My colleague Rob Salkowitz mentioned it greatest when he wrote “There’s an old saying that you should never pick fights with people who buy ink by the barrel.” Eliminating the “best Comics-Related Periodical/Journalism” class within the 2024 Eisner Awards was positive to generate a ton of tweets and outrage from individuals who spend their lives on the keyboard. In addition to Rob’s piece, there was the unique report at Popverse, after which TWO follow-ups there. Graeme McMillan gave his personal ideas, after which Chris Arrant fired up the Wayback Machine to level out that the class had been eliminated no less than twice earlier than. In 2001, Best Comics-Related Periodical was dropped, but it surely was again the very subsequent yr. But:
Just one yr later for 2003’s awards nevertheless, each the ‘Best Comics-Related Periodical/Journalism’ and ‘Best Comics-Related Book’ classes had been dropped in favor of a extra generalistic title, ‘Best Comics-Related Publication (Periodical or Book)’.
In 2004, the judges on the time reversed the system again – restablishing each classes.
For those that got here in late, right here’s what’s occurred to this point:
- On January 10, the name for submissions for the 2024 Eisners went out, and Arrant famous that two classes had been absent, Memoir (which had simply been left off by chance) and Journalism. A subsequent explainer by Eisner administrator Jackie Estrada got here in:
- “When reached for comment, Eisner Awards administrator Jackie Estrada directed attention to the above caveats and clarified that the Periodical/Journalism category has been combined with Comics-Related Book, writing, “For comics-related periodicals, they have been combined with the comic-related books. Online journalism sites are welcome to submit in that overall category.”
- Then got here the hueing, the crying, the garment rending and the indignant tweets.
Hell yeah we do not do it for the cash we do not do it for the eye and we actually do not do it for the accolades, we do it as a result of we hate everybody and ourselves https://t.co/j2dtyaq8AE
— tim 🎩🐢 (@urbane_turtle) January 10, 2024
Glad to hear Memoir is not dropped (there are simply so many good ones that it actually deserved its personal class separate from Reality Based), however feeling a sorta means in regards to the Journalism award being dropped/mixed with Book. Feels like a significant loss. https://t.co/VnqpnWGhU2
— Tiffany Babb (@explodingarrow) January 10, 2024
Comics press do not do what they do for awards – they do it as a result of they love comics. But to take away the one class that features them within the Eisners is a mistake that needs to be fastened. https://t.co/1Ymc1SQTvs
— Gregg Katzman (@GreggKatzman) January 10, 2024
This is so true. I have nearly 300 episodes of my podcast to show it, however I assume dropping Comics Journalism is a tragic indictment of the mainstream pop-culture press. It used to be simple to get real comics protection, however now it’s an uphill battle in opposition to movie, TV + video video games. https://t.co/npN5PEdrYA
— Chris Thompson (@PopCultureHound) January 10, 2024
…you get the concept. Not even indignant, actually. Just unhappy.
In his piece, Rob listed various excellent causes for persevering with to honor comics writing:
Covering comics on an ongoing foundation is as essentially completely different from writing books (or contributing to long-form publications) about comics as doing a day by day strip is from making a graphic novel. Publications and the journalists who write for them have to make sense of business information, preserve individuals’s consideration each day, preserve editorial requirements and a constant voice throughout completely different contributors, and so many different issues that authors don’t.
So it’s peculiar that the Eisner Awards, which insists on vital distinctions between “webcomics” and “digital comics” and between single points, miniseries, and persevering with collection, has determined that on this case, all that stuff you individuals who write about comics do is principally the identical. In impact, these of us who write about comics on a day by day or weekly foundation are competing in opposition to publications which have lengthy lead occasions, or authors who’ve spent years writing a biography of Stan Lee, a historical past of underground comix, or a monograph on African-American creators of the Forties and 50s – one thing that doesn’t pretty honor the work of both facet of that equation.
Graeme’s thesis was that the class was damaged and nobody might be bothered to repair it:
My issues with the Eisners’ journalism class as-was — which is all we now have now, it appears — is that it was so ill-defined as to be virtually ineffective. The clue was within the class’s title, as a lot as something: whereas periodicals can embody journalism, “periodical” and “journalism” should not truly the identical factor, main to issues like final yr’s nominees within the class, which included two magazines that includes essays and interviews primarily based round materials revealed many years earlier competing with one particular person journalist’s mixed reporting throughout a number of retailers. It had turn out to be a class with competing apples and oranges, and particular guidelines to make sure that they held collectively, nevertheless unlikely that was.
That appeared to be that BUT there was additionally THIS tweet from Popverse:
For these following together with the Eisner Awards’ current choice to kill off the Comics Journalism class (‘Best Comics-Related Periodical/Journalism’), there’s extra to the story coming very quickly. Things are amiss.
