[00:00:00] Intro: Welcome to The Corner Box, with David Hedgcock and John Barber. With decades of experience in all aspects of comic book production, David, John, and their guests will give you an in-depth and insightful look at the past, present, and future of the most exciting medium on the planet, comics and everything related to it.

[00:00:24] John: Hello, and welcome to The Corner Box. I'm one host, I've got not one but two Davids. The first one is always here.

[00:00:33] David: Well, you said that so, it's such a disappointed manner. David Hedgcock, here I am.

[00:00:39] John: Joining us for the first time is Mr. David Harper of Sktch, formerly of Multiversity, uh.

[00:00:46] David Harper: Off Panel, my podcast.

[00:00:47] John: Of course.

[00:00:48] David Harper: I'm jumping on your intro, I'm sorry.

[00:00:50] John: Oh, please. Uh, I'm realizing I didn't prepare what I was gonna say, and that's perfect.

[00:00:55] David: John, you left off the most important part of the David Harper introduction. Not only is he.

[00:00:56] John: Oh, yes. That's right, I did.

[00:00:58] David: The keeper of the Sktch newsletter, that's s-k-t-c-h-d.com and the host of the Off Panel podcast, but he's also an Eisner Award-nominated journalist, John. We've been talking a lot about how cool we've been we're becoming, and this is how cool we've become, John. We have Eisner-nominated comic journalists on our podcast now.

[00:01:25] David Harper: I mean that is the coolest. I normally don't go to anywhere that isn't like Club 52-adjacent, which for an extremely uh dated reference, but this is Club 52-adjacent enough for me.

[00:01:35] John: Wait, wait, is Club 52 a DC thing or uh, is that is that the DC's Club 54?

[00:01:40] David Harper: Well, well, 54, shit, I I this is.

[00:01:42] John: Oh, Club 52 is a perfect comic book cool guy club that we're we're we're all in. Alright, alright, we just invent- invented the nightclub for for the DC universe. It's Club 52 instead of Club 54. This is how you know your brain is broken by comics when you just start referencing other 52 numbers and it's always the DC ones. Anyway, welcome, here, congratulations on the Eisner nomination. I think we originally had the schedule for like the day they got announced, so it would have been super exciting. Uh, congratulations, that is awesome and well-deserved. Is your third nomination?

[00:02:12] David Harper: It's my second solo one, but it's my third, I was part of Multiversity Comics when they were nominated in 2014, so I'm gonna I'm gonna give myself 2.5 to 3 depending on how generous you're feeling.

[00:02:22] John: I've known people that have put like that they were uh Eisner Award-nominated when they did a page of an anthology that got nominated. So, I think that's fair.

[00:02:30] David: I know people that have taken credit for being part of a book where the letterer was nominated, but the letterer was nominated for like, you know, 17 different comic books that they lettered. And one of the comic books that they were involved in.

[00:02:41] David Harper: Yeah.

[00:02:42] David: Happened to be part of the the listed names. I think we you should take the full three, David. Is where is where we're gonna go with this.

[00:02:48] John: Stan Sakai there.

[00:02:49] David: I think the joke there is also that Stan Sakai is the only guy that ever wins a lettering nomination, but that's not true. There's two other people that have won that win uh lettering nominations.

[00:02:57] David Harper: I always thought it was Todd Klein that always won. And then there was Dave Stewart who kept winning so often that I thought that they should just name the colorist award after him just as like a, so someone else could get a cut of that at some point. But I that's not happening as much anymore.

[00:03:09] John: Yeah.

[00:03:10] David: Feel like there was a minute where Jordie Bellaire was uh vacuuming up Eisner colorist awards as well, right?

[00:03:16] David Harper: S- she was nominated for colorist this time, and she had so many titles that they were just like various comics. And then they name the publisher, which was amazing. Everyone else has their titles like actually named, and hers is just like various or something like that.

[00:03:29] David: That's perfect. In honor of Mr. Harper being nominated, maybe we should go through the uh list, not like go into detail, but just like pick out some highlights and uh chat a little bit about Eisner nominations. What do you think, John?

[00:03:44] John: Sure, what.

[00:03:45] David: Once again, your enthusiasm is overwhelming. Thank you so much.

[00:03:50] David Harper: I'm feeling it from here, up in Alaska.

[00:03:51] David: And not in a climate change sort of way, and just uh I'm feeling somewhat warmer.

[00:03:52] John: Longtime subplot of this this whole podcast has been me sort of rebuilding myself after uh no longer working at various companies I might have worked at. And coming in and like uh trying to not hate comics, and succeeding. Well-succeeding, to the point that I've read a lot of these. I feel it's back like the old days when the the Eisners would come out and I'd have opinions about it instead of just being like, "Who's that?" Feel kind of good about that part of it.

[00:04:17] David: I feel the exact opposite after having looked at the award nominations this year because, man, I've been reading a lot of comic books in the last 12 months, in particular. Like I'm not kidding, this past weekend I read probably 75, 80 comic books, just and that's just my weekend. And I don't know like half.

[00:04:34] John: I can I consider half to be a success. Also, they have a t- like because of that award's technicality, uh they have to come out this year, like all the Profit and Bloodstrike comics were not eligible this year.

[00:04:47] David: Well, there you go. That explains a lot of why I'm I'm not totally clear on what's going on. Some of these are kind of annoying, but if you guys want to talk about them, we can, but I don't know. Best short story, is is that a thing we want to talk about? I don't know any of the ones on the best short story. Best one-shot I know.

[00:05:02] John: I read Brain Damage. It was cool.

