Eisner Ramble

I won an Eisner Award for Best Webcomic!!!

I'm in disbelief that it happened at all, and (relatively) early in my career too! I've had fantasies of winning such a big award, but I was left with few words to say when it came time for me to go up on stage to accept it. I have a very loud voice in my head that is constantly reminding me to be humble or to appreciate the great fortune I've had in my life and in my comics career, rather than accepting that my (occasional) great efforts have led me to where I am. It's usually a healthy mechanism, but I do think that it gets in my way of celebrating big events. So, for this post, I am shushing that voice and I'm going to celebrate this a little.

The Eisner awards are held in late July during San Diego Comic-Con. It was my first time being anywhere near a comic-con (I didn't even step inside the convention hall because I didn't have a badge), and now I can concur with most other people by saying that it's overwhelming. Great throngs of people, lines everywhere (I saw a line going out the door for Subway...), and an incredible festivity for a culture I'm only casually interested in. It's a far-cry from even the busiest comics festivals I've tabled at. I'm not sure how obvious it is from outside of the comics world, or if it's all a construction in my own mind, but there's a big divide between superhero comics and every other kind of comic (which encompasses dozens of other genres). All this to say that I felt a bit like an outsider on the night of the awards ceremony. Fortunately, I was sitting at a table with a couple of nice artists from a small indie publisher (StreetNoise) and a cartoonist that I had met at a previous comic fair, for whom I'm thankful for taking photos of me (thanks Allison!). I'm really grateful that the Eisner awards includes work from small publishers (or self-published, in my case).

About an hour and one $20 (USD!!) cocktail later, my name was announced and I said a short speech on stage that I had jotted down on my phone at the advice of my tablemate.

Speaking in front of hundreds of people isn't my dream, so to make it more fun, I had decided to draw a bunch of birds onto a suit jacket. I believe this was my sister Alix's idea.

Despite what these sketches look like–and what the final product looks like–I really wanted to cover the entire thing from bottom to top with crows. As is my style, I started too late with too grand of an idea, so I got about half-way done a few hours before the ceremony was to begin.

These two photos were taken after I had arrived back in Canada. There was a family reunion happening at my parents' house, and I was forced to put on the jacket and repeat my acceptance speech, I believe to humiliate me? No no, my family is all very loving and supportive, and only occasionally malicious. I swear the jacket was ironed before the show.

Here's some detail of the jacket. I drew the crows using black Molotow acrylic markers.

Thank you for reading my rambles and my comics too! I am living my dream and you are all making that possible. Stuff like this just makes me want to keep creating and pushing the bounds of what I think I can do and what will interest people. Love you!

-Joshua