About the 2009 Eisner Award nominations…
Now that the 2009 Eisner Award nominations are out, we’d like to again congratulate all of the nominees– but we’d like to also take a moment of your time and explain why we aren’t among them.
It’s really simple– we didn’t submit anything for the Eisner nominations this year.
This probably comes as a surprise to a number of our fans, and certainly all of the talented folks that work for us and created award worthy pieces. No, we didn’t even submit EZ Street, even though it got a Harvey nomination for 2008 as Best Online Comic.
The reason is shown in the photo to the right of the Eisner judges. See the big guy with the glasses on the far right? That’s Andrew Wheeler. He does a lot of reviewing for us here at ComicMix, and we’ve paid him for them. Filthy lucre has changed hands.
We were as surprised as he was when he was selected for the judging panel– and we knew immediately that we were in a potential ethical bind. Could we submit work without putting Andrew in a bind? Heck, there’s a category for which Andrew is indirectly eligible, Best Comics-Related Periodical/Journalism. And yet, we couldn’t in good conscience ask Andrew to recuse himself; he’s a damn fine reviewer and that’s why we love him, and a look at the nominations makes you realize exactly how good he is. But if we were nominated in any category, it would call Andrew’s impartiality into question and taint the awards.
Ultimately, we just decided to give this year’s Eisners a pass, rather than let there be even a hint of impropriety. We’re sorry that this unfairly penalizes our creators, but we didn’t see a better way.
So once more, congratulations to all the nominess. And we’ll see you this year at the Harvey Awards… and watch out for us next year in San Diego!
There's a big guy wearing glasses on the far right? Sorry, I was looking at the very attractive lady in the middle :-)