2023 EISNER NOMINEES

Do you like good comics? So do the Eisner Awards!

BY JIM DANDENEAU

The Eisner Awards are here, celebrating the best comic books of 2022 as part of a gala at San Diego Comic-Con. And while it’s impossible for normal people to read everything nominated, we at Den of Geek are decidedly not normal, and we’re here to help you figure out what to read!

If you like Batman: The Animated Series, you should try “Finding Batman,” the short story in DC Pride by Kevin Conroy and J. Bone.

Kevin Conroy’s death is still an incalculable loss, but this nominee for Best Short Story, published a few months before his untimely passing, helps quantify what a wonderful man he was. The story is beautiful and sad, adding depth to Conroy’s performance as Batman and showing why Batman, the character, has moved so many people over the years.

If you like stunning character work, try Supergirl: Woman of Tomorrow by Tom King and Bilquis Evely.

King, nominated again for Best Writer, dropped what turned out to be one of the most definitive character studies of Kara Zor-El in 2022 with Supergirl: Woman of Tomorrow. The book is, for much of its first half, just True Grit, with Kara playing the part of Rooster Cogburn. But it is full of brilliant Kara moments—quietly at first, building to a crescendo about two-thirds of the way through, and spending most of the final act on big, big-hearted Super-family heroics. Evely is one of the best artists working in comics right now. Her inventiveness and creativity make the outer space scenes sing and the planetary landscapes scenes look beautiful. This book is amazing.

If you like jump screams in your autobiographical comics, try Ducks by Kate Beaton. One of the consensus best comics of 2023, Kate Beaton’s Ducks: Two Years in the Oil Sands, is up for several Eisners, including Best Graphic Memoir and Beaton for Best Writer/Artist. It is a vivid picture of life in the Alberta oil sands for women, with all the casual and violent sexual harassment that entails, presented in Beaton’s matter-of-fact cartooning, which makes it all the more powerful. It ends with a scene structured like the final jump scare in a slasher movie. Truly brilliant work from a top class storyteller.

If you thought Disney’s Hercules wasn’t soapy enough, try Lore Olympus by Rachel Smythe.

Rachel Smythe’s reigning Best Webcomic, Lore Olympus, is a modern retelling of Greek myth with a focus on Hades and Persephone, but at 200+ strips, it’s got a lot of everything for everyone. It’s stunning to look at, with vibrant colors and deep characters. This strip (collected in several print editions) is very easy to disappear into.

If you like literally anything at all, buy Parker: The Martini Edition by Darwyn Cooke.

Best Graphic Album—Reprint sounds like a cop-out category right up until you hold a copy of Richard Stark’s Parker: The Martini Edition in your hands and flip through a few pages. Darwyn Cooke was one of the most brilliant artists who ever worked in the medium. His New Frontier took six issues to completely change the trajectories of four Justice Leaguers because it was so brilliant. Parker blows everything else he ever did out of the water, and the Martini Editions—oversized, high-quality printing and binding, the kind of book you read on a lectern rather than on the can—are the best versions of them.