Ed Brubakers’ My Heroes Have always been Junkies, created with artist Sean Phillips (Image), a seductive noir tale of a young woman’s fascination with drugs, won the 2019 Eisner Award for Best New Graphic Novel, while writer Tom King took home four Eisner awards, among them Best Reprint Graphic Novel, awarded for The Vision, with artist Gabriel Hernandez Walta (Marvel), the story of a man-made superhero’s efforts to be an ordinary human with an ordinary family.
These artists and books were being honored at the 31st annual Will Eisner Comic Industry Awards, honoring the best in the comics medium, which was held Friday night at the San Diego Comic-Con International. A complete list of the award winners is available on the Comic-Con website.
Cartoonist Jen Wang took home two Eisner awards (Best Writer/Artist and Best Publication for Teens) for The Prince and The Dressmaker (First Second), the story of a prince who likes to wear dresses and the young woman who makes them for him. John Allison was awarded two Eisners (Best Humor Publication and Best Continuing Series) for Giant Days, a graphic novel series about three college roommates.
Publishers Image Comics and First Second each received five Eisners, followed by DC and IDW with four awards.
Among other book and book related winners were Pénélope Bagieu’s Brazen: Rebel Ladies Who Rocked the World (First Second), which won the prize for Best U.S. edition of International Material; Akiko Higashimura’s Tokyo Tarareba Girls (Kodansha) for Best U.S. edition of Asian Material. James Kochalka’s Johnny Boo and the Ice Cream Computer (Top Shelf/IDW) won the Best Book for Early Readers award and Faith Erin Hicks’s The Divided Earth won an Eisner for Best Book for Kids.
Inductees into the Eisner Hall of Fame included Bill Sienkiewicz (who gave a memorable and funny acceptance speech), and former presidents of DC Comics Jenette Kahn (a pioneering female executive in the comics industry) and Paul Levitz, who worked for Kahn and succeeded her as president and publisher of DC Comics.
In addition, awards went to cartoonist Edgardo Miranda-Rodriquez (Bob Clampett Humanitarian Award), creator of the female Puerto Rican superhero La Borinqueña; and Desiree Rodriguez (Best Anthology), coeditor of Puerto Rico Strong (Lion Forge), an anthology designed to raise disaster support for the island. Both winners and their projects were hailed for their support of Puerto Rico in the wake of the hurricane disaster and their efforts to rally subsequent appeals for aid.
