A couple of publishers on their Eisner nominations: Drawn and Quarterly’s Peggy Burns admits to feeling very appreciated over the publisher’s 11 nominations, which almost half as many nominations as books they publish in a given years. Mathematically that’s…well, I can’t do math. Still, I bet if you subtracted the number of nominated works from the complete number of books D+Q published last year, and added up the nominations in comparison to that number, it would be pretty impressive book-to-nomination ratio. Meanwhile, DC announced their many nominations in a post entitled “DC receives 14 Eisner Nominations, The Most of Any Publisher.” Is it worth noting that of those 14, ten are for Vertigo 0r Vertigo-like (Joe Kubert’s Best/Writer Artist nom for Dong Xaoi, Vietnam 1965) books and two more are for projects far outside what one might consider DC Universe continuity comics (Tiny Titans and Wednesday Comics, for Best Publication For Kids and Best Graphic Album Reprint, respectively), leaving only two “true” DCU books nominated—Superboy for Best New Series and a Billy Tucci short from DCU Halloween Special 2010 for Best Short Story. I’m not trying to diminish the publisher’s accomplishments—one of its great strengths is the way it publishes a wide variety of work for a wide variety of audeinces within the structure of mainstream comics publishing—but I think its worth noting where what the Eisner judges consider “the good stuff” is coming from at the moment, I think.

Speaking of math and comics: Check out this heady, intersting analysis post entitled  “Mathematical Equivalence of Comics.” I wish I had to take a class on that in high school—I’m certain it would have come in more handy more often in my adult life than either algebra or trigonometry ever did. (Via Comics Reporter)

Black Widow’s weapons of choice—sexist?: Here’s an interesting discussion of Marvel’s super-spy’s versatile bracelet/gauntlet thingee. Please note that the name of the blog is NSFW.

So who’s drawing what from when?: DC announced the titles, logo designs and writers of their Retroactive books at WonderCon recently, and now The Source blog is going to start rolling out the names of the artists. First up? Eduardo Barretto on the ’70s era Superman one-shot. (Nice.) Keep your eyes on The Source for more reveals. This initiative provides plenty of opportunities for the cynical among us to make cracks at DC, but it also provides a lot of opportunities to see great work from great creators, many of whom we don’t see appearing on the new comics shelves as often as they should. Meanwhile, Don MacPherson of Eye On Comics offers his thoughts on the project, and offers some guesses as to who some of the artists might be. He mentions the timing of the event might make some of the creators more attractive folks to send to this season’s many conventions, and bigger draws once they’re there. I hope it gets some of these guys bigger readerships and perhaps more work—I certainly wouldn’t object to seeing a Barretto-drawn Superman or a Norm Breyfogle-drawn Batman showing up as often as, say, an Eddy Barrows-drawn Superman or Tony Daniel- or David Finch-drawn Batman.

The reviews themselves: Is it a sign of event fatigue that I didn’t find more Fear Itself #1 reviews among the comics blogosphere during my last two trips through it, Thursday and Sunday nights? Here’s a few sentences on it from Tim O’Neil (“Not terrible”), a review that takes an interesting tangent into relevance in comics and how this one features a scene that chooses to “go half-assed and bring the real world in, only to shy away from actually saying anything about it?”  by Yan Basque (“[B]y the time I’d reach the last page, I was itching to find out what happens next”) and a more formal review by the previously mentioned Don MacPherson (“The saving grace of this book is the artwork”). I think O’Neil wins the blurb-off here…who wouldn’t at least be tempted to buy a big, fat hardcover collection with the words “Not terrible” quoted on the cover?

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