At San Diego Comic-Con this past Friday evening the winners of the Will Eisner Comic Industry Awards were announced and as always the winners provide an interesting snapshot of what’s hot, what’s great, and what’s making fanboys hearts pitter patter this year.

For those not familiar with the ins and outs of the industry, here’s a run down of the not-to-miss winners and a guide for selectors of titles that are (or will soon be) in high demand.

First, the easy part: a number of the winners this year are no-brainers.  You should already have them on your shelves, and if you don’t, shame on you.  Now’s the time to get them!  David Mazzucchelli and his acclaimed Asterios Polyp walked off with three awards, including Best Graphic Album (the equivalent of the Best Picture Oscar) and Best Writer/Artist.  Robert Kirkman picked up another Eisner for the acclaimed The Walking Dead for Best Continuing Series.  This series is already popular, and the new TV series arriving from AMC is adding even more buzz.  Scott Pilgrim Volume 5, Scott Pilgrim vs. the Universe won Best Humor Publication, and creator Bryan Lee O’Malley was presented with the award by no less than the cast of the Scott Pilgirm movie due out in just a few weeks.  Ed Brubaker, one of the hardest working and best writers in the business, took home his third Eisner Award for Best Writer for his work on Captain America, Daredevil, Marvels Project, Criminal, and Incognito. Brubaker’s work on Captain America and Daredevil has reminded readers how compelling superheroes can be in the right hands.

Artist J. H. Williams III deservedly won for his gorgeous work on Detective Comics, the flagship series from DC Comics, launched in 1937, that currently has Batwoman as its tantalizing focus. The hardcover edition rocketed on to the NYT Graphic Best Seller list and has stayed there. Jill Thompson is well known in the comics industry but sadly not as recognized outside of it, so it’s lovely to see her gaining two awards: Best Publication for Teens for Beasts of Burden and Best Painter/Multimedia Artist (Interior Art) for both Beasts of Burden and Magic Trixie and the Dragon. The Wonderful Wizard of Oz, by Eric Shanower and Skottie Young, is beloved by comics fans and young readers alike, and Young’s art in particular shines.

A few pleasant surprises improve this year’s list of winners from past years. In recognition of the plethora of adapted works, the Eisner Judges created a new category this year to recognize creations from outside source material, and Darwyn Cooke’s brooding Richard Stark’s Parker: The Hunter handily took home that honor. I cheered to see Emmanuel Guibert’s gripping The Photographer take home the Best U.S. Edition of Foreign Language Material award, and overjoyed to see A Drifting Life and Yoshihiro Tatsumi win not only for Best Edition of Foreign Material – Asia but also for Best Reality-Based Work. Personally, I’d hoped that Naoki Urasawa might finally have his year for winning, with both Pluto and 20th Century Boys in the running, but it’s no shame to lose out to Tatsumi’s epic memoir.

One final note: Marian Churchland won the distinguished Russ Manning Most Promising Newcomer Award for her critically acclaimed Beast. Past winners include Scott McCloud, Eric Shanower, Jeff Smith, and Eleanor Davis, so this award is a solid predictor of talent. Sadly, Beast is very difficult to locate from the usual vendors, and Image Comics has allowed it to go out of print, but there are a few copies still available via Amazon, so if you can get your hands on a copy, snap it up.

BusinessWeek, of all places, looks at developing subgenres of romance; quilting, Amana (ultraconservative Amish) and military romances. Says one agent, “Such substratification might suggest… that readers have gone insane,” but Harlequin’s Katherine Orr says that readers are looking for tight-knit communities; “There is a tremendous desire for community. Somehow in this world, where everyone is constantly communicating, people have lost real friendships.”

Examples of the subgenres include:

The True Love Quilting Club (Avon Romance) Lori Wilde Retail Price: $7.99 Mass Market Paperback: 384 pages Publisher: Avon – (2010-04-01) ISBN / EAN: 0061808903 / 9780061808906

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The Bridge of Peace: A Novel (An Ada’s House Novel) Cindy Woodsmall Retail Price: $13.99 Paperback: 352 pages Publisher: WaterBrook Press – (2010-08-31) ISBN / EAN: 1400073979 / 9781400073979

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Moonlight Road (Virgin River) Robyn Carr Retail Price: $7.99 Mass Market Paperback: 400 pages Publisher: Mira – (2010-03-01) ISBN / EAN: 077832768X / 9780778327684

In an interview in Sunday’s NYT, Sarah Lyall says China Miéville’s science fiction “stands out from the crowd for the quality, mischievousness and erudition of his writing.”

