What Just Happened?
In preparation for this week’s post, I actually looked back at Gary’s post about the recent Eisner nominations, specifically the Best Digital Comic category. One, Karl Kerschl’s lovely The Abominable Charles Christopher, I knew right away. But I didn’t recognize any of the others, which made me feel sort of out of it (and even more so when I found out that one of them is one of Joss Whedon’s many projects). I felt a little better about the whole thing once I looked at the rest of the Eisner nominees (jeez, again with the Joss Whedon…), so I thought it might be worth looking at the different nominations. It wouldn’t have been the list I’d have created, but I figured it was worth finding out what did get nominated.
(Side question: are there similar industry awards for webcomics? There’s the Ignatz, for an “Online Comics” category, and the interesting (though a little repetitive) Web Cartoonists Choice Awards…there are others, yes?)
And, holy smokes, Dean Haspiel’s Immortal: it took me a minute to get into it, but once I did I was pretty much hooked despite it being totally weird and also kind of hard to follow in places (and it’s also kind of NFSW in places, so be warned). It was also a little different for me; I think of Dean Haspiel as someone who…well, mostly works in print. Despite these weird narrative moments, Immortal has a quirky, smart use of color–it looks different from much what I’ve seen before–and though the characters initially felt a little Sin City to me, the whole thing takes a big wide jog into weird in its own freaky way.
It also, from the get-go, caught my eye in a way the other works didn’t (excepting Kerschl’s work, about which I’ve already written); I’ll give them another try, of course, but there’s a lot to be said for something that pulls me in as a reader almost right away. That’s very difficult to do, but this one pulls it off magificently.
Never heard of any major webcomic awards other than the WCCA that I’m aware of.
By Mike Rouse-Deane on 04.17.08 6:21 pm
Thx for the nice review, Anne. Great to see a column devoted to webcomix.
By Dean Haspiel on 04.23.08 11:07 pm
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