It is always a slightly strange feeling to be a nominee. Sitting in the hotel ballroom, as your category approaches and then arrives, there is a rise in nervous energy. If your book wins, you will need to take the stage, deep-breath your nerves down, remember to thank all the people you want to thank. This year, the presenters giving the Eisner award for “my” category, “Best Archival Collection/Project — Strips,” were Murderbot co-star David Dastmalchian and Iron Maiden front man Bruce Dickinson (!). So, as the nominees are being announced, I am wondering “I am I about to shake hands with Iron Maiden’s lead singer?” And, to quote David Byrne, “Well—how did I get here?”
No, Barnaby Volume 5: 1950-1952, which I co-edited with Eric Reynolds, did not win. The winner was (is!) The George Herriman Library: Krazy & Ignatz 1928-1930, edited by Michael Catron and the late Bill Blackbeard. Congratulations to them!
Here is what I would have said at the podium:
Thanks to Dan Clowes for his design, my co-editor Eric Reynolds & the Fantagraphics team for all the things, Susan Kirtley for her intro, Ron Howard (yes, that Ron Howard, the film director) for his foreword, and Chris Ware for getting the ball rolling on the Barnaby project — which this volume completes, marking the first time all 10 years of Barnaby has been reprinted — and thus fulfilling a dream of not just Eric and me, but of Crockett Johnson himself.
If Crockett Johnson had not died 51 years ago, he would be both pleased and wryly amused to win this award. And he would thank Hannah Baker — his editor at the newspaper PM, where Barnaby first appeared in 1942 — for encouraging him. And he would thank his wife Ruth Krauss.
I thank my wife Karin Westman, for her unwavering support of my peculiar pursuits, over many years. And I thank the person who introduced me to Crockett Johnson’s work, by taking me, as a small child, to our local library, where we checked out Harold and the Purple Crayon — perhaps the most succinct expression of imaginative possibility ever written. Which is to say: Thanks to Gloria Hardman. [Here, I would glance skyward and say:] This one’s for you, mom.
If I had planned better, I might in my speech also have quoted Mr. O’Malley’s mockery of the Poll Tax, since the Republican Party has devoted itself to voter disenfranchisement — and, aided by the deeply corrupt US Supreme Court, succeeded quite spectacularly.
Quoting a line from that would have allowed me to at least gesture towards our precarious present, which was addressed in several great acceptance speeches, exhorting us to fight fascism and racism, denouncing ICE, calling for an end to the Palestinian genocide. But, at the time, I hadn’t thought that through — and, as it turned out, I didn’t need to.
I am now a four-time Eisner Award loser — which I always say because that’s a funnier way to say “four-time Eisner Award nominee.” When I met Dan Santat the day before the awards, I learned that he also was making the three-time Eisner Award loser joke. (I suspect a lot of us are….) But Friday night’s awards interrupted his unbroken streak. Congrats to Dan for winning an Eisner for All the Hulk Feels!
And to Scott McCloud and Raina Telgemeier for winning an Eisner for The Cartoonists Club!
And congrats to all the winners and nominees! It’s a cliché, I know, but it is truly an honor to be nominated. For me, each nomination has been unexpected. I am always genuinely surprised to be here at all.
It’s amazing to be in a room with so many talented people, all devoted to the noble art of comics! (Yes, noble! Comics is an intricate, complex, powerful medium — a medium at last getting the recognition it deserves!)
I suspect this is also my final San Diego Comic-Con. Eisner nominees get a free ticket to the con, and the prospect of a fifth nomination seems far-fetched. So… I could be wrong, but it’s hard to imagine a return to SDCC.
That said, I always learn a lot and meet talented, interesting folks. Perhaps that will pull me back to SDCC one day?
And I don’t know where my scholarly and creative journeys may lead. This feels like a goodbye to me, but I might well be mistaken.
Since I don’t know whether (or when?) I’ll be back, I’m also writing this as both a farewell and a expression of gratitude.
So long, and thanks for inviting me to the party!
As people used to say, see you in the funny papers!