[00:05:05] David Harper: I don't know if I'm somewhere in between you or if I'm just more on John's side, but I have read a lot of these, and like, I'm not saying it's a coincidence or something like that that I was nominated the year where I feel like the most me-style books were actually nominated. But like, the the graphic album new category and the what is it, best US edition of international material Asia, that category is like my sweet spot. Three of those five books I repped extremely hard. They were all on my top 20 list last year, and so, I am all about those categories. I don't really have a lot of the the short story thoughts. I didn't actually read Brain Damage. I heard good things though.

[00:05:37] John: I couldn't tell you what the stories were off the top of my head, but I I enjoyed reading the book.

[00:05:41] David: Thoughtful and insightful things, thanks. Yes. Are you guys going to vote and have you voted yet?

[00:05:42] John: I qualify to participate, but I do not.

[00:05:46] David Harper: Oh, I see, so you don't support me, David.

[00:05:47] David: Well, maybe sure I'll go to the trouble.

[00:05:48] John: I tend to forget to, but I will uh I will try to.

[00:05:53] David Harper: I like how I've now shamed you to standard being voters, possibly.

[00:05:54] David: Here's the thing, Mr. Harper. You're on the podcast, so it it's almost a lock now that uh every professional in the industry knows that uh we have given you the gold stamp of approval. So, your likelihood of winning is, I'm not going to say it's a 100%, but it's very high now.

[00:06:11] David Harper: I'm feeling that heat, the heat is rising, Alaska. And not in a climate change sort of way, and just uh I'm feeling somewhat warmer. I'm not kidding when I'm telling you that we're kind of getting cool, like we're kind of the cool kids now.

[00:06:22] David: I think we're already.

[00:06:24] David Harper: Yeah, no, I and and it's just growing. Our listenership is like there's more than one handful of listeners at this point, and I just it's shocking what we're doing here. So, so anyway, best one-shot, guys. And again, I don't want to do all these, but I some of them seem more interesting than others. Best one-shot or single issue, there's Absolute Batman Annual, Absolute Martian Manhunter number 1, A Sort of Crisis Events, Ice Cream Man, Something is Killed in the Children, Coin-Op number 10, I don't know what that one is. It's a really competitive category. I've already voted, and so, I already have a lot of thoughts put into all these. But like, it's a tricky one because it's like the Ice Cream Man issue, that's the one that had like Grant Morrison and Kelly Sue DeConnick, I think, and like a bunch of other creators on there. Geoff Johns, a whole bunch of people contributing to it, so it's really competitive. That Absolute Batman Annual was like massive. I think the tricky part, you know, it's like Absolute Martian Manhunter and A Sort of Crisis Events kind of compete against each other because they're both Dennis Camp books. But I don't know, I don't think you can really go wrong with any of these issues. I have not read Coin-Op either. Uh, apparently, the Davids are not Coin-Op people.

[00:07:26] John: But I I, yeah, I haven't read that one either.

[00:07:28] David: Any hot takes about any of the nominees?

[00:07:30] John: I bet it's going to be Batman, the Batman Annual. I think you're right about it splitting the uh the vote on the Martian or the uh the Dennis Camp vote.

[00:07:36] David: I had the pleasure of sitting down and sort of like reading, sort of for the first time, A Sort of Crisis Events from issue 1 all the way to issue 8, I think, just like a week or two ago. I sat down, I have never been more depressed reading a comic book series in my life. I was so morose in the best possible way though, right? Because the book is evoking feelings in me purposefully, and it is very good at it. Especially when read in one sitting, those full eight issues. Like I had to take a break around issue 5 and just like, I need to go for a walk because I am miserable right now. I am stewing in my head in a way that I really don't want to be right now, and it's because of that damn book. Issue 4 is definitely the strongest of that first sort of year, and I think Dennis Camp is definitely having a moment. Yeah. That said, also probably the Absolute Batman Annual because Daniel Warren Johnson's, he's at the top of his game. He's a one-man force.

[00:08:32] John: The tricky thing with the Eisners is because the judges change every year, there isn't necessarily any consistency. So, that adding up last two years' winners of Absolute Batman and Transformers and making Absolute Batman Annual, I don't know if that math really works, but I still think it's going to happen. I cut you off, David Harper.

[00:08:49] David Harper: It's so fine. Uh, I mean it's just like there's probably going to be more people that have read that, and like, you know, people are going to be each advocating for their own work, and it probably will get a lot of heat behind it. But I will say, like, the joke I have for A Sort of Crisis Events is the same I had, do you guys ever watch Chernobyl, the HBO series?

[00:09:05] John: I actually haven't, but I was thinking about it the other day, but I haven't watched it.

[00:09:07] David Harper: It's it's fantastic. But A Sort of Crisis Events, I I made the same joke about it, which is that after you watch an episode or read an issue, you need to watch a Paddington movie afterwards so you can feel better about life. I mean, that's the thing about A Sort of Crisis Events, too, though. I actually think number 2 is my favorite issue, the one where it's like takes place in the abattoir, where it's like uh the the guy that's unstuck from time. That one I think is amazing, but you could have picked any of the issues and had no problem. I I will say, the one thing that surprises me sometimes by this stuff is it judging is hard, and you they probably wanted to not have A Sort of Crisis Events everywhere. I was a little surprised A Sort of Crisis Events, it had best single issue nomination, best new series nomination, but not best continuing series nomination. But again, maybe they were just trying to spread the the wealth a little bit.

[00:09:54] David: Let's go right into best continuing series because that is the next category that's up on my screen. We got Absolute Batman, Absolute Wonder Woman, Department of Truth, FML, Power Fantasy, and Storm, which is a little bit of a surprise to me. But Mr. Harper, what did you uh do you mind giving your, I mean, I guess you're just giving your being meaning this sort of giving your.

[00:10:08] John: Oh my god.

[00:10:11] David: All of you need to say what you voted, I was I was going for what I thought was going to win, not what I liked the most, I don't know what yours. Okay, oh, you're going I'm going with uh what I would choose.

