Suvudu Examines Eisner Nominees

Starting two days ago, the Random House SF web portal Suvudu is examining all of the nominees in all of the categories of the Will Eisner Comic Industry Awards. The first category they tackled was Best Cover Artist, with well-chosen art examples and some thoughtful commentary. (Full disclosure: I was one of the judges this year, and so far Kyle M. of Suvudu hasn't said anything along the lines of "the judges must have been on crack to have nominated {foo}," so I'm inclined to like him.)

It's not entirely clear how often these pieces will run -- there are twenty-six categories, but Suvudu's initial post about the series makes it sound like they'll be spaced out to run until the opening of Comic-Con in San Diego in late July. But I'll be looking forward to them, however often they appear.

But I will note, once again, the vagaries of taste: Kyle M. particularly likes Matt Wagner's Zorro covers, while I was practically jumping up and down in the judges' room, telling everyone else not to spend much time on those (which I thought were decent guy-in-heroic-pose work), but to pay attention to the magnificent design sense and dynamics of light on his Grendel covers. So even when people agree with each other about art, they disagree as to why they're agreeing.