t know whether to thank you or curse you… 😉

45. “Order of the Stick” is a hoot. Rich Burlew has not only done a magnificent job satirizing D&D tropes, by using humorous stick figures he has also been able to touch on deeply horrific and disturbing plotlines that would be unbearable if they had been drawn in a realistic style.

    Which is to say it’s basically a comedy, but the characters are very deep and what is going on has plenty of tragic undertones.

46. Yup, Order Of The Stick is pretty amazing.

    Some other web comics that are quite good: d20 Monkey, Weregeek, Lady Sabre and the Pirates of the Ineffable Aether, and Ctl-Alt-Del.

    All of them would have been far, far better Hugo nominees than Zombie Nation, but none of them are written by Brad’s friends, so they didn’t benefit from his corrupt cronyism.

47. I fear Brad Torgersen has a long way to go mending fences, healing wounds and making peace before he can get back to even average levels of internet credibility.

48. Hmm. Order of the Stick definitely has its funny moments, but some of its early jokes have a certain anti gay and anti transgender edge that is making it perhaps not really my thing. I mean, jura gurl sbhaq gur oryg bs znfphyvavgl/srzvavavgl zl svefg ernpgvba jnf “Bs pbhefr jr cvpx vg hc nf gernfher; fbzrbar vf ernyyl tbvat gb jnag guvf guvat rira vs abar bs hf qb.” Furrfu, rira orsber V xarj genaf crbcyr zl ernpgvba jbhyq unir orra “jung n cresrpg pbzcyrzrag gb n qvfthvfr! ” Ohg vafgrnq “abobql jnagf” vg naq jr’er fhccbfrq gb ynhtu jura gur oneq funzrsnprqyl unatf oruvaq gb cvpx vg hc.

    Naq gura fbzrbar pbaivaprf gur oneq gung ur’q or uneqre gb fcbg naq urne vs ur jnf anxrq naq nyy gur thlf trg na vafgnag nggnpx bs “V unir gb fubj V’z abg tnl ol orvat ubeevsvrq.”

    On the other hand, some of the jokes are pretty funny to someone who plays a lot of D&D like I do. (I think if the magic user ever discovers what happened to some of her best spells in the 3.0 to 3.5 transition she’s going to be pretty upset.)

    Mixed bag, I guess, but perhaps it improves later in the comic? I may need to start a document with webcomic links….

49. Cat: In OOTS, the magician is ambiguously-gendered. I don’t think that a pronoun has ever been used in-comic for Vaarsuvius; at least I don’t recall one. Or for Vaarsvious’ spouse, if it comes to that. I don’t know if that changes your attitude toward the comic or not, with regard to gay and/or transgender issues.

50. (Re: Stand Still Stay Silent)

    @Laura Tegan Gjovaag

    *bows* I will pass your mingled thanks and curses on to the friend who introduced me to the comic.

    @Nigel

    Yes, I love the art. She updates five days a week, so there is the occasional part of a page that looks a tiny bit rushed but overall I think the art is amazing, though at this point I’m really in it for the story.

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