[00:10:21] David Harper: If if any of the listeners are listening, I voted for all of them individually. I mean, odds are Absolute Batman's going to win. But I I don't think you can really go wrong with any of these. I mean, like, the Power Fantasy I think is just fantastic and is doing something very different with the superhero form. I think FML is just an absolute delight. I was a little surprised because I I thought it was a limited series, but I forgot that they revealed that it was going to keep going. I think with Matt Fraction actually writing the next couple issues. Here's the funny thing, this is no slight to Absolute Batman, I actually think Absolute Wonder Woman's the best Absolute book. Yeah. Any of the books are really great picks. And uh, I have to say personally I was thrilled for Storm, just because uh Mirwa Adelie, who is the writer of that, is a a listener to Off Panel, and is just a great dude, and I'm very happy for him. Of everyone on that list, he was probably the most excited. And sometimes, that's a cool thing, too.

[00:11:08] David: I'm going to have to check out Storm because that one came out of nowhere for me. That was a left field pick. The thing that was so interesting to me about this particular category was that it's all big two. Like, that seems like a rare thing. Usually, you know, there's some other publishers, at least one other publisher is usually mixed in. But I guess Dark Horse and Image big four, I guess is, I don't know, it just felt like it was a little uh heavy on the on the bigger publishers.

[00:11:29] David Harper: Like last year, the Santos Sisters won, which was very unexpected and fantastic. However, think about it like this, how many like continuing series are there these days, and how many publishers are really doing that? There's so many minis, you kind of have a a much smaller pool to choose from than you used to.

[00:11:48] David: That is a very good point.

[00:11:50] John: Knowing Marvel, you're probably stretching the definition of continuing by nominating Storm.

[00:11:56] David Harper: Is it not around anymore? It is, it is. It took a break because Age of Revelation came out, but then it came back. So, Storm continues onwards, both in our hearts and in our minds.

[00:12:05] David: Yeah. You you are 100% correct, uh Mr. Harper, that Absolute Wonder Woman is the best thing that DC is publishing. It is a fantastic book. I really love it. It's got heart. Wonder Woman as a as a lead character is never been more interesting to me or more like just the gravitas and the joy of that book is clear in every single page. And Hayden Sherman's art is like a revelation, like the dude is doing things that, you know, we just haven't seen in a long time, with particularly with his layouts, the way he's laying out pages. It's really impressive. And and he is really, like, with they're 20 issues into that, and he has not missed too many issues. He's he's only taken a couple issues off. So, when you see the level of detail he's bringing to every page, and then and the level of design sense that he's bringing to every page, and then you see that he's doing it like month in and month out, it's an impressive feat. And Absolute Wonder Woman would definitely be my pick, too.

[00:12:56] David Harper: I got to say really quick, the amazing thing about Hayden Sherman is they are actually drawing, they they did two books last year, Batman: Dark Patterns. So, there was that, and I know they're working on another DC book simultaneously as Absolute Wonder Woman. So, Hayden Sherman and like Dan Mora and like people like that doing like two or three books at the same time, bewildering, absolutely bewildering. And still bringing that quality is just insane. But yeah, I also want to say, like, a lot of the hubbub after this was deservedly like Dennis Camp. It's like kind of Dennis Camp's year because there was like I think six total nominations. Kelly Thompson deserves a lot of love because Kelly Thompson got nominated for writer, got nominated for this, also got nominated for, I think best humor publication for one of the Jeff issues. Kelly's been doing this a long time, Kelly is really good at what she does, and I love seeing all these nominations for her and her books.

[00:13:42] John: Yeah, yeah, totally agree. David, uh was is that your pick, too, Absolute Wonder Woman?

[00:13:47] David: Oh, yeah, yeah, I think that's my favorite uh ongoing, yeah. I do want to say the news for me there was finding out Absolute Martian Manhunter is a limited series.

[00:13:54] David Harper: 12 issues.

[00:13:55] David: Yeah, 12 issues. Uh, best new series, A Sort of Crisis Events, the new Batman with with Matt Fraction and Jorge Jimenez, Black Cat, Exquisite Corpses, Ghost Pepper, and Temporal.

[00:14:07] David Harper: I just love that Batman was nominated. I just did an interview with Chip Zdarsky where he said him and Matt Fraction were entertained by that themself because they're just like, best new comic Batman. Technically true, but you know, also feels kind of funny.

[00:14:21] John: Yeah. If you were talking about with uh Chase the other day, Hedgcock, like that comic holds its own in a a crowded field of good Batman comics right now. It's amazing.

[00:14:31] David: Yeah.

[00:14:32] John: I feel like the Joker issue that, okay, maybe that came out this year, maybe that couldn't have been nominated, but that one was so good.

[00:14:38] David: I'm wearing my nominate or my vote on my on my sleeve for this one because um Ghost Pepper by Ludo Lullabi is, Ludo's done a bunch of covers for me for a bunch of the books that I'm publishing, self-publishing, and well, self-publishing, publishing. And so, Ludo's my guy, man. I like guy's that guy's so, and I really like Ghost Pepper. It's feels like an anime on paper. It's French manga. It's a manga through the filter of a Frenchman, and I really like it. I'm really enjoying it. So, that's going to be my pick, but a little bit of that is uh wearing my heart on my sleeve.

[00:15:09] David Harper: You know there's a term for that, Manfra.

[00:15:11] David: Manfra? Oh, thank you. I did not know that, but I'm I love that word.