What the what now? Was this referring to the 2 subsequent tales or one thing else? My investigation has gone nowhere on that. So maybe a brand new bombshell may have dropped by the point you learn that. But to come again round, everybody has written some very good and related issues, however I haven’t had my good, related take but, so right here goes!
And to be clear, I was an Eisner choose (like Chris and Graeme), all the best way again in 1993, the Comic-Con web site tells me, as a result of I knew it was the 90s however couldn’t pin down a date.
I was an Eisner nominee (like Rob and Graeme) again in 2011 and 2012, which I additionally had to search for. Both years had been the event to purchase a brand new frock, my one takeaway since I misplaced each occasions. I offered an Eisner as soon as, yr unknown, but it surely was once they had been offered in a ballroom at…I assume the Hyatt? The solely cause I know it’s because there’s a photograph of me giving an award to Archie Goodwin, with Will Eisner standing behind us. (That photograph is right here someplace on my exhausting drive however I don’t have time to dig it up now, alas.)
I have BEEN to nearly each Eisner Awards ceremony for the reason that first as a result of that’s how I roll. Every every now and then I miss one, however I’m a staunch award presentation supporter, for nevertheless lengthy it takes.
To start with, as Arrant reported, the Eisners change classes on a regular basis, and a development to shorten the ceremony has been underway for some time. Moving the Hall of Fame inductions to a separate ceremony (with its personal judges) is part of that, and should you had been wanting to trim classes….look, I gotta be trustworthy, greatest comedian guide web site might be the primary one I’d lower, too. Then I’d take into consideration slicing Best Inker and break Banky’s coronary heart throughout again.
And let’s be much more brutally trustworthy: the Oscars don’t give greatest Film Journalism awards. The Grammys don’t give Best Music Journalism awards (though they do give one for greatest liner notes.) The Emmys don’t….you get the concept.
It’s actually fairly absurd for “The Oscars of [fill in the blank] to give an award to the journalists who cowl that medium.
Except…
This is comics.
Comics are a neighborhood in addition to an artwork type, and the Eisner are as a lot about that neighborhood as in regards to the artform in lots of methods. The ranks of nice comics publishers who began out as comedian journalists are legion: Gary Groth, Chris Staros, Paul Levitz, Guy Delcourt, Jacques Glénat. Who am I lacking?
If Bilge Ebiri had been to out of the blue announce he was going to direct a film it could be very odd. If Jon Pareles out of the blue introduced he was placing out an album of golden oldies, individuals would cringe. When a comics journalist declares they’re going to put out a comic book everyone seems to be like “oh that’s great! When is the Kickstarter?”
In different phrases, comics of us are typically not as class aware as another artforms. It’s all fluid. If you’re going to honor all of the craftspeople and reprint makers and designers and so forth, honoring comics journalists appears to slot in with the Eisners far more than another main award. (And a number of different comics awards give out some number of “Best Comics Journalism” awards, with nobody batting an eyelash.)
There’s one more reason giving out that Eisner made some sense: it’s all we received. The whole occupation of journalism – writing about issues that occur on this planet with both an goal or subjective viewpoint – is beneath assault, each from “content creators” who monetize platforms that originated to assist some type of journalism, and people very platforms, which are making it practically not possible to earn a dwelling wage doing it by prioritizing AI and web optimization tips.
I’m type of glad I delayed penning this as a result of yesterday got here the stunning information that Pitchfork was being merged with…GQ and half the employees laid off. This led to an outpouring of disappointment on social media. Sure, these Pitchfork guys (at all times guys) had been snobby and self-absorbed and might destroy whole careers of their heyday, however these writers liked music. They created whole eras of music, and made stars and, heck, at any time when I wished to discover one thing new to pay attention to I would go to Pitchfork’s greatest new music and discover one thing.
But thanks to at this time’s brutal algorithms, the rise of streaming and TikTookay, and normal disarray of the music business, it wasn’t working anymore. I can’t consider a sadder destiny for an indie music website then being merged into Gentleman’s Quarterly, however that is the place our technocratic overlords have led us.
Seeing the music journalism occupation gutted is a shocker, I gotta admit. Music journalists have at all times ranked means, means, means, means greater on the standing scale than comics writers. There are well-known world altering music writers! (Lester Bangs, Leonard Feather) There are many writers about music who nonetheless make a dwelling doing it! (I can’t title any however I’m positive they exist.) They even made a a lot liked MOVIE a few music journalist! Comics journalists can solely aspire to write about films or music and make a dwelling writing, one thing you may’t do in comics.
In all of the lamentation I did discover this corker of an eXchange:
Dan Le Sac is a musician whose album received an 0.2 score on Pitchfork, however even he is aware of “we need more journalism not less.”
