Bisley made a massive splash, at the time, with the Batman/Judge Dredd crossover, plus, Lobo, plus Slaine was published in the January 1991 Heavy Metal. So, I think it reflected more of a perfect storm kind of thing. he was also very different from a l;ot of the artists working in US comics, at the time. Much like the Oscars, sometimes the award is in recognition of other work and uses the excuse of a current project to award the person. For instance, many believed that Helen Mirren's Oscar nomination for Best Actress, with very few scenes in the film was more in recognition for her work in Prime Suspect and previous things, like The Cook, The Thief, His Wife and Her Lover and Pascali's Island.

If memory serves, Will Eisner was rather embarrassed to receive an award with his name on it; but, To The Heart of the Storm was a great piece of work. It recounts his younger days, in New York, up to breaking into comics. It's a nice companion to The Dreamer, which details his time in the Eisner-Iger Shop and starting The Spirit, though in a somewhat fictionalized manner. To The Heart of the Storm also deals with the anit-semitism he often faced, with a scene where he tells a brother, Schmuel, that his name is now "Sam." In actuality, his brother's name was Julian; but, his father's name was Schmuel and he Americanized it to Samuel. His father had been a muralist, in Vienna, but left to avoid being conscripted in WW1 and came to America. he had poor language skills and struggled to find work, often having to do with painting backdrops for vaudeville and Jewish theater. Some of that is in there, in modified form.

David Chelsea In Love is one of the early autobiographical works, as Eclipse helped pioneer some of the alternate comics work, including Chris Ware's Floyd Farland and a collection of Eddie Campbell's Alec work.. You can read a review here, at the Total Eclipse Blog.

I don't believe I ever read Bili 99; but, I always considered Sarah Byam to be an underrated writer.

Eisner's graphic albums are well worth reading, as they are filled with great human figures and he is such a great storyteller. His tales of "the city" and urban neighborhoods are compelling, while To The Heart of the Storm and The Dreamer are nice accounts of his own past, though dramatized and altered for consumption. Dropsie Avenue was a great one, where he relates the history of a particular neighborhood, as it grows from a more rural beginning to various ethnic neighborhoods, as time changes and new groups move in and out. It really gives you a feel for urban evolution, especially, if you are like me, and grew up in a rural environment. Along those lines are The Building, and New York: The Big City. Invisible People is a very moving work about unnoticed humanity. Eisner has got such a great way with characters.

Kubert's Abraham Stone was published in Europe, then at Malibu, through their Platinum Editions line (done in conjunction with Ervin Rustemagic's Strip Art Features. There were two more Abraham Stone albums published. The first, Country Mouse and City Rat, is set at the turn of the 19th to 20th Century as a young man (the title character) comes to the city and deals with the troubles that follow. It was one of Kubert's first forays into more idiosyncratic work, rather than traditional adventure material. That would be followed by Fax From Sarajevo, about his communications with Rustemagic, during the Bosnian Civil War, as he tries to escape and get his family out. Kubert's moody style really makes these things have impact.

American Splendor is very much a character study of the author, a cantankerous and neurotic individual, with an eye for characters and storytelling. He made several appearances on David Letterman's NBC show, before Pekar grew tired of Dave just having him on to poke fun and he started firing back with criticisms of GE and NBC, which led to the end of their relationship. He did an issue devoted to it. The film adaptation, with Paul Giamatti, is fantastic, mixing a dramatization with actual commentary, on screen, from Pekar and wife Joyce Babner. Their Our Cancer Year is extremely compelling, detailing Harvey's battle with cancer.

Naughty Bits was the vehicle for Roberta Gregory's Bitch Bitch, at Fantagraphics, which was both biographical and savage humor. I highly recommend it and Peter Bagge's Hate (as well as his earlier Bradleys stories, in Neat Stuff).

I never read 20 Nude Dancers 20; but, it was one of Tundra's eclectic output. Kevin Eastman took his Turtles money and started a publishing company to fund various talents in doing their dream works. It ended up being a $14 million sinkhole; but, a lot of interesting material did see the light of day (and more took the money and produced very little). Some of the projects published there included Stephen Bissette's Taboo anthology, From Hell (carried over to Kitchen Sink, when Eastman bought into the company), The Crow (after originally being published by Caliber), The Brat Pak, Madman, Mr Monster, and Understanding Comics.