Other critics agree; he is the only author to win the Arthur C. Clarke Award three times. Last year’s City and the City was on several best books lists (a lofty #8 on Amazon’s Top 100 Editor’s Picks, as well as appearing on the L.A. Times — Fiction Favorites and PW Best Books — Adult).

A Socialist who ran for Parliament in 2001, he was dubbed “the sexiest man in British politics” by the Evening Standard.

His new book  is reviewed in the Seattle Times; “Kraken proves once again that Miéville’s reputation as the author of books readers obsess over is well and truly deserved.”

Prepub reviews were not so positive; most were variations on PW‘s assessment,  “Even Miéville’s eloquent prose can’t conceal the meandering, bewildering plot, but his fans will happily swap linearity for this dizzying whirl of outrageous details and fantastic characters.” Many libraries are showing heaving holds where ordering was light.

Where did the author get the name “China”? According to the NYT, it’s Cockney rhyming slang for “mate.” In an earlier interview, Miéville elaborated, saying his parents were hippies who searched the dictionary to find a beautiful name for him. The nearly named him “Banyan,”

“…but flipped a few pages on and reached “China,” thankfully. The other reason they liked it is that “china” is Cockney rhyming slang for “mate.” People say “my old china,” meaning “my old mate,” because “china plate” rhymes with “mate.”

Kraken China Mieville Retail Price: $26.00 Hardcover: 528 pages Publisher: Del Rey – (2010-06-29) ISBN / EAN: 034549749X / 9780345497499

The star of The Neil Flambé Capers, a new series of middle-grade mysteries, is a fourteen-year-old who owns his own restaurant, has a line of cooking utensils, and is blessed with a super-sensitive nose (he can tell what side of the hill a particular spring of rosemary grew on). The nose not only makes him a great chef, but also useful to the Vancouver, Canada police department, currently baffled by the murders of the city’s culinary talent.

On NPR’s Weekend Edition Sunday, Liane Hansen was clearly charmed by Flambé and his author, Kevin Sylvester. The book rose to #253 on Amazon, from a lowly #1,834,554.

The second book in the series, Neil Flambé and the Aztec Abduction, is coming in November. The author is working on the third book, Neil Flambé and the Crusaders Curse.

Neil Flambe and the Marco Polo Murders: The Neil Flambe Capers #1 Kevin Sylvester Retail Price: $9.95 Hardcover: 304 pages Publisher: Key Porter Books – (2010-03-09) ISBN / EAN: 1554702666 / 9781554702664

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Neil Flambe and the Aztec Abduction: The Neil Flambe Capers #2 Retail Price: $9.95 Hardcover: 304 pages Publisher: Key Porter Books – (2010-11-01) ISBN / EAN: 1554703298 / 9781554703296

Get out your videotape of Love Story, the preppy look is back.

True Prep: It’s a Whole New World, the followup to the 1980 Preppy Handbook, arrives in early September. Going back to original source material, powerHouse Books is reprinting a 1965 Japanese book of photos from American Ivy League campuses, True Ivy. According to an article in yesterday’s NYT Fashion section, the first edition is highly sought after; “People spent years hunting down rare copies. They traded them online for prices that reached into the thousands. They photocopied and distributed them in design studios like fashion samizdat.”

Both books are rising on Amazon

Amazon Sales Rank in Books: 30 (was 212 yesterday); few libraries have ordered (good going, Hennepin!)

Take Ivy Shosuke Ishizu, Toshiyuki Kurosu, Hajime Hasegawa Retail Price: $24.95 Hardcover: 142 pages Publisher: powerHouse Books – (2010-08-31) ISBN / EAN: 1576875504 / 9781576875506

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Amazon Sales Rank in Books: 180 (was 843 yesterday); most libraries have ordered.

True Prep: It’s a Whole New Old World Lisa Birnbach, Chip Kidd Retail Price: $19.95 Hardcover: 256 pages Publisher: Knopf – (2010-09-07) ISBN / EAN: 0307593983 / 9780307593986

How many martinis did advertising executives really drink in the heyday of Mad Men? According to Jerry Della Femina, one of the guys who lived to tell such tales, three before lunch, wine  with the meal and, rather than foregoing dessert for a cappuccino, some would order a double scotch. Then, it’s back to work.

Della Femina wrote a memoir about those days in 1970, From Those Wonderful Folks Who Gave You Pearl Harbor, that helped inspire the AMC series Mad Men, now in its fourth season.

The book has been republished by Simon and Schuster; Della Femina was interviewed on Weekend Edition Saturday. The title of the book, his suggestion for an ad for Panasonic, went right into the trash. The line he’s most proud of? One he wrote for McGraw Hill books, “Before Hitler could kill six million Jews, he had to burn six million books.” Not only did the company use it, Della Femina won a major award for it.