[00:15:16] David Harper: Yeah, yeah, manga from, it's funny like I think one of the tricky parts about voting, and I'm sure if if you guys voted like you would probably run into this also. But it's just like separating again, the heart and the mind, where you're like, "Oh man, I'm friends with this person." But also like, "Is this like my favorite book or is this just the one where I'm, it's really tough to do. Especially when you're friends with multiple people in the category. But I don't know, I mean it's it's going to be really kind of feels like it's probably A Sort of Crisis Events is one to lose. I will say, again, I was making a joke about it and talking about how Chip and Matt were making fun of it. I actually think the Batman book's my favorite book from the lot. I know that's a probably an unpopular take, but man, Fraction and Jorge Jimenez are amazing on that book. And it is just, it's got a lot of depth. It's got a lot of complexity. I think Jorge is doing better work on that than he ever has, and he's been doing that book since the pandemic started. And it's just a really good book. Also, I don't feel like crying afterwards like I do with A Sort of Crisis Events.

[00:16:07] John: That book, when I picked up the last issue, it made me say, "Ah man, Ryan Sook's drawing this one." Cuz he is great. Like, he's so good. But I'm still like, "Oh, it's not Jorge."

[00:16:17] David Harper: Yeah. I mean, I used to be like, "Ryan Sook drawing a book is like a," I mean, I still am. It's a special treat, but I was just like kind of wish it was Jorge. That issue was really good, that the number 8 was was really solid. But again, like this is another category where you can't really go wrong with anything because it's like Exquisite Corpses has done amazing things, and they're really building that out. Ludo does amazing stuff. All the books are really solid, and I think the judges did a really good job this year, and I'm not just saying that because they selected me.

[00:16:42] John: Friend of the show, Stephanie Williams, uh nominated, so that's that's uh.

[00:16:46] David Harper: And nominated for best writer. Spoilers for later.

[00:16:48] John: Spoiler, look at that. These are people everybody's look we're here live at the announcement of the Eisner Awards, don't jump ahead.

[00:16:55] David Harper: It's true.

[00:17:00] David: All right, we're going to roll down to uh best anthology because everything before that is like, I don't know. The best anthology, Come Out and Play: The Queer Sports Project, DC Pride 2025, Noir is the New Black, season 2, Stardust: The Super Wizard Anthology, 2000 AD 2026 Annual featuring Judge Dredd. Stardust: The Super Wizard Anthology, which was a Kickstarter project, and definitely a passion project of uh of Van Jensen's. It might be Zoop. It's all the same. I and I believe that this was kind of a like a passion project of Van Jensen's, and I think he's like weirdly been in love with Stardust the Super Wizard for quite some time if you read the material in the collection itself. But yeah, it was removed because there was a single page of uncredited art in the project that was AI. What's your take on that, Mr. Harper? This particular use of AI, not to let's confine it to this particular thing because we don't have that much time.

[00:17:51] David Harper: I will say that like, I think an important distinction is that technically I believe, I don't know if it was Van Jensen because it didn't specifically say that, but it said that the submitter requested the removal of it. So, they wanted to rescind their nomination, according to the Eisner the Eisner folks. And also, the the judges apparently said like, "We didn't know." But yeah, so I think it was technically the nominee rescinded their own nomination when it's all said and done. I think the whole thing sucks cuz like, there's what, 139 other pages by other creators that uh.

[00:18:18] David: Got some really cool stuff in there, too.

[00:18:22] David Harper: Everything I've heard about it is the book itself was a just a wonderful production. It's ridiculous, the whole thing sucks. And like, it may be an unpopular take with you guys, I have no idea where you stand. I am very not into AI in a broader sense, especially when it comes to creativity, and like, I think that if anything, this is a very important moment for the Eisners to create a policy about how they want to handle this stuff going forward because they need to have that, otherwise the door will be open. And I think that this is probably a positive step, and it sounds like they're going to probably develop something. But it's a bummer, and this stuff always kind of seems to happen like once a year with Eisners, where just something weird happens.

[00:19:02] David: That's my take on it, too, David. It's, I'm glad it happened in this way. This is the most benign version of this happening as could have possibly happened, right? It's a single page in an anthology, you know, which is part of a, you know, one single category, and even to the point where, you know, the person submitting, you know, rescinded the submission. So, like, it's the most benign version of this that could have possibly happened. The Eisner Awards dodged a big bullet with this, and now they have the opportunity to make decisions on how they want to what sort of rules, if any, they want to have for this sort of thing. So, I'm kind of glad it happened the way it did because the way this happened is the least black-eye version of this happening to the Eisner Awards. So, I'm glad it went the way it did. And I'm dismayed because that book was really good. It's a fantastic work. There's some there's pieces by All-Red in there, all kinds of incredible artists. I found a an artist in there, Michel Melki, who's, I don't mean this in a bad way in any way, shape, or form, but he's like a Trad Moore from the Trad Moore tree, and man, he's amazing. I've found him from that from that anthology, and I've been working with him for quite some time now, and amazing, incredible art. That's just one of many really great pieces in there, and you can tell that that anthology was done by somebody who has a true love of Stardust the Super Wizard, you know, and a really good talent for putting books together. It's a it's a real bummer. I think it was deserved if that one page was removed, it would a 100% be deserving of the nomination, and it's too bad that those rules weren't clarified in advance so that something like this didn't happen to an otherwise worthy book.

[00:20:45] David Harper: The Eisners need to probably have some sort of policy in place, but also, they need to have a policy in place about how you have to declare it, if that's a thing. Because like, how do you judge something off of incomplete information? If that guy hadn't posted on LinkedIn or whatever he did where he talked about how he had done that, I don't know if anybody would have noticed, and like, that's kind of funky.

[00:21:04] David: There are so many artists using AI right now, that it's hard like, when does it stop being a tool, and does it start becoming the artist itself? Like, where is that line? Because it's blurring already, right? Like, Adobe Photoshop is doing some stuff, and just because it's not called AI, it's the tool is doing things for artists and creative talent that they couldn't do without that, right? Just me playing around in Procreate, I can, like, my lines in Procreate are immaculate, and it is not me.

