Week of 7/7/2025
This week, Bob interrogates The Lucky Star employees on The Shapes, I announce a packed lineup of events this month, and have an equally packed list of my favorite Eisner Award nominees!
The Shapes
Bob’s 1st Day of Work 9-10
News
Event Announcements
In the peak of this summer, my event lineup will be anything but void!
The Big Bend Market and Daydream July Art Market
As you’re reading this newsletter today, I’ll probably already be setting up and vending at The Big Bend Market in Tampa, which is going on from 11 AM-3 PM. Right after that, you can find tabling in Daydream Shop’s art market during St. Pete Art Walk from 5-9 PM.
Dharma Art Market
Got too much going on over the weekend? Then stop by Dharma Art Market in Largo this Tuesday from 7-11 PM! As usual, there’ll be a charity raffle and Southern soul food outside to purchase.
Art Alley & Hey! Market
On July 19, find me in Ybor City at Reservoir Bar’s Art Alley from 2-6 PM. I’m not sure about my application status for Hey! Market yet, but chances are I’ll be there right after from 7-11. I’ll have a certain answer in next week’s newsletter.
Enjoy Christmas in July at Tampa Local Market on the 27th from 11 AM-3 PM at Yuengling Bar!
Sammy the Critic
Top 11 2025 Eisner Nominees
Yep, it’s that time of the year again when the Eisner Awards committee announces their nominees (which sadly didn’t include me) and the time when I pick favorites, which I’m doing in a Top 11 format, just like last year.
However, for fairness's sake, like in 2024, I will only include works in my rankings that I haven’t previously reviewed.
11. Weirdo by Tony Weaver Jr. and Jes & Cin Wibowo (First Second)
Nomination: Best Publication for Kids
New neighborhood means new school, also meaning first day jitters, which sometimes (or often times) are well-founded, especially when you’re the geeky kid with niche interests, aka a weirdo, as memoirist Tony Weaver Jr. soon finds out in middle school.
I appreciated how this graphic novel touched on the more serious effects of bullying on mental health while maintaining a hopeful tone for its middle-grade audience. Furthermore, it avoids falling into a generic linear character progression by depicting the trust issues and other difficulties that come even as things improve for Weaver.
10. Thomas Piketty's Capital & Ideology: A Graphic Novel Adaptation by Claire Alet & Benjamin Adam (Abrams Books)
Nomination: Best Adaptation from Another Medium
A deconstruction of economic inequity and class in the West sounds like a dry, insipid idea of a graphic novel, but putting it within the context of an intergenerational story makes the topic way more engaging and accessible to readers new to the subject. Topics such as taxation and ownership systems are explained in a melange of digestible text and visuals. Since the adaptation is a bande-dessinée, French history takes the center stage, but fortunately for you, uninformed American readers, historical milestones are briefly explained, so you don’t have to worry about feeling lost.
9. The War on Gaza by Joe Sacco (Fantagraphics)
Nomination: Best Single Issue/One-Shot
Having three decades of experience reporting on Israeli-Palestinian relations, Joe Sacco is still at it, holding Israel accountable for its atrocities and the United States for its blatant complicity. A 2024 collection of his ongoing comics journalism, Sacco holds no punches in his scathing caricaturization of the aggressors while remaining earnest about the gravity of the Gazan genocide.
8. Big Jim and the White Boy, by David F. Walker and Marcus Kwame Anderson (Ten Speed Graphics)
Nomination: Best Publication for Teens
A reimagining of Mark Twain’s classic Adventures of Huckleberry Finn, Big Jim and the White Boy is told from the point of view of the runaway slave Jim within the context of a historical fiction narrative deconstructing whitewashing and the stereotypes that Twain’s work, despite its progressive tone for the time, fell into. F. Walker’s dialogue writing flows smoothly while being authentic to the time period, and Kwame Anderson’s illustrates in symmetrical and clearly outlined action that makes the characters’ adventure an exciting read. Confederates are spared no mercy here, so expect this book to be banned in Southern schools soon!
7. Uncanny Valley, by Tony Fleecs and Dave Wachter (BOOM! Studios)
Nomination: Best New Series
Oliver is an eccentric 12-year-old whose uncanny abilities often get him into trouble at school. He soon discovers he isn’t just some oddball when the Yosemite Sam-inspired Pecos saves him from being attacked by a murder of cartoon crows. An intricate family history unravels from there.
As you probably guessed from the cover, this is essentially a comic book answer to Who Framed Roger Rabbit. And like that movie, there are some surprisingly high-stakes and even deeper character revelations. This is a series definitely made for the nostalgic cartoon fans.
6. Ashita no Joe: Fighting for Tomorrow by Asao Takamori & Tetsuya Chiba (Kodansha)
Nomination: Best U.S. Edition of International Material - Asia
Starting last year, Japanese publisher Kodansha has started releasing archival omnibuses of the iconic 1968-1973 boxing manga series. How it took this long for an influential work like this to be finally translated is beyond me, but as the adage goes, better late than never! Ashita no Joe follows the titular Joe, a teenage vagabond whose scheming and aggressiveness often lead him to trouble. However, washed-up ex-boxer Danpei Tange sees Joe’s feistiness as a force to be harnessed in the fighting ring and tries getting the stubborn boy to see the same vision as him.