The Comic-Related Book category features Harvey Kurtzman's From AARGH to Zap, which was a great reference to comics, particularly alternative material. he champions several European artists in it, as well as many of the Underground community, who followed in his wake and the Alternative Comics people who emerged in the late 80s and 90s. I had all of the nominees, at one point. The Mike Benton book was a nice visually oriented primer and he did a whole series, with volumes devoted to Golden Age, Silver Age, Crime, Horror and Sci-fi comics. Les Daniels first book is there, his history of Marvel. He would go on to do one of DC, as well as his superman, Batman and Wonder Woman visual histories. The Photojournal Guide to Marvel Comics featured cover images for everything published under the Marvel name, at that point. There was also a two volume set devoted to the Golden Age, which was a great reference.

Best Editor reminds me how much I miss Karen Berger. Vertigo was in its ascendency and she handled some of the best.

The award for Calvin and Hobbes makes me smile as it reminds me of when the series was stil being published and the anticipation for the next collection, as you enjoyed the day's strip. I was lucky enough to encounter the strip early, in college, when someone on my dorm floor started posting strips, from the Chicago tribune, on his door. I bought the first two book collections at the campus bookstore, when they were new. Revenge of the Babysat was the 5th collection (not counting the big books) and he was firing on all cylinders, narratively and visually, by that point. It also features probably my favorite battle with Rosalyn.

Gaiman was the darling, as we see his Miracleman: The Golden Age work also nominated. I thought it was a bit mixed; but, at least he completed it. I still am not holding my breath for the conclusion of The Silver Age until they land in my grubby little hands, no matter how many announcements Marvel makes.

In retrospect, if I were voting, I think I would go with Love and Rockets over Sandman, for Best Series, and I love Sandman.

Best Periodical is interesting. CBG winning shows how much bad blood there was between the Eisner Award people and Fantagraphics. I subscribed to CBG and it was a good publication, but the Comics Journal had so much more depth within it. Of course, one was monthly and the other bi-weekly. Don't know why there are question marks for who edited Comics Interview, as David Anthony Kraft pretty much handled everything about that. Maybe he didn't formally list himself as editor. I'd have to look at my digital files. Comic Book Marketplace was fine, for what it was; but wasn't really what I would call a great publication. It was Gemstone, which meant it was geared more to selling comics, not that CBG wasn't selling stuff, too (or the Comics Journal).

Of the nominating committee, Brian Hibbs was a long time San Francisco retailer and has covered the business end of comics sales, for some time. Arlen Schumer was a comic book historian and illustrator. Rolf Holbach later worked for Diamond and seems to have a professional background in warehousing and distribution. Probably involved in comic distribution, before Diamond. Beth Holley worked with Comic Book Marketplace and the San Diego Comic Con, where the awards were given.

Once again, the awards are very favorable to CBG, which might have a lot to do with their close relationship to the San Diego Comic Con. Interesting that you have to Krause Publications periodicals (CBG and Comics Retailer) and two Fantagraphics (TCJ and Amazing Heroes), Fantagraphics is more ironic, given that TCJ eschewed the mainstream, while Amazing Heroes celebrated it. Fantagraphics always wanted to seem highbrow and artistic, yet was always ready to make a buck on the popular or even pornographic. Comic Scene was a nice magazine, from Starlog, with an interesting history. it's original format was far more wide ranging, covering the industry and the creators, with some depth and expertise. The second version, revamped around 1988, was more like Starlog, very rah-rah whatever it featured, with little critical commentary. It began to focus heavily on comic=-based entertainment, once Batman hit theaters and filled its pages with that stuff, plus whatever was hot. It still managed to look, a bit, in the indies, though more things like The Dark or Dark horse's books than stuff like Eightball or Drawn & Quarterly. Its regular feature on comic movies in development read like an LIA report, after a while. At the start of the 90s, everything under the sun was getting optioned, but only a handful made it to the screen. Some, like Men In Black, even changed owners, before the film came out.

I get the love for Nexus and Grendel as they were much loved series with the comic press and fandom, especially the San Diego crowd. War Child was supposed to come out at Comico, until the bankruptcy halted things. When it did emerge it kind of relit the fire and was quickly followed by the excellent Grendel Tales material, with others dabbling in Wagner's world.

Eightball was the big critical darling of the indies, after years of Love & Rockets or Raw getting most of the attention. Hate & Naughty Bits were close behind, depending on your tastes. One I note there is Nina Paley's Nina's All-Time Great Collector's Item Classics. I had been following her work, along with Terry LaBan and some others, in an alternate comics publication, The Funny Times. Loved her work and she was originally from my neck of the woods, as her father was a professor at the Univ of Illinois (which I later attended) and she grew up in Urbana. That particular work was done as a comic special, at Dark Horse and is a lot of fun. Dark Horse would end up picking up terry Laban's Cud, which started at Fantagraphics, as well as Laban writing a Grendel Tales mini-series.