[00:21:36] John: Did you have a pick for best anthology, David?

[00:21:38] David: This is one of those things where it's more about like, I really like a lot of the people involved, and I've read a couple of them. I don't really have strong takes here, but I'm really happy, I know Andreas Shea and Jillian Grant put in a lot of work for the Pride Anthology for DC. The 2000 AD crew is fantastic, and it's like, they don't really get nominated for awards very often, which is kind of wild because like, I think that 2000 AD and Judge Dredd and all that stuff is like a really key part of comic history and they've only earned a handful of nominations over the years. So, I'm happy for them, but I don't really have a strong take on that.

[00:22:09] John: I'm not familiar with a lot of a lot of these. I I read the DC Pride, I read the Stardust. Those are the only two for me that that I read. John, did you have anything you want to add on that one?

[00:22:17] John: Yeah, no, I think I think Stardust is the only one of these I actually read. I've read I read the first Noir is the New Black, I missed the second one entirely. 2000 AD, I yeah, I haven't been keeping up on, and I didn't read I missed this year's DC Pride, and I didn't see Come Out and Play. But I kind of want to check that one out because I saw I think at Wilfrid Santiago got nominated for for one of them, so I need to check that out.

[00:22:39] David: Next one that that would be interesting, best graphic album new, Cannon by Lee Lai, Jerome by Jesse Lonergan, The Fable of Earthling Woods by Junie Ba, Garden of Spheres by Linnea Sterte. I'm butchering these names. More Weight: A Salem Story by Ben Wickey, and Shadows of the Sea by Kathy Malkasian. A really great, strong grouping here for in my opinion this year.

[00:23:12] David Harper: Very tough category. I mean, I I know I've said this for everyone, these are like really, really, really great books. I I have not the slightest bit of understanding as to who's going to win here. I don't even think you can say a favorite because I think there's going to be really strong camps for any of them. In terms of my personal rankings, Cannon by Lee Lai was my favorite, but I think that any of them could win. I love them all. And I will say, it is funny, it's Fables of Earl King Wood, you didn't do anything wrong, it is kind of funny that it's Fables of Earl King Woods in there, which I think is very strange. But I think that that is Junie's best work yet, and I think Jesse, I think Jerome is Jesse's best work. It's really cool to see that. And Linnea Sterte, if you guys have not read A Garden of Spheres, you should. It is psychotic and incredible and the best possible way. Like that and Tongues by Anders Nilsen, which is in the next category. Those two books are like, what if Fantagraphics tried to make an Image comic, and they're amazing. I think both the creators would very strongly disagree with that summation, but I think that that's uh that's how it kind of felt to me.

[00:23:58] John: I haven't read A Garden of Spheres because I was at the Strand Book Store and I selected a different Linnea Sterte book, Stages of Rot. All the names kind of blur together. So, I haven't read that. I kicked-started Fables of Earl King Woods, but one of my good friends for 20-something years, Sebastian Girner, published it, and uh that's it's sitting here, I haven't quite read it yet. Uh, looking forward to that, though. More Weight, I have sitting here also, have not read that one. But Jerome was like one of my favorite comics, like, in a while. Like, I loved that. I like Cannon, but I but I love love Jerome.

[00:24:32] David Harper: I mean, Jerome was funny because I did not have it in my top 20 list on my podcast. It was like one of my honorable mentions, and I've never had more people mad at me for not having something on my list. I love it, it's great. Everyone is probably more right than I am. It is a great book.

[00:24:51] John: Kind of a Gilgamesh rip-off.

[00:24:57] David Harper: Oh, burn Jesse Lonergan.

[00:25:00] David: I haven't read it because I heard there's missing chapters, so I'm just like, "Ah, I don't want to." I said this about Junie Ba years ago at this point. I think I read like the first issue of Monkey Meat that came out, I think it was from Image, a few years back, and I immediately got on social media. This is not something I do normally at all. And I was like, Junie Ba is the next big thing, like Junie Ba's voice as a creator, I can only think of one other person in the last several years who has inspired me the way Junie Ba does, and that is.

[00:25:27] David Harper: David Harper.

[00:25:34] David: Yeah, David Harper. Yeah. So there you go. So I think The Fable of Earthling Woods loved it, fantastic. Jerome is right up there for me. I haven't read any of the others, but uh sounds like I probably should.

[00:25:45] David Harper: Sebastian is a is a great A dude, and like, Goat's Flying Press does an amazing job with the productions of their books. Like, this is it looks incredible. Like, it's the production value is just beautiful.

[00:25:57] John: Yeah, it's very nice.

[00:25:57] David: Hey, everybody, it's David, and I wanted to take a break for just a second to talk to you about my new book, Super Kaiju Rock n' Roller Derby Funtime Go! Fuji Kangaroo Flames. This is the story of Harmony, Lyra, Melody, Cadence, and Viola, a down-on-their-luck all-girl garage band turned roller derby divas who just might be the only people on the planet that can save it from total annihilation at the hands of giant kaiju monsters of mass destruction. Super Kaiju Rock n' Roller Derby Funtime Go! is a glorious mash-up and revitalization of '70s pop culture beats, from blaxploitation films to Saturday afternoon kung fu cinema to kaiju movies. A wildly successful Kickstarter original graphic novel series featuring incredible creative talents, such as myself and the amazing interior art of Rolo Mauatua. The book 3 Kickstarter is now live. We have some great cover artists that have joined us for this one, Chuma Hill, who has been covering Absolute Wonder Woman, Absolute Batman, and Superman recently, has done a cover for us. We also have works from Netho Diaz, the lead story artist for the Uncanny X-Men, and, of course, the all-time great, Jan Brothers, who are the interior artists for Miss Meow and the Midnight Guardians. Go to git.funtimego.com, that's g-i-t.funtimego.com, and check out everything about the book. Also, we have a very special VIP offer, if you want to throw a dollar our way. The VIP offer basically gets you access to a 30% discount, and also, there's some special pledge tiers this time that only VIPs are going to get access to, and we're doing special limited-edition items that only the VIPs will have access to. So, that's git.funtimego.com, book 3 Kickstarter campaign is live right now. If you have enjoyed the show, the best way to support John and I are to um buy our books. Thank you so much for listening, and thank you in advance for your uh support, git.funtimego.com. The book 3 Kickstarter campaign is live. All right, thanks, everybody. Let's get back to the show. Next one that that thought maybe we'd hit is best US edition of international material Asia. We've got Hirayasumi, volumes 4 through 7, Land, volume 1, Purgatory Funeral Cakes, great title, Tokyo Alien Bros, volume 1 through 3, and Yan, volumes 1 and 2.

