Raina Telgemeier’s Ghosts (Scholastic/Graphix), a deft and hopeful examination of illness and death designed for children, won the Eisner for Best Publication for Kids Ryan North and Erica Henderson’s The Unbeatable Squirrel Girl (Marvel), a tongue-in-cheek, female empowering superhero tale, won Best Publication for Teens. 'We were the first, and look how many there are now,” she said. Accepting her prize, she cited the burgeoning numbers and critical recognition of women cartoonists. Underground cartoonist and comics historian Trina Robbins won an Eisner for Best Archival Collection for editing The Complete Wimmens Comix (Fantagraphics), a boxed collection documenting the often overlooked work of female Underground Comix artists. Liew, a veteran comics artist, is the first Singaporean artist to win an Eisner. It was the first of three Eisners the book would win. There was still more elation when Sonny Liew’s The Art of Charlie Chan Hock Chye (Pantheon), a fictional masterwork that combines the political history of Singapore with the history of cartooning, won an Eisner for Best Writer/Artist. He dedicated the prize to his late mother, and told the audience that his family had encouraged him to attend the ceremony to help him “get back to normal.” In an emotional speech, Aydin accepted the award (along with the artist Nate Powell) on behalf of Rep. A complete list of Eisner Award Winners is available at the Comic-Con website. The awards were presented Friday night at the 29th annual Will Eisner Comic Industry Awards, held each year at the San Diego Comic-Con International. John Lewis’s acclaimed civil rights graphic memoir, took home another Eisner award (Book Two won last year) for Best Nonfiction Work, spurring an emotion-driven ovation for its coauthor, Andrew Aydin, who accepted the award three weeks after the death of his mother. March Book Three (Top Shelf), the concluding volume of Rep.

Jill Thompson’s Wonder Woman: The True Amazon (DC), a fresh retelling of the superheroine’s origin done in gorgeous watercolors, won the Eisner for Best New Graphic Novel.

Death by Jill Thompson