Eisner Comic Award Nominees Announced

The nominees for the 2008 Will Eisner Comic Industry Awards have been announced. Following a decision by the judges to split the category "Best Title for a Younger Audience" into two: "Best Publication for Kids" and "Best Publication for Teens," a totla of 148 nominations were announced in 29 categories (not including Hall of Fame).

This year's judging panel consists of John Davis (director of pop culture markets for Bookazine), Paul DiFilippo (SF and comics author), Atom! Freeman (owner of Brave New World Comics in Santa Clarita, CA), Jeff Jensen (senior writer for Entertainment Weekly), and Eva Volin (supervising children's librarian for the Alameda Free Library in Alameda, CA).

Ballots will be going out in late April to comics creators, editors, publishers, and retailers. In addition, a downloadable pdf of the ballot will be available online.

Voting for the Hall of Fame is already under way at www.eisnervote.com. The nominees are: Matt Baker; John Broome; Reed Crandall; Rudolph Dirks; Arnold Drake; George Evans; Creig Flessel; Graham Ingels; Mort Meskin; Tarpe Mills; Gilbert Shelton; George Tuska; Mort Weisinger; Len Wein; and Barry Windsor-Smith. Voting for the Hall of Fame closes 18 April.

All the winners will be announced during an awards ceremony at the San Diego Comic-Con on Friday 25 July.

The full list of nominees is available on this page. For more information about the Eisner Awards, see this page.