Not sure about Cerebus and "Mothers & Daughters," though it started better than it ended.

Early Legends of the Dark Knight had some really good stuff, like Moench & Gulacy's "Prey," and James Robinson & Tim Sale's "Blades," as well as matt Wagner's "Faces", which was nominated here. It was far and away the best Batman book on the stands, much as the similar Untold Tales of Spider-Man, for the Spidey books.

The indies are very strong, at this point; but, that was about to change. Between the Speculator Bust and the Distribution Wars, the indie market took a major hit. On top of things, Fantagraphics was nearly taken down by the bankruptcy of its bookstore distributor, Seven Hills Distribution. However, at this stage they are doing well, as was Kitchen Sink (the Flash Gordon collection cited was really nice) and Tundra seemed like a force to reckon with, until Eastman sank too much money and called it quits, taking properties to Kitchen Sink when he bought into the company.

Fairy Tales of Oscar Wilde was from NBM, who published a lot of European reprints, classic comic strips and some American work, like this and Rick Geary's books. These were nice collections and similarly lush as Russell's opera works.

Good time for anthologies, as can be seen in that category. Negative Burn had started up in 1993, at Caliber, which was another good one.

As far as the nominating committee: Mark Askwith is a Canadian writer and producer and managed the Silver Snail comic store, in Toronto, which is THE comic book store, in the city. He co-wrote The Prisoner: Shattered Viage, with Dean Motter, which was an excellent sequel to the seminal tv series. he also contributed to the fanzine Andromeda (which Silver Snail published), True North, and several comic stories. Michael T Gilbert is the creator of Mr Monster, one of the artists on Roy Thomas' adaptations of the Elric stories, a longtime figure in fandom, and publisher of old pre-Code horror comic reprints. Mimi Cruz was a retailer and involved with the Friends of Lulu organization, which promoted women in comics. Barry Short was another retailer and an assistant executive VP, for the San Diego Comic-Con. Mark Yturralde was another official from the SDCC.

Bone got a ton of press, after Dave Sim ran a showcase piece, in Cerebus and CBG was a big booster of the series. The Great Cow Race is probably the best storyline of the whole thing, certainly the funniest. Batman Adventures: Mad Love, was a tremendous work, from series producers Bruce Timm and Paul Dini, giving us the origin of Harley Quinn and the Joker. They then turned around and adapted it for the cartoon. Flight is definitely the saner portion of Mothers & Daughters, with some nice Roach parody (poking fun at Sandman and all of the superhero universe launches). The infamous issue was during Reads, which is the third of 4 books for M&D; so, yeah, he hadn't yet POed the entire comic world. Nor had he further cemented that with his interview with the A-V Club, after Cerebus #300, which did him no favors, either in public relations or evidence for a sanity hearing.

I do think Diana Schutz was robbed, for Best Editor; certainly more deserving than Mike Carlin, and equal to Karen Berger's work, in my opinion. And, in my opinion, The Upturned Stone deserved Best Graphic Album. A Small Killing is fine; but, I wouldn't put it at the top of Alan Moore's bibliography and The Upturned Stone is Scott Hampton at his best. Gorgeous art, creepy story.

Since Bone was winning everything, anyway, I'd have thrown a bone (so to speak) to Evan Dorkin for Milk & Cheese.

I love Nina Paley's stuff; funny as hell, insightful, and a nice cartooning style. Dorkin's stuff is great, too, from Pirate Corp$, through Milk & Cheese, to Instant Piano and beyond. He also wrote for television, including Space Ghost Coast to Coast and his Eltingville Club, from Dark Horse's Instant Piano, had a pilot, for Cartoon network's Adult Swim bloc...



Paley had a story in Dark Horse Presents and it got a big response, leading to the one-shot. I had been reading her Nina's Adventures in The Funny Times, which collected satirical alternative comic strips and columns and loved seeing more.

The Life and Times of Scrooge McDuck was unsurprising. Don Rosa basically catalogged the old Barks' stories of Scrooge's past adventures, into one long biographical storyline, taking him from birth up to the point where Huey, Dewey and Louie first meet up with him. San Diego was always big for Barks material and Rosa was the next best thing, at that point.