Striking a perfect balance between dynamic action poses, visual effects, humor, and characterizations, this manga stands the test of time well. Joe is an adamant piece of work who many readers may find grating, but he evolves, albeit slowly, in a quite non-linear way.
5. Ash’s Cabin by Jen Wang (First Second)
Nomination: Best Publication for Teens
Ash feels like a fish out of water in their Californian suburban life as they struggle with family not understanding their gender identity or deep interest in nature. While the rest of the family is vacationing in Disney World, Ash decides to stay at their late grandfather’s abandoned secret cabin to live the survival life in the wilderness.
Part diary and part comic, Ash’s Cabin is the 21st-century update to My Side of the Mountain we didn’t ask for but needed. Wang’s watercolors really enhance the narrative’s personal element.
4. The Deep Dark by Molly Knox Ostertag (Graphix)
Nomination: Best Publication for Teens
Best-selling graphic novelist Molly Knox Ostertag knocks it out of the ballpark again in their newest supernatural coming-of-age effort! Mags is a Southwestern high school senior with a lot of responsibilities and baggage, including having to take care of her frail grandmother, working a part-time job, and living with a basement monster she has to make blood sacrifices to to keep it sedate. Her aloofness amidst her compounding circumstances is confronted when childhood friend Nessa comes to visit.
Coming fresh off The Witch Boy trilogy, this book perfectly embodies Ostertag’s versatility between the realms of children’s and YA fiction, making brilliant uses of narrative devices on both visual and storytelling levels. While The Deep Dark is mainly in black-and-white, colors are employed to varying degrees to indicate flashbacks. The monster, meanwhile, serves as an open-ended allegory for several things. Personally, I think it’s a chronic illness allegory.
3. The Jellyfish by Boum (Editions Pow Pow)
Nomination: Best U.S. Edition of International Material
Odette has a seemingly normal young adult life working a steady bookseller job while developing a romance with one of the customers, except for one thing: they start witnessing these jellyfish-shaped apparitions obscuring their vision. As far as they can see (no pun intended), these apparitions will just keep increasing until their vision is no more.
As a cartoonist, stories about impending blindness always hit hard because they unleash that passive yet deep-seated fear I have of losing the capacity to do the very endeavor that’s the catalyst of my livelihood. The Jellyfish is no exception to that experience. As one could imagine, Odette’s reaction to their condition is anything but calm, affecting the relationships with the people around them. This book should resonate with anyone going through or who has dealt with similar life circumstances.
2. Winnie-the-Pooh, adapted by Travis Dandro (Drawn & Quarterly)
Nomination: Best Adaptation from Another Medium
Of all the properties I grew up on, Winnie the Pooh holds the deepest sentimental value for me, particularly the Disney cartoons. Say what you will about Disney as a company, but they have a consistent track record of treating A.A. Milne’s creation with reverence, granted they haven’t done much with it in the past decade. So when Winnie the Pooh went into the public domain, I was more worried than excited at how people would defile the character’s legacy. Even knowing this adaptation got nominated for an Eisner didn’t extinguish my partial skepticism that this could live up to my high expectations. All doubt, however, went away the moment I opened the book, being welcomed with the classic Hundred Acre Wood map.
Travis Dendro went far and beyond to visually recreate the nostalgic whimsy of the original stories in a way only a comic could ever pull off, weaving a tapestry of exquisite layouts that play with form, leading to some of the most beautiful pages in comics history. Most striking is Dendro’s panel composition, which throughout incorporates diegetic objects or wildly experimental border shapes that seamlessly blend in with the illustrations. Even if you’re a stone-cold cynic impervious to cozy delights, this adaptation is a timeless classic worth looking at purely as an art book.
1. Feeding Ghosts: A Graphic Memoir by Tessa Hulls (MCD Books)
Nomination: Best Graphic Memoir
An extensively researched labor of passion and profound self-discovery created over the period of six years, Feeding Ghosts is Tessa Hulls’s magnum opus, telling the story of the intergenerational trauma of three Chinese women. Beginning with the late grandmother Sun Yi, we see how her escape from Maoist China to Hong Kong during the Cultural Revolution and subsequent mental deterioration plays into her daughter, Rose’s, childhood (or lack thereof), which in turn, influenced her psychoanalytical parenting approach towards Tessa. Complex cultural and generational disconnects are prominent themes throughout, which are expressed in illustrative and articulate brilliance that makes the dense writing unnoticeable. If you’re a second-generation immigrant, this is a book you’ll find relatable and perhaps healing to some degree.
For those wondering what the list would have looked like if I included the stuff I previously reviewed, voila:
Feeding Ghosts: A Graphic Memoir
Winnie-the-Pooh
The Jellyfish by Boum
The Deep Dark
Ash's Cabin
Ashita no Joe: Fighting for Tomorrow
Uncanny Valley
Big Jim and the White Boy
Thomas Piketty's Capital & Ideology: A Graphic Novel Adaptation
Weirdo
Overall, while this year Eisner’s nominees were filled with mediocrity as usual (Don’t get me started on the manga category!), there were many gems to be found here that crossed my radar. In retrospect, Feeding Ghosts and Winnie the Pooh would be my top 2 favorite comics from 2024 and even be considered among the best of the decade.