We’re in a disaster of discoverability, and everybody, together with comics publishers, understand it. “Buzz” remains to be important to breaking out of the pack and gaining a following. And “trusted sources” that provide you with a dependable information, are nonetheless precious, whether or not you recognize it or not. Someone has to affect the influencers.
I might write one other 1500 phrases – or 15,000 phrases actually – in regards to the decay of unique writing, already tenuous however completely being gutted and the entrails smeared alongside the highway within the Shift to AI. For occasion:
https://twitter.com/jason_koebler/status/1747325457966789119
a brand new, year-long examine discovered Google Search actually has gotten worse, and top-ranking websites are “on average more optimized, more monetized with affiliate marketing, and they show signs of lower text quality” Also proof of AI-generated top-ranking outcomes
I’ve observed this myself….I have to preserve scrolling previous tons of sponsored outcomes and depressing Wikipedia scraping content material farm aggregators to get to something helpful any extra when I search. The irony of getting to resort to the reeking pee-nado that’s Twitter for data on these matters just isn’t misplaced on me.
And except for shedding our tatty little Eisner Award, occasions have never, ever been worse for comics writing on the web, and I say that as somebody who has written some “state of the industry” piece yearly for 20 years. Newsarama isn’t any extra. CBR, I’m instructed, is restricted to a handful of tales about comics a day. I know the Popverse gang is doing its greatest however their entrance web page is 90% media headlines. I was instructed this week that comics protection has been lower nearly solely at one other pretty outstanding popular culture website. Comics information simply doesn’t get any site visitors and the chilly equations say that it doesn’t pay so out it goes.
I do salute Comicbook.com, which manages to have a pretty strong comics part daily, even when it’s buried in roughly 2000 different tales. Of course, Icv2.com is right here for the lengthy haul, and did a shocking job with their highlight on the historical past of the Direct Market final yr. And you recognize, there’s one different website, however since they never hyperlink to their sources, I gained’t hyperlink to them.
That leaves us tough and tumble scrappers who’re doing it for love. I salute my friends at Graphic Policy, AIPT, Broken Frontier, The Comics Journal, Women Write About Comics, Comicon.com, and different websites I can’t consider proper now as a result of, extremely, whenever you seek for “comics news” they don’t even present up within the first 100 outcomes. The BBC and Mashable do although.
That’s what we’re up in opposition to, of us. Google has completely pulverized small, unbiased web sites until you aggressively recreation the system with web optimization/SERPs trick, and AI has made that much more tough, and made unique human-crafted content material even tougher to discover. The blogosphere is useless, and until you need to work facet by facet with Nazis the publication revolution has stalled out.
And now, not even an Eisner Award nomination.
I at all times finish these saying the identical factor: I’m not going wherever. They will carry me out on my protect, crushed beneath a stack of teetering Omnibii from Image. This is what I do. It’s enjoyable writing issues, and I meet cool individuals and get to learn cool books.
Truthfully, the collapse of the army industrial comedian guide website advanced is nice for The Beat. Since we never wanted an viewers of greater than 1000’s (not tens of millions) we’ll preserve serving up our contemporary content material to these 1000’s, and perhaps, if Google appears to be like the opposite means, these individuals can discover our content material.
I’m cool with never successful an Eisner, or ever getting nominated again. When I received on stage with Archie Goodwin and Will Eisner in entrance of, at greatest, a couple of hundred individuals it was lots completely different than the large Indigo Ballroom presentation at this time. Of course, like everybody, I think about having my second to communicate in entrance of my friends, however that’s what I’m doing proper now. You simply can’t see my dress.
In closing: SUPPORT INDEPENDENT COMICS JOURNALISM ON PATREON. Or write to us for our advert charges. Smash that like button! See you in San Diego!
PS: According to Wikipedia these are different Eisner classes which have been retired over time though the checklist solely goes up to 2011.)
Past awards[edit]
- Best Graphic Album (1988–1989)
- Best Art Team (1988–1989)
- Best Black-and-White Series (1968–1991)
- Best Editor (1992–1999)
- Best Comics-Related Product/Item (1992, 1994–2002)
- Best Comics-Related Periodical/Publication (1992–2000, 2002–2007)
- Best Archival Collection/Project (1993–2005)
- Best Serialized Story (1993–2006)
- Talent Deserving of Wider Recognition (1995–2006)[11]
- Best Writer/Artist — Humor (1995–2008)
- Best Title for Younger Readers/Best Comics Publication for a Younger Audience (1996–2007)
- Best Writer/Artist — Drama (1997–2008)
- Best Comics-Related Sculpted Figures (1999)
- Best Comics-Related Publication (Periodical or Book) (2003)
- Best U.S. Edition of International Material–Japan (2007–2009)
- Special Recognition (2007–2008)]
- Best Writer/Artist–Nonfiction (2010)
- Best Adaptation from Another Work (2010–2011)
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