I loved all of the Big Book of series, from DC's Paradox Press imprint, especially The 70s. Too bad they shut it down without publishing the announced Bad Girls one, that was supposed to look at women like Bodicea abd Bettie Page.

Nothing was gonna upset Bone for Best Humor Publication; but, Radioactive Man was hilarious, as it sent up comic stories of different eras, with homages and satires of different classic covers and stories. Loved when they poked fun at the Green Lantern/Green Arrow stuff, where the hero The Purple Heart has changed his name to Bleeding Heart and is the ultra liberal to contrast Radioactive Man as the conservative. Then, to top that, they threw in his girlfriend, the Black Partridge, a Black Canary satire, dressed like Shirley Jones, in The Partridge Family!

James Robinson was on fire during this period. Starman stepped out of the Zero Hour mess and grabbed attention with great story and art. Witchcrakt, with Teddy Kristiansen, was excellent, as well. Prior to that, he had made one of the few interesting comics in the Ulraverse, line, at Malibu, with Firearm. It looked like another pointless gun-toting vigilante; but, was actually a riff on private eye and espionage stories, with many references to literature and a letters page with people sharing book recommendations! He also had 67 Seconds, a graphic novel, at Marvel/Epic, which was a great adventure thriller, and Illegal Alien, at Kitchen Sink, about an alien being who lands in 60s London. To top that, there was the first Grendel Tales mini, Four Devils, One Hell. So much talent and not a bad story in the bunch. Then he seemed to flame out after Archie Goodwin died (and he has spoken about issues he had during that period) and his failure in Hollywood, to become a big name screenwriter.

Our Cancer Year, from Harvey Pekar and Joyce Babner was a tremendous piece of work and I would put it ahead of the winner, P Craig Russell and vol 2 of the Fairy Tales of Oscar Wilde.

I don't think many people knew Al Williamson (and Carlos Garzon) was doing a Flash Gordon special for Marvel.  Marvel, briefly, had the license for it and The Phantom and didn't do much to advertise it.  I was always a fan of both and bought both.

Stuck Rubber Baby is terrific.  It is fictional, but still somewhat autobiographical for Howard Cruse, growing up as a gay man in the Civil Rights era.  I bought it on the strength of having read his column in the first volume of Comic Scene magazine and found it a fascinating work.  He illustrates how dangerous it was to be in any kind of minority, in that period, but even more for a gay man.  At the same time, the gay world was filled with as much racism as the hetero.  It was a weird dichotomy that has always puzzled me, though I get the psychology of prejudice.  It just seems counter-intuitive that someone who has experienced prejudice and fear would turn around and project the same on another group, rather than have empathy; but, that is the problem of fear and ignorance.

Nice to see Evan Dorkin get his due.  I was reading Instant Piano and loved his stuff there, as well as the other contributors.

Darrow's Big Guy and Rusty the Boy Robot was a nice piece of fun from Miller and Darrow, especially after Hard Boiled ended up being so bizarre.  This was more straightforward homage to Japanese monsters, Gigantor and similar giant robots, and Tetsuwan Atom, aka Astro Boy.  The pages were just filled with images to savor and absorb, much like Hard Boiled, but with less gratuitous stuff.

I have a collection of Manara's stuff; but, I don't think I have read El Gaucho (among many others).

Also nice to see Kurt Busiek get recognition for Astro City.  By that stage, my comic reading was decreasing to some indies (with sporadic publication) the odd Dark Horse thing (like the Legend imprint crowd), Starman and Astro City (as Sandman had wrapped up, with The Wake). Astro City was everything I thought was missing from superhero comics, plus musings on other elements.  Best New Series had a lot of great stuff, though I think Book of Ballads and Sagas deserved more attention.  Just gorgeous material.

On Best Limited Series, my personal choice, of that group, would be Chiaroscuro.  It featured the life of Leonardo Da Vinci, as told by his model Salai, who turns out to be the model for Michelangelo's David, as well.  It paints an interesting picture of the period, with figures like the Borgia's, Machiavelli and others of the time, as characters.

As for Best Title for Young Readers, as much as I enjoyed Batman Adventures, I would have given the nod to Akiko on the Planet Smoo.  Just pure delight.  As it was, it went on to have more success in book form, in the trade book world.

I think you mean Stan Sakai.

Waid's Captain America was pretty good and it was the first time I found the series to be interesting, since JM Dematteis (aside from Kevin Maguire's Captain America mini, Sentinel of Liberty). It ended up being interrupted by the experiment with Lee & Liefeld, then after that crashed and burned, Waid & Garney came back. It's not as good as Brubaker & Epting; but, better than Gruenwald's run (which had its moments) and up there with DeMatteiss.

