This year saw a strong showing for Image Comics, with titles from the publisher including Paper Girls, Southern Bastards and The Fade Out responsible for awards including best new series, best continuing series, best writer and best penciller/inker.
Indie publishers Fantagraphics and Drawn & Quarterly also produced multiple titles that picked up awards, including Kate Beaton's Step Aside Pops: A Hark! A Vagrant Collection, which won best humor publication — the first time in the Eisners' long history that a woman has ever won that category solo — and the English language edition of The Eternaut.
In addition to the regular categories, longtime DC Entertainment writer Elliot S. Maggin was awarded the prestigious Bill Finger Award for comic book writing — named for the co-creator of Batman and many of that franchise's defining elements — while Moomins creator Tove Jansson, Human Torch creator Carl Burgos and The Simpsons' Matt Groening were inducted into the Eisner Hall of Fame. Matthew Inman, cartoonist and creator of the webcomic The Oatmeal was awarded the Bob Clampett Humanitarian Award, while British comic book store Orbital Comics & Gallery won the Will Eisner Spirit of Retailing title, recognizing the store's contribution to the industry.
The full list of the winners is below:
Best Lettering: Derf Backderf
Best Colorist: Jordie Bellaire
Best Digital comic:Bandette by Paul Tobin and Colleen Coover
Best Penciller/Inker: Cliff Chiang
Best Painter/Multimedia: Dustin Nguyen
Best Publication Design:Sandman Gallery Edition, designed by Josh Beatman/Brainchild Studios
Best Journalism:Hogan's Alley, edited by Tom Heintjes
Best Comics-Related Book:Harvey Kurtzman: The Man Who Created MAD and Revolutionized Humor in America by Bill Schelly
Best Academic/Scholarly Work--The Blacker the Ink: Constructions of Black Identity in Comics and Sequential Art, edited by Frances Gateward and John Jennings
Best US Edition of Int'l. Material:The Realist by Asaf Hanuka
Best US Edition of Int’l Material Asia:Showa (1953-1989) by Shigeru Mizuki
Best Adaptation from Another Medium:Two Brothers by Fabio Moon and Gabriel Ba
Best Publication for Early Readers:Little Robot by Ben Hatke
Best Publication for Kids:Over the Garden Wall by Pat McHale, Amalia Levari and Jim Campbell
Best Publication for Teens:Super Mutant Magic Academy by Jillian Tamaki
Best Archival Collection/Project Strips:The Eternaut by Hector German Oesterheld and Francisco Solano Lopez
Best Archival Collection/Project – Comic Books:Walt Kelly’s Fairy Tales edited by Craig Yoe
Best Humor Publication:Step Aside Pops: A Hark! A Vagrant Collection by Kate Beaton
Best Writer: Jason Aaron
Best Writer/Artist: Bill Griffith
Best Cover Artist: David Aja
Best Short Story:Killing and Dying by Adrian Tomine
Best Single Issue/One Shot:Silver Surfer No. 11 by Dan Slott, Michael and Laura Allred
Best Anthology:Drawn & Quarterly: Twenty-Five Years of Contemporary Cartooning, Comics and Graphic Novels, edited to Tom Devlin
Russ Manning Award for Best Newcomer: Dan Mora
Best Reality Based Work:March Book 2 by John Lewis, Andrew Aydin and Nate Powell
Best Graphic Album (Reprint):Nimona by Noelle Stevenson
Best Graphic Album (New):Ruins by Peter Kuper
Best New Series:Paper Girls by Brian K. Vaughan and Cliff Chiang
Best Limited Series:The Fade Out by Ed Brubaker and Sean Philips
Best Continues Series:Southern Bastards by Jason Aaron and Jason LaTour
Bill Finger Award for Comic Book Writing: Elliot S! Maggin
Hall of Fame: Tove Jansson, Carl Burgos, Matt Groening, Rube Goldberg, Jacques Tardi, Lynda Barry
Will Eisner Spirit of Retailing: Orbital Comics and Gallery, London, UK
Bob Clampett Humanitarian Award: Matthew Inman, The Oatmeal