From Those Wonderful Folks Who Gave You Pearl Harbor: Front-Line Dispatches from the Advertising War Jerry Della Femina Retail Price: $14.00 Paperback: 288 pages Publisher: Simon & Schuster – (2010-07-20) ISBN / EAN: 1451609906 / 9781451609905

Monday

The Daily Show with Jon Stewart

The Most Powerful Idea in the World: A Story of Steam, Industry, and Invention William Rosen Retail Price: $28.00 Hardcover: 400 pages Publisher: Random House – (2010-06-01) ISBN / EAN: 1400067057 / 9781400067053

The Colbert Report

Chastened: The Unexpected Story of My Year without Sex Hephzibah Anderson Retail Price: $25.95 Hardcover: 288 pages Publisher: Viking Adult – (2010-06-24) ISBN / EAN: 0670021865 / 9780670021864

Wednesday

The Daily Show with Jon Stewart

The Ghosts of Cannae: Hannibal and the Darkest Hour of the Roman Republic Robert L. O’Connell Retail Price: $27.00 Hardcover: 336 pages Publisher: Random House – (2010-07-13) ISBN / EAN: 1400067022 / 9781400067022

Advance publicity for Gary Shteyngart’s third novel, Super Sad True Love Story, rivals any we’ve seen this summer for a “literary” title. All libraries we checked have high holds on modest orders and are still catching up to demand.

Recently named to the New Yorker’s “20 Under 40” list, Shteyngart thumbed his nose at literary pomposity earlier this month with a self-deprecating video trailer that stars actor James Franco (also his former student at Columbia University), and writers Mary Gaitskill and Jay McInerney, among others. Ad Age called the video “perhaps one of the most inspired pieces of satirical magic we’ve seen in many, many a week.”

Newsweek was first out of the gate with a review of this love story between a Russian immigrant and a Korean immigrant in New York, which  unfolds in a near-future world in which big government and corporations have merged and China is calling the shots. Newsweek‘s verdict?

He doesn’t always make you laugh when he means to, but he’s shrewd, observant, snarkily funny, and if it sometimes seems as though he’s picking easy targets, remember that he didn’t make the world he’s sending up.

Entertainment Weekly gave it a B+, with similar mixed feelings:

The love-triangle plot unfolds through diary entries and e-mails, a gimmick that gets old pretty quickly. But Super Sad True Love Story is funny, on-target, and ultimately sad as it captures the absurdity and anxiety of navigating an increasingly out-of-control world.

And in New York City, this local boy-by-way-of-Russia gets a hero’s welcome: a New York magazine profile, a Q&A in the NYT Magazine, and a New York Observer review.

Super Sad True Love Story: A Novel Gary Shteyngart Retail Price: $26.00 Hardcover: 352 pages Publisher: Random House – (2010-07-27) ISBN / EAN: 1400066409 / 9781400066407

Audio: Recorded Books

Other Notable Fiction Releases for Next Week

Star Island by Carl Hiaasen (Knopf) got a rare advance review from Janet Maslin in the NYT this week, saying it’s “standard-issue stuff from a dependably polished and funny writer… But some of it creaks. It seems just dimly possible that the craziness of celebrity culture has outstripped Mr. Hiaasen’s ability to make fun of it.”  The Wall St. Journal also gave the book pre-pub attention in a recent Q&A with Hiassen.

Queen of the Night by J. A. Jance (Morrow) is the fourth novel to feature former homicide detective Brandon Walker and his wife, novelist Diana Ladd, and involves a series of crimes in California and Arizona over 50 years. PW calls it “brilliant,” observing that “Jance’s masterful handling of a complex cast of characters makes it easy for the reader to appreciate the intricate web of relationships that bind them across generations.”

Waking the Witch by Kelley Armstrong (Dutton) is the 11th entry in the Women of the Otherworld series.  Library Journal says “Savannah is a gutsy, shrewd, and accomplished protagonist who will immediately capture the reader’s allegiance. Although this is essential for any Otherworld fan, readers new to the series will still be able to enjoy this delightful, fast-paced adventure without difficulty.”

Daniel X: Demons and Druids by James Patterson and Adam Sadler (Little, Brown), the third in the YA series, follows a boy whose mission is to hunt down extraterrestrial fugitives on Earth.

Wondering why  “This summer belongs to Stieg Larsson”?

USA Today‘s Deirdre Donahue gives ten reasons.

On next week’s NYT best sellers list (8/1), the books show amazing longevity by          topping three of them — hardcover fiction, mass market paperback and trade paperback.

