13 Manga Titles Nominated for '08 Eisner Awards

The 2008 Will Eisner Comic Industry Award nominations were announced this week, and several Japanese and OEL manga graphic novels and creators made the cut.

Compared to the Eisner's class of 2007, when 11 manga titles were nominated in 7 categories (including the first year for the Best U.S. Edition of International Material—Japan category), the 2008 Eisners nominating committee singled out 13 books in 9 categories, including the two-time nominee Naoki Urasawa's Monster, which returns to try again in the Best Continuing Series category for the second year in a row.

Other multiple category nominees include Town of Evening Calm, Country of Cherry Blossoms by Fumiyo Kouno and New Engineering by Yuichi Yokoyama. Both books were nominated in the Best Short Story and Best U.S. Edition of International Material – Japan categories.

Eisner judges continued their love affair with Vertical's luxe editions of manga by Osamu Tezuka, with two nominations; one for Apollo's Song (Best Archival Collection / Project – Comic Books) and one for MW (Best U.S. Edition of International Material – Japan).

But perhaps the most surprising nominations were in the Best Writer/Artist and Best Penciler/Inker categories, where Fumi Yoshinaga (Flower of Life) and Takeshi Obata (Death Note, Hikaru no Go) were nominated alongside the usual roster of Marvel and DC creators. Another welcome addition to the Eisner nominee lineup was Yotsuba&! by Kiyohiko Azuma in the Best Publication for Kids category.

See the complete list of 2008 Eisner Award nominees. The Eisner Awards winners will be announced on a reception on Friday, July 25 at San Diego Comic-Con International at the San Diego Convention Center.

Just for fun, here's a peek at last year's manga Eisner nominees, including the sole manga winner last year, Old Boy by Garon Tsuchiya and Nobuaki Minegishi. Here's hoping that there'll be more than one manga winner out of this year's batch!

Image credit: © Comic-Con International, © Fumiyo Kouno