Eisner Nominees Announced, Familiar Names Included

So, the nominees for the 2008 Eisner Comic Industry Awards have been announced. The awards are presented every year as part of the San Diego Comic Con (check out panasonicyouth‘s coverage of last year’s event). They celebrate the BEST in comics for the past year.

Among this year’s nominees are some familiar names. I was geeked out to see Brian Clevinger of 8-Bit Theater announced as a nominee for a limited series he worked on this year. Also, Joss Whedon’s work on Buffy the Vampire Slayer: Season 8 is nominated in several categories, and Whedon himself is nominated for Best Writers, for his work on both Buffy and his run on Astonishing X-Men as well his online comic Sugarshock. Y: The Last Man is up for best continuing series as well.

But the name that most of you will probably be familiar with is here:

Best Limited Series

• Atomic Robo, by Brian Clevinger and Scott Wegener (Red 5 Comics)
• Dark Tower: The Gunslinger Born, by Peter David, Robin Furth, and Jae Lee (Marvel)
• Nightly News, by Jonathan Hickman (Image)
• Parade (with Fireworks), by Michael Cavallaro (Shadowline/Image)
• The Umbrella Academy, by Gerard Way and Gabriel Bá (Dark Horse)

Congratulations to Gerard and Gabriel on this huge achievement. Good luck to them and to the rest of the nominees as well! Here’s hoping Mark can get back to the Con this year to see the results! In the meantime, watch out for bulletproofheeb‘s coverage of the New York Comic Con next weekend, and join me in my jealousy towards both of them.