NPR continues to add new titles to its 2010 Summer Books section. Up this week is Fun In The Sun: Laugh-Out-Loud Summer Books. One of the selections is an EarlyWord favorite, The Frozen Rabbi.  NPR says the author,

…cleverly weaves together a zany search for spiritual meaning in a depraved society with an unusual romp through the miserable history of Jews in the 20th century in this wonderfully entertaining, inventive new novel that evokes Amy Bloom, Michael Chabon and Isaac Bashevis Singer.

The Frozen Rabbi Steve Stern Retail Price: $24.95 Hardcover: 384 pages Publisher: Algonquin Books – (2010-05-11) ISBN / EAN: 156512619X / 9781565126190

Moving up Amazon’s sales rankings (to #69 from #195 yesterday), after a review by Maureen Corrigan on NPR’s Fresh Air, is Allegra Goodman’s The Cookbook Collector. Corrigan says it’s “updated Austen [that] hits the spot.”

Libraries are showing significant holds per copies on moderate ordering. It’s on the Indiebound Hardcover Fiction list at #11, moving up from last week’s debut at #20. We also hear that it will hit the NYT Extended Fiction list next week, at #34.

The Cookbook Collector: A Novel Allegra Goodman Retail Price: $26.00 Hardcover: 416 pages Publisher: The Dial Press – (2010-07-06) ISBN / EAN: 0385340850 / 9780385340854

Books on Tape; UNABR; Read by, Ariadne Meyers; CD; 9780307736864; $40.00

OverDrive WMA Audiobook

Halle Berry has signed to star in Shoe Addicts Anonymous, a movie based on the bestseller by Beth Harbison (St. Martins, 2007), according to the movie news site Deadline. It will be directed by Paul Weiland (Made of Honor). No shooting dates have been announced, but Deadline says it will begin before Berry opens on Broadway in The Mountaintop this Fall.

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Hugo Cabret, the live-action 3-D movie directed by Martin Scorsese and currently shooting in London, has added Emily Mortimer (Shutter Island) and Michael Stuhlbarg (A Serious Man) to the cast that includes Jude Law, Ben Kingsley and Sacha Baron Cohen, according to TheWrap. Asa Butterfield (The Boy in the Striped Pajamas) plays Hugo. Based on the Caldecott award winning The invention of Hugo Cabret, by Brian Selznick (Scholastic, 2007), the movie is currently scheduled to open on Dec. 9, 2011.

With her new movie, Salt, hitting theaters this weekend, it seems Angelina Jolie is all over the newsstands.

But, will she be all over the movie Cleopatra, based on the forthcoming bio by Stacy Schiff (Little, Brown, Nov)?

Perhaps the oddly similar poses on the covers of that bio and the forthcoming Jolie bio by Andrew Morton (St. Martin’s, Aug) are prophetic?

Entertainment Weekly‘s Hollywood Insider blog asked Jolie about the rumors. She replied,

I would be honored. I’m fascinated by her. I love history, and I love that part of the world, but we haven’t gotten the script yet so we we’ll see if there is something that’s good enough, and then we’ll try to make it. I’m not sure I could top Elizabeth Taylor. I don’t know that anybody could be better [playing Cleopatra] than Elizabeth Taylor. I love her. She’s always been one of my favorites.

Meanwhile, the UK Telegraph claims Jolie is also in the running to play Elizabeth Taylor in a movie based on the bio, Furious Love, which they say Mike Nicholls wants to direct. Seems unlikely, but then, he did have experience directing the real Elizabeth Taylor in Who’s Afraid of Virginia Wolf. Liz Smith called the story, which also appeared on ETOnline, “curious” in her column on WowoWow yesterday.

Furious Love: Elizabeth Taylor, Richard Burton, and the Marriage of the Century Sam Kashner, Nancy Schoenberger Retail Price: $27.99 Hardcover: 512 pages Publisher: Harper – (2010-06-01) ISBN / EAN: 006156284X / 9780061562846

The AP takes a look at a problem we are all familiar with; reluctant readers, particularly boys. Children’s librarians have the key,

Butts, farts. Whatever, said Amelia Yunker, a children’s librarian in Farmington Hills, Mich. She hosted a grossology party with slime and an armpit noise demonstration. “Just get ’em reading. Worry about what they’re reading later.”

Fourth-grade teacher Ray Sabini, aka Ray Bean, used the same principle in writing a book for boys. Called Sweet Farts, it’s about a boy who invents a way to make farts smell good. Sabini says he uses boy humor to give boys lessons in history, science and bullying. The book rose to #3 on Amazon, catching the attention of AmazonEncore, the recently-formed publishing arm of Amazon, which will publish the sequel, Sweet Farts: Rippin’ It Old School in August.

Both books are also published in audio by Brilliance, which was bought by Amazon in 2007.

Sweet Farts: Rippