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Judges Named for 2010 Eisner Awards

SAN DIEGO – Comic-Con International is proud to announce that the judging panel has been named for the 2010 Will Eisner Comic Industry Awards. This blue-ribbon committee will be choosing the nominations to appear on the Eisner Awards ballot. This year's judges are:

Craig Fischer is an associate professor of English at Appalachian State University, where he teaches courses on film and comics. His articles have been published in The Comics Journal and The International Journal of Comic Art, and he served on the executive committee of the International Comic Arts Forum (ICAF) from 2005 to 2007. Currently, Craig blogs with comics scholar Charles Hatfield at www.thoughtballoonists.com.

Francisca Goldsmith, director of branch services at the Halifax Public Libraries, Nova Scotia, has been working with comics and library users for over 20 years. This year her Reader’s Advisory Guide to Graphic Novels (ALA Editions) was published, along with her contributions of chapters to two other books on sequential art. Goldsmith regularly reviews graphic novels and comics for a variety of professional journals and has planned and implemented school and public library programs and staff development opportunities, featuring sequential art media and creators, for librarians. In addition to her work with comics and readers, Goldsmith has served on a number of state and national literary awards committees and has published numerous interviews with artists and authors, including Will Eisner.

John Hogan is a graduate of the University of Northern Iowa, where he majored in English literature and minored in journalism. In his professional life, he has worked as a copyeditor, copywriter, and editor and he is the former editor-in-chief of Pages, the magazine for people who love books. He’s currently the editor of GraphicNovelReporter.com, a website devoted to covering the world of comics through the eyes of librarians, teachers, creators, and general readers.

James Hudnall has worked in the comics industry since 1986, as a writer, publisher, and letterer, as well as a rewriter of manga. He has worked for almost all of the major publishers at one time or another. His comics series Harsh Realm was adapted to TV by Fox in 1998. His graphic novel The Psycho, with artist Dan Brereton, is in development with Universal Pictures. His Unauthorized Biography of Lex Luthor has been called one of the best comics of all time by Wizard magazine. He's currently finishing a crime thriller graphic novel

Wayne Winsett has owned Time Warp Comics and Games in Boulder, Colorado, for 25 years. He managed the Mile High Comics flagship store for five years prior to buying his store from Mile High in 1984. He is currently helping support a popular graphic novel course at the University Of Colorado that has 100 students enrolled this semester. Last semester he helped organize an exhibit at CU that was the most attended gallery showing in school history. He also frequently gives lectures on "Comics Economics " to the students.

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 23 at Comic-Con in San Diego.

The Eisner Awards are presented under the auspices of Comic-Con International, San Diego, a nonprofit educational organization dedicated to creating awareness of and appreciation for comics and related popular art forms. primarily through the presentation of conventions and events that celebrate the historic and ongoing contributions of comics to art and culture..

More information about the Awards can be found at http://www.comic-con.org/cci/cci_eisners_main.shtml. Eisner Awards administrator Jackie Estrada can be reached at .

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