My sincerest congratulations go out to Carla Speed McNeil! Her webcomic, Finder, won Best Digital Comic at this year’s Eisner Awards! Since I didn’t attend SDCC this year, the above image from Finder best captures my mental image of the ceremony. Since my webcomic, Vs., did not win, I guess I’ll just politely stand in the back. That’s me third from the left. Huzzah! Go read it here!
The folks over at The Girls Entertainment Network have discussed every Eisner nomination this year. That means that they have been kind enough to give my Next Door Neighbor story, Vs. with Alexis Sottile, a closer look. Here’s what Jill had to say:
Vs. by Alexis Sottile & Joe Infurnari, smithmag.net/nextdoorneighbor/2008/12/08/story-18/
The best way to describe Vs. would be to call it “Green Eggs and Ham” on acid.
Mostly in black and white, dashes of color in key panels make it a wild ride for the eyes. Artist Joe Infurnari was nominated in this same category last year for his work on The Process, but this time around he’s got a co-writer, Alexis Sottile, for this off-the-wall look into the dangers of renting. Vs. is part of SMITH Magazine’s Next Door Neighbor weekly web comics series and tells Infurnari’s real-life horror stories from his various New York dwellings. Of course, there is a slight twist: it’s in verse. But don’t even think of reading this one to the kids before bedtime. Here, in Infurnari’s own words, is what you can expect: “My terrible run-ins with vociferous fowls! Frankensteinian pooches! Tentacled jam bands! Drunken cro-magnons! Pill-pushing werewolves and many, many more!”
He admits he wasn’t the greatest at coming up with rhymes, but that’s where Sottile came in. She compliments Infurnari’s personal woes, which are smoothly narrated even as his Hulk alter-ego slowly emerges. As an extra bonus, Infurnari has posted a “director’s cut,” if you will, on ACT-I-VATE—where he tells the story behind each page. –Jill aka TheNerdyBird
Thanks Jill! To read the rest of the reviews, click here!
SMITH Magazine, the home for the Next Door Neighbor webcomix series has posted a notice about the recent Eisner nomination. Jeff Newelt, SMITH Magazine Comics Editor, had this to say,
SMITH Magazine congratulates Joe Infurnari and Alexis Sottile on their Eisner nomination (think Academy Awards for comics) for Best Digital Comic for “Vs.,” their virtuoso contribution to Next-Door Neighbor, SMITH’s truelife webcomic anthology, edited by Dean Haspiel. “Vs.” is the tale of Joe’s nightmarish neighborly encounters, one after another after another after another. Told as an autobiographical monologue written in verse, juxtaposed with rabid remembrances, dizzyingly visualized like a sickedelic melange of EC horror comics, The Twilight Zone, and Universal’s Monster Movies meets Cronenberg and Lynch, “Vs.” has got to be seen to be believed (and you can believe it, because it all happened). (more…)
The above image is my annotation for the page at the top of this post. Now you can read a fully annotated version of Vs. at Act-i-vate.com! If you’ve read it at SMITH, now read it with all the supplemental information! It’s like having the dvd extras for every page! Read my comments for fun factoids and real life anecdotes behind my neighborly misadventures retold in Vs.
If you like Vs. enough, please consider voting for it for the Best Digital Comic Eisner award. You can do so here:
www.eisnervote.com
Thanks so much for your vote, support and readership!
Lightning has struck twice! This just in, Vs., my story written with Alexis Sottile for SMITH magazine’s Next Door Neighbor webcomics series, has been nominated for an Eisner award in the Digital Comics category! WOWEE ZOWEE! I’m thrilled to have been honored again this year and I want to thank Alexis for her magical wordsmithery, Dean Haspiel for his edifying editorial, Jeff Newelt for his incisive curating and SMITH magazine for their committment to bringing stories such as this to the masses. Click the image to the left to read the story and the graphic below to see the full list of nominees.
I’m speechless. Unfortunately, that isn’t conducive for writing posts so I’m putting aside all stupefaction to confirm that the Process has been nominated for an Eisner Award in the Best Digital Comic category! This is the single greatest honor (besides winning) that could be bestowed on this project and I am very fortunate to be in such esteemed company as the other finalists, The Abominable Charles Christopher by Karl Kerschl, Billy Dogma, Immortal, by Dean Haspiel, PX! By Manny Trembley and Eric A. Anderson and Sugarshock!, by Joss Whedon and Fabio Moon. The awards ceremony, held during San Diego’s Comicon International, will be at a gala event on July 25th, 2008.
When this really sinks in, I’ll write a followup post but in the meantime, I’d like to thank the judges for their consideration and thank YOU for supporting this project.
Best,
Joe
