Leading the pack of all series nominated is the stylish horror noir FATALE by Ed Brubaker and Sean Phillips, with six nods, including Best Continuing Series, Best New Series, Best Writer for Brubaker, Best Penciller/Inker and Best Cover Art for Phillips, and Best Coloring for Dave Stewart (shared nomination).

SAGA, the space opera phenomenon by Brian K. Vaughan and Fiona Staples, racked up three nominations, in the Best Continuing Series, Best New Series, and Best Writer categories. The exuberant alternate history THE MANHATTAN PROJECTS by Jonathan Hickman and Nick Pitarra received nods for Best Continuing Series and Best Writer. In all, Image Comics titles captured four of the five nominations for Best Continuing series, with the relaunch of Rob Liefeld’s Extreme title PROPHET rounding out that number.

PROPHET writer Brandon Graham is the Eisner’s Renaissance Man of nominations, receiving a Best Writer nod for his writing on PROPHET and his own miniseries MULTIPLE WARHEADS, a showing in the Best Graphic Novel – Reprint category for KING CITY, a Best Cover Art nomination for KING CITY, MULTIPLE WARHEADS and ELEPHANTMEN #43 covers, and a Best Coloring nomination for MULTIPLE WARHEADS.

The winners of the Eisner Awards are chosen by comic book industry professionals and will be announced at a ceremony at the Comic-Con International convention in San Diego on July 19. This year marks the 25th anniversary of the awards.

A complete list of Image Comics’ Eisner Award nominations:

Best Continuing Series
FATALE, by Ed Brubaker and Sean Phillips
THE MANHATTAN PROJECTS, by Jonathan Hickman and Nick Pitarra
PROPHET, by Brandon Graham and Simon Roy
SAGA, by Brian K. Vaughan and Fiona Staples

Best New Series
FATALE, by Ed Brubaker and Sean Phillips
SAGA, by Brian K. Vaughan and Fiona Staples

Best Graphic Novel – Reprint
KING CITY, by Brandon Graham

Best Writer
Ed Brubaker, FATALE
Brandon Graham, MULTIPLE WARHEADS, PROPHET
Jonathan Hickman, THE MANHATTAN PROJECTS
Brian K. Vaughan, SAGA

Best Penciller/Inker
Sean Phillips, FATALE

Best Painter/Multimedia Artist
Teddy Kristiansen, THE RED DIARY/The RE[A]D Diary (MAN OF ACTION/Image)

Best Cover Art
Brandon Graham, KING CITY, MULTIPLE WARHEADS, ELEPHANTMEN #43
Sean Phillips, FATALE

Best Colorist
Brandon Graham, MULTIPLE WARHEADS
Dave Stewart, Batwoman (DC); FATALE (Image); BPRD, Conan the Barbarian, Hellboy in Hell, Lobster Johnson, The Massive (Dark Horse)

Best Lettering
Paul Grist, MUDMAN

We at CBT would like to congratulate these talented folks at IMAGE for their hard work and dedication.

Agent Burgos, IMAGE COMICS CONGRATULATES EISNER NOMINEES

February 2, MILWAUKIE, OR—Eisner and Harvey Award–winning duo Juan Díaz Canales and Juanjo Guarnido are back with another incredible tale to shock and awe crime-fiction fans and comics-art aficionados alike!

Detective John Blacksad returns, with a new case that takes him to a 1950s New Orleans filled with hot jazz and cold-blooded murder! Hired to discover the fate of a celebrated pianist, Blacksad finds his most dangerous mystery yet in the midst of drugs, voodoo, the rollicking atmosphere of Mardi Gras, and the dark underbelly that it hides!

Dark Horse’s Blacksad collection is already in its fourth printing, with 20,000 copies sold. Artist Juanjo Guarnido was voted the winner of the 2011 Eisner Award for Best Painter, and Blacksad Volume 1 won the Harvey Award for Best American Edition of Foreign Material.

“A lovingly crafted homage to the Hammett-Chandler chestnuts of old . . . and Guarnido’s watercolor panels feel like the unearthed film-noir storyboards of a master…A.”—Entertainment Weekly

Blacksad: A Silent Hell features an extensive making-of section, with tons of prelim sketches and watercolor studies, written by artist Juanjo Guarnido! This volume also includes two never-before-collected Blacksad short stories!

Blacksad: A Silent Hell is on sale July 11, 2012.

Agent Burgos, MURDER AND MUSIC ON THE BAYOU!