[00:28:18] David Harper: Hell yeah. Hirayasumi is very close to my personal Mount Rushmore of favorite comics ever. It was my number one comic two years ago, it was my number two comic last year, just because I repped for another one. But I think Kengo Hanazawa is a genius, and clearly they agree because he was two of the five nominations, which is really impressive. Tokyo Alien Bros is also incredible. The one that is like was the most thrilled to see though is Land, volume 1. That's a Yen Press release, and it is incredible. And I repped very hard for that book. It deserves a lot more readership and a lot more love. It's just one of those books that I feel like really got slept on, and I was really thrilled to see both Land and its creator, its creator was nominated for best writer/artist, I think. And it's well-deserved. Like people give Eisner judges a lot of guff because they don't vote for the things that they want them to and everything like that. But Land is like living proof of the fact that they were reading a lot of books because not a lot of people talked about that book. I did because I'm awesome. That book is is fantastic. Anyway, so those three, I did not read the other two, but those three are three of my 20 favorite comics from last year, so, very, very into those picks.

[00:29:31] David: I'm getting more and more into manga by the day. I love what I what I'm reading, but I'm still I'm so far behind that I'm still reading like, I'm still in that Akira level of reading, like I'm reading like Kaiju No. 8, right, like that's my big read right now, stuff like that. So it's going to be a while before I'm getting into these digging digging any deeper than that, I think, uh cuz just there's so much material.

[00:29:54] David Harper: It's a whole new world. It's funny, like, getting into manga kind of made me feel like getting into comics for the first time. I mean, they're all comics, but like, it was like, where to start? Like, there's so many to pick from, and uh it turns out there's not really a lot of bad places to start.

[00:30:07] David: Well, especially if you're picking English translated editions of of books, because they're not going to pick the bad stuff, right? You're going to get the probably going to get the better stuff first, right? John's John's got a very strong opinion about that.

[00:30:18] John: No, I don't, but I feel like like that 15 years ago there was like a real gauntlet something would have had to have run to come out in a and I mean this in a positive way, I don't mean this like and now they're putting whatever slap over, I just mean like it it's awesome that these things that are, it's like how is this series on volume like 23 in English? Like, that's amazing. You know, now you know maybe it's maybe it's of okay quality or whatever, but just the fact that it's uh the the bench is so deep on that now. Uh, yeah.

[00:30:44] David Harper: A lot more stuff is getting translated in a way that it wasn't before. They were having to be a little bit more picky-choosey, but now it's just like, manga readers are so voracious. My wife got into manga, she's never read comics her entire life and Crunchyroll carried her over, and she is she is reading Vinland Saga books like it's her job. That's.

[00:31:01] John: Yeah. Uh, when Elizabeth was on we were talking about Iasawa, like I I never thought to go back and look to see if they published all the rest of the Iasawa stuff and they did over the intervening years where I hadn't looked, and it was what was the uh finally putting out the Naoki Urasawa: Bad Boy? Billy Bat. Billy Bat, I'm sorry, Bad Boy, that's Chris Ryall's Bad Boy. It's great that all finally a lot of this stuff is uh casually coming out. David, if you've never read any Naoki Urasawa, I could not recommend him more highly. There's really no poor bad place to go, but 20th Century Boys and Pluto are probably the safest harbors for anyone. Those feel like something that any Western comics fan would easily enjoy also.

[00:32:39] David: I'm adding them both to my list. All right, let's get down to the really good stuff. All right, best writer, Dennis Camp for Absolute Martian Manhunter, A Sort of Crisis Events, and The Ultimates; Scott Snyder, Absolute Batman and some other stuff; Mariko Tamaki, This Place Kills Me; Kelly Thompson, Absolute Wonder Woman, Birds of Prey, Jeff the Land Shark; James Tynion IV, Something is Killing the Children and a bunch of other stuff; and then Stephanie Williams, friend of the show, Stephanie Williams, uh Street Sharks: Roots of Madness and Temporal. You think it I'm pretty sure that's mostly for Street Sharks.

[00:33:08] John: I'm pretty sure.

[00:33:11] David: You got a favorite here, David? Mr. Harper?

[00:33:13] David Harper: I mean, I think Scott Snyder's the favorite to win. I will say, I mean, like, Dennis Camp maybe, just because like it does kind of feel like his year. Again, I want to underline Kelly Thompson, just because Kelly Thompson's fantastic, and I think that she is wonderful and underrated. And James and and Mariko are amazing, God, I don't know, don't make me pick. If it the question is who do you think will win, I'm going to put the betting odds to favorite Scott Snyder. But I'll probably wrong.