Batman: Black & White was a terrific experiment, with non-continuity stories, done entirely in black & white. The winning Archie Goodwin story is fantastic. Dark Horse would do a similar thing, with Grendel, where the stories were done in black & white, with splashes of red. Mark Chiarello was the driving force behind that, as I recall.

Leave it to Chance was excellent and continued the streak that James Robinson was on; plus gave us more vibrant Paul Smith art. It features a plucky young girl, with magic abilities dawning, in adventures that captured the best of young adventure and what comics could do. Robinson & Smith had previously teamed on the gorgeous The Golden Age (later retitled, in collected form as JSA:The Golden Age).

Moore at Image depends on the title. The Supreme stuff is very good, with him doing Silver Age-y stuff and alternate forms of the hero. Some of his others, besides 1963, don't do much for me (like his Spawn issue). I think his ABC line of books had much better material.

Strangehaven was good and I jumped on it as it sounded like The Prisoner-meets-The Avengers and it is sort of that and sort of The Wicker Man and ever other "weird village" tale. Some elements of Kafka.

Chadwick wasn't particularly prolific, after Concrete: Killer Smile. In terms of Los bros solo, Penny century was okay; but, I loved Whoa, Nellie, both as a Jaime fan and a pro wrestling fan. For my money, he captured the action of a pro wrestling match better than any other artist who has tried. he was also great with the pin-ups, that looked like photos from the old wrestling magazines and the belt designs he gave champion characters. You knew he was a fan (and both brothers have commented about LA wrestling, in stories) intriguing story; but, I would have rated Terminal City the better mini-series. Kingdom Come is lush and an interesting; but, Terminal City has terrific characters, great humor, an interesting mystery and just a well developed world.

Fax From Sarajevo is great, though I would rate Yossel a betetr work, for Kubert.

Nice to see the Russ manning Tarzan collection get it's due; The Land that Time Forget was my favorite Manning story, which I first saw as a reprint, in DC's Tarzan, in one of the 100 Pg issues. Love the dinosaurs (especially my favorite triceratops) and the hidden civilization built around them. Manning went nuts on that one.

The Alternate Press Expo kind of arose because of both the distributors forsaking the indies and small press and San Diego being dominated by the Big Two (Hollywood hadn't yet taken over, but they were starting to, as more comic based properties hit the screen).

The Alex Toth: By Design book is not exactly something I would have nominated, if I was on the committee. It was, primarily, a collection of Toth model sheets, from Hanna-Barbera. Darrel McNeil, the co-author, was an animator who had worked at H-B and Filmation, and put together books on both, which were also largely model sheets. He did one for the H-B adventure hero shows and one for Filmation's catalog. There were short pieces about each property, episode guides, then tons of model sheets and promo art. That was Toth's primary function, at H-B, doing character models and some vehicle models, plus some sample storyboarding, to indicate costume movements, like with The Three Musketeers, where he included Fencing poses and how their tabbards would drape in different poses.

As far as Usagi being labelled for a young audience, the category was mostly used to denote works that had an all-ages sensibility and could be used to introduce kids to comics, since there was a dearth of material done for kids, by that point. Harvey was mostly dead (still twitching a bit) and Archie had a few (more Turtle and Sonic material than their own); but precious little from anyone else. Usagi and Bone were always properties that people would point out and Akikio; and, later, Scary Godmother, were soon added to those sugegstions.

One notable one there, for me, is Scott Roberts' Patty Cake. That was a delightful comic, about a lively and funny little girl, that had similar qualities to Calvin & Hobbes, in terms of capturing real child behavior and thoughts. Roberts created bot manic fun and some touching moments, such as in the Patty Cake Christmas Special, where she obsesses about some branded toy playset, which her mother says is too expensive, and then her father hand crafts a rocking chair for her, and she throws a tantrum, hurting her father's feelings. Her mother gives her a lecture about the love her father put into it and how the only other time she saw him cry was at her birth. It has a beautiful moment, where Patty tells her father, sincerely, thank you. Roberts was all "bigfoot," animated style; but, he captured the emotions well. He told a story at the end about a Popeye-themed gift his father hand made for him, for Christmas, one year, which inspired the tale. It reminded me of my own father, who built me a toy aircraft carrier, when I became fascinated by them, as a kid. He used our encyclopedias to sketch out a design, cut and shaped the wood and put it all together and painted it. It was a total surprise and one of the best gifts I ever got.