All throughout July, we’re crowdsourcing an Extra Eisners Reading List. This list will be made up of the best books that were NOT nominated for the 2020 Eisners, which are the comics industry equivalent of the Academy Awards. To do it, we’re turning to comics critics and journalists from throughout the industry. Most weekdays this month, we’ll be posting a new recommendation from a comics journalist or critic, the idea being that broadening the scope of the Eisners would help spotlight some of the incredible and diverse work being done these days, ultimately fostering a more inclusive industry.

To start things off, we have DoomRocket Editor Jarrod Jones weighing in with his take on the state of the Eisners, and how it could be so much more exciting…enjoy!

It would appear that the Eisner Awards have a snubbing problem—just ask Vault Comics. How does that get fixed? I mean, Eisner judges can only select nominees from a pool provided by the  publishers who submitted their very best works to them in the first place…But do creators even know if their publishers are submitting their works to Comic-Con International? Why should the nomination process ultimately get left up to publisher submissions? How do the judges even decide who gets nominated from what they’ve been given? My god, what does it all mean? 

The Eisner Awards nomination process is broken. Yes, the voting system sucks, too. But it's how the nominees are collated in the first place that has me scratching my head. Is it fair to creators who made Eisner-caliber work for major publishers to have to submit their own stuff to the Eisners? I don’t think so. Should publishers have to drop their best product off at the altar of Comic-Con International every year, almost as if C-CI can’t be bothered to keep up with, y’know, comics? 

(Quick sidebar: Do you think Eisner judges are rifling through their submissions all, “Oh, yeah, that came out this year too, huh?” I do. Maybe I shouldn’t, but I do.)

Zack, you suggested to me once that the Eisners ought to expand in order to accommodate the ever-growing creator (and publisher) field. That is certainly a fine idea, but it doesn’t tackle the bigger Eisner problems, one of which is its nomination process. Thoughtful reforms need to be applied. Also there’s the small matter of its judges problem. Comic-Con International needs to inject some much needed color into its judges panel, which is sometimes so, um, beige, it’s no wonder certain categories end up being so… and I’m pausing for effect here… boring. (Maybe “unexciting” would be more charitable, but when what we’re talking about concerns Comic-Con International, I don’t always feel like being charitable.) 

Stick a vastly more diverse crew of comics journalists, editors, and creators—of varying ages, too!—on the annual judges panel, let them decide what the nominees list should look like (without publisher input), and let comics journalists vote. You’ll see a lot more excitement surrounding these stodgy-ass Eisners than you are right now, I’ll tell you that.

Jarrod Jones, DoomRocket

Click here for the full Extra Eisners Reading List!