[00:33:37] David: Scott Snyder's clearly a very good Batman writer, outside of Frank Miller, he's certainly the best in the last 30 30 40 years, right? But it's shown that when Scott Snyder does anything besides Batman, it's crickets for the most part, and I think that Absolute Batman, in particular, is more about Nick Dragotta than it is about Scott Snyder. In the same way, I thought Batman was more about Greg Capullo than it was about Scott Snyder. Scott Snyder's setting them up, like he's the Geoff Johns of the Batman era, like we're there for Nick Dragotta, we're there for Greg Capullo. And so, I'm not saying who I'm picking, and also again, Scott, I am not involved with the things that David is saying. Yeah, yeah, yeah, I want to distance myself from some of this as well, you guys are a bunch of wimps.

[00:34:23] John: The thing that surprised me the most of the nominations is Dragotta not being nominated. I mean, he was nominated for cover artist, I was very surprised that he was not nominated for his interiors, because I agree with you. I think that the straw that stirs the Absolute drinks are the artists, plain and simple. It's wild to see a a kind of a coronation run of Absolute Batman and not see Dragotta on that list.

[00:34:41] David: They should have flipped it. I think Scott's great on Absolute Batman, I'm loving that series, and clearly that book is responsible for a lot of comic shops staying in business over the course of the last 18 months, so, tons of flowers to him. But I don't think he deserves a best writer nom because especially when you look at this crowd, like Dennis Camp is having a moment, it's a murders row that he put out in last 12 months, Absolute Martian Manhunter, everyone's talking about that book. Some of the crazy innovative stuff he did in that book, you know, with playing with physical media with the writing and the art, fantastic. And A Sort of Crisis Events, I have not read a book in the last 12 months that evoked feeling out of me the way that book did, good, bad, and different. It made me feel. And The Ultimates is the only book in the whole Ultimate line that that I'm invested in, in any way. And I think that it's all about the writing on that one, although I do think the artist on The Ultimates is is pretty great, too.

[00:35:30] David Harper: I think you could actually make a case that Dennis is writing the most acclaimed book for all three publishers, all three of those publishers he's working for. The number of times you can say that in the history of comics is maybe one. Yeah. But we'll see, that's where I'd probably place my money. And then I think maybe a close second for me would be uh Kelly Thompson, just because Absolute Wonder Woman really for me, that's the best thing DC's got, and DC is having a really great run right now, like, DC is my favorite publisher of the big four, and everything that they're putting out, I'm enjoying. And Kelly Thompson's for me, she's the best she's the best writer of the publisher right now. So, god, man, and then there's Mariko Tamaki, who's right there, too, who's like amazing. Like, there's it's somebody else's year, I I can see how Scott Snyder might get it, but I I feel like there's more deserving people this year.

[00:36:14] John: Probably I'm on Thompson and Camp on this, too. I I think I I'm not sure the order I'd go in, good stuff.

[00:36:25] David: Okay, everybody, we're on to the best writer/artist category. Uh, we got Junie Ba for The Wonder Boy, The Fable of Earthling Woods, and Monkey Meat: Summer Bag; Jamal Campbell on Zatanna; Jesse Lonergan for Jerome; Chang Shing, I hope I said that right, for Yan, volumes 1 and 2; Linnea Sterte, A Garden of Spheres; and Katsumi Yamashita for Land, volume 1. Got some double-dipping on this one from the original graphic novel category.

[00:36:51] David Harper: And the US edition of international material Asia category. I think this is where Jesse wins. I think that this is the one where it's like, no matter your opinion of Jerome, you can't look at that and think, this guy didn't bring the heat. Yeah. But we'll see, that's where I'd probably place my money. I I agree with you, though, like, Junie is like a singular creator in a way that very few people can achieve. You can say the same about Linnea Sterte and Katsumi Yamashita, and like, Jamal Campbell's amazing. I put my money on on Jesse here, which is not real money, but uh that's where I'd probably go.

[00:37:23] John: It's interesting uh to see the the mix of nations there. I feel like there'd been a a dividing line in uh the not nominating not manga artists. Again, casually.

[00:37:33] David Harper: I feel like a first.

[00:37:33] John: Yeah, it just seemed like like the fact that like a big percentage of it was uh a foreign material. So, yeah, cool. I mean, it would have I think it's great, I'm all all for that. Could see Junie Ba coming in winning this one um, but I you never know what the Eisner's here, I don't know, I don't know. Jesse Lonergan for me, that that Jerome was my flat-out favorite book of the year, Tongues right behind it.

[00:37:52] David: I'm only familiar with um Junie Ba, Jamal Campbell, and Jesse Lonergan. I I don't know the the other three um, but of those three, yeah, that's a hard pick. I can see a really strong argument for Jamal Campbell. The Zatanna, it is a beautiful book, and the writing is fun. I couldn't care less about Zatanna except I do because Jamal Campbell's doing it. That's a tough one for me, I don't, I think Jesse Lonergan Jerome is technically a revelation, right? The technical expertise, the way he manipulates a grid and in that graphic novel is like something I've never really seen before, the way he's manipulating is really impressive, the way he formalizes the use of the grid in his story-telling for Jerome, and it is something to be like treasured, for sure. Tough one. The penciler/inker category, like everybody on there's great. Yeah, and I feel like it's a massive injustice that Javier Pulido's not on there, and that David Finch isn't on there. I I feel like Finch did such an amazing job on Skin Broker. I I did like a transcendent job for what he did, but I can't fault anybody on here.

[00:39:00] David Harper: Yeah, that's the problem is it's like, who do you remove? It's a tough question. I also think that like, one of the this is not to discredit Finch's work by any means, because it is really amazing. He does have the performance-enhancing drug of like having worked on that for like a decade.

[00:39:12] John: I was having a discussion with somebody that uh David and I know, and she was like that, you know, they the Eisner's need to have a category for like monthly artist and a category for somebody taking forever. I'm like, I don't know, on the end-user side of that, does it I don't care, and also, anything that can be done to encourage David Finch to spend 10 years on another book should be done.

[00:39:31] David Harper: Yeah. That's the great power of Robert Kirkman and his like kind of empire, right, is the fact that like, he can be like, "Yo, Art Adams, David Finch, and and Andy Kubert, you want to draw a Terminus and you got like years to do it?" And like, that's a thing he can do, and that's the thing he can do with David Finch with uh with Skin Broker, too. But that's not me saying it Finch shouldn't have been nominated, I think he does a great job, but that is a compelling advantage he has that others don't. Do you downplay Barry Windsor-Smith for Monsters because he took 35 years to make it?

[00:40:01] John: That was exactly the one I threw out, cuz I was like, "Oh, you know, maybe it would be like the amount of pages you turn out a year." I'm like, no way, Barry Windsor-Smith's Monsters would still he'd still be beating dumping in 340 pages that year or whatever and, yeah, exactly.

[00:40:13] David Harper: I would also want to give a shout-out since we're giving shout-outs to people who aren't on the best penciler/inker list, Jason Fabok on Rook. Nobody's crushing it the way that guy has crushed it in the last 12 months, and he is doing it on a relatively uh monthly schedule, maybe bi-monthly, but still, he's on a grind and the level of inventiveness and world-building and character design and just flat-out everything, that guy is crushing it on that book in a way that very few people are touching him right now. He s- he deserve to be on the list, too. But there's no faulting this list, John, I agree with you, it's a murders row. We are blessed with quite a few amazing monthly artists right now.

[00:40:51] John: and it's crazy that like, that's not even like, oh also Dan Mora, you know, also uh Jorge Jimenez. This should be Dan Mora's year, right? He did great, but oh, this is a great list, like, I don't know, honest.

[00:41:05] David: And that's even with fudging it, where you don't have Junie Ba, Jamal Campbell, Jesse Lonergan, you know, like people that are all doing monthly comics in there, as well as the the the stuff that we're talking about.

[00:41:09] David Harper: Yeah, a lot more stuff is getting translated in a way that it wasn't before. They were having to be a little bit more picky-choosey, but now it's just like, manga readers are so voracious. My wife got into manga, she's never read comics her entire life and Crunchyroll carried her over, and she is she is reading Vinland Saga books like it's her job.

[00:41:16] David: Nuts. All right, David, any uh Mr. Harper, any final thoughts on the Eisners? This turned into just talking about the Eisners. I wish we there's so much more I we're going to have to have you on again soon because uh we didn't even start to talk about the things that I wanted to talk to you about. So, uh any final thoughts on the Eisners here?

[00:41:32] David Harper: I don't know, as a nominee, I think they did a great job. Yeah. Uh, but no, I mean, honestly, it's like, there's a reason why like every single category, I'm just like you could vote for any but of any anybody here and it's you wouldn't be wrong. I mean, like, even something like uh on the best multi painter/multimedia artist, like, Q: Slices of Life a Comic Montage, uh by Poohki, Limn Press. I don't know how many people read that. The judges read it, I read it, it's amazing. Q killed it, uh and I'm glad that she got nominated, and like, that's a deep-cut book. And so, it's it's cool that we have something that has Slices of Life a Comic Montage and like, Absolute Batman on the same list because it shows how eclectic comics were in 2025. So, good job.

[00:42:13] John: Yeah, uh I'm not always the biggest fan of of of of the Eisners, but uh this is a a quality list. So, yeah.

[00:42:19] David Harper: You just got to talk to me more, John. I'm very positive, very positive.

[00:42:22] John: You are.

[00:42:22] David: I want to talk to you about your year, your first year in comics as a professional, I want to chat about that, so many other things I wanted to get to. Hopefully, we'll be able to convince you to come on again uh uh real soon. Thank you, Mr. Harper, for coming. That is sktch.com, s-k-t-c-h-d.com, is your newsletter. I guess what would you call do you call it?

[00:42:41] David Harper: It's my website that I yeah that I that I do a weekly newsletter to kind of summarize everything I do. I will say that I typically do use vowels, it was just for domain name reasons that I did not use vowels in my site's title.

[00:42:53] David: That's just caprice. And then also uh uh the Off Panel podcast, David does a weekly interview with a whole host of amazing and interesting folks. I think the la- latest one is Mark Waid. And so, if you haven't listened to Off Panel, definitely give it a listen. I I listen every week. And anything else you want to uh talk about, David?

[00:43:10] David Harper: Well, I will say, I mean, to to underline something that you said earlier, you know, just a little bit ago, it's um I am a full-time comics journalist/podcaster. We are very rare commodities, and all my stuff is crowdfunded, um podcast has some ads, but Sktch itself has no advertising, it's all subscription-driven. So, if you want to read writing about comics that is Eisner Award-nominated and touches on a lot of subjects that a lot of people don't really dig into. Sometimes for good reason because I did do a basically a oral history/retrospective of Stilt-Man's existence last year for his 60th anniversary. Then subscribe to Sktch, it's uh I hear it's pretty cool. It costs less than a comic book does every single month, so, good price.

[00:43:51] David: Well well worth it. Uh, like I said, I've been a subscriber for well over a year now, uh definitely getting my money's worth. And so, thank you, David, for showing up, and hopefully we'll have you on again real soon. And thank you, listener, for uh coming on and uh listening to us chat about the Eisners, it's not what we were going to talk about at all, but uh that's what we do here. So, thanks everybody for coming, and uh we'll uh see you next week, bye.

[00:44:13] David Harper: All right, you guys are amazing.

[00:44:15] Outro: This has been the Corner Box with David and John. Please take a moment and give us a five-star rating. It really helps. And join us again next week for another dive into the wonderful world of comics.