Comic-Con: International has announced the judging panel for the 2020 Will Eisner Comic Industry Awards, who will select the nominations to appear on the Eisner Awards ballot. This year’s judges are Martha Cornog, Jamie Coville, Michael Dooley, Alex Grecian, Simon Jimenez, and Laura O’Meara. 

Cornog has written graphic novel reviews and articles for Library Journal since 2006. With her late husband, Timothy Perper, she co-edited Graphic Novels Beyond the Basics and Mangatopia, as well as written reviews and articles about comics for Mechademia, International Journal of Comic Art, The Journal of Sex Research, Contemporary Sexuality, and Sexuality & Culture. She is currently writing and drawing Comic Troika, a comics adaptation of three Russian literary satires, for McFarland Publishers.

Since 1996, Coville has been researching and writing about comic book history. Much of his interviews, comic book reviews and other articles for Collector Times have been referenced in numerous books and academic papers, while his audio recordings from various panels get used by numerous comic book news sites. He was on the Nomination Committee of the 2008 and 2010 Joe Shuster Awards and concludes each year by compiling all the “best comics/graphic novels of the year” lists into a single spreadsheet. 

Dooley has been writing comics features, essays, and reviews for more than 30 years. He wrote for The Comics Journal and Amazing Heroes in the 1980s, before becoming a contributing editor at the graphic design magazine Print in 1990. Dooley currently teaches Design History of Comics and Animation at LA’s Art Center College of Design, with guest speakers such as Bill Sienkiewicz and Howard Chaykin. His books include The Education of a Comics Artist.

Grecian is a New York Times bestselling author of comic books and thriller novels, including The Yard and its sequels. He also wrote and co-created the critically acclaimed comics series Rasputinand Proof, both of which are being developed for TV. The Inkpot Award winner also wrote the original graphic novel Seven Sons, numerous short prose and comic book stories for various publishers, and successfully crowdfunded the comics anthology Bad Karma.

Jimenez is a freelance writer, part-time journalist, blogger, and podcaster who focuses in the areas of Japanese manga, anime, and its history, American comic books, and both the underground and subcultures aspects of pop culture. Jimenez has served as a volunteer with Comic-Con since 2000 and currently works on the Robert A. Heinlein Blood Drive. He has also been a judge on the Russ Manning Promising Newcomer Award committee for the past few years.

Since 1987, O’Meara has co-owned and operated Casablanca Comics in Portland, Maine with her husband, Rick Lowell. O’Meara has worked with over 100 libraries over the past 20-plus years, building their collections. Working with her husband, she has helped to identify artists such as Jeff Lemire, Raina Telgemeier, and Kazu Kibuishi early in their careers to host as guests at their Maine Comics Arts Festival. 

The judges will meet in San Diego in late March to select the nominees that will be placed on the Eisner Awards ballot. The nominees will then be voted on by professionals in the comic book industry, and the results will be announced in a gala awards ceremony on Friday, July 24, 2020, at Comic-Con in San Diego.

Guidelines for submitting material for the judges will be announced on the Comic-Con website in early January. The deadline for submitting nominations is March 13, 2020. 

The Eisner Awards are presented under the auspices of the San Diego Comic Convention (Comic-Con) a California Nonprofit Public Benefit Corporation organized for charitable purposes and dedicated to creating the general public’s awareness of and appreciation for comics and related popular art forms, including participating in and support of public presentations, conventions, exhibits, museums and other public outreach activities which celebrate the historic and ongoing contribution of comics to art and culture.

More information about the Eisner Awards can be found at comic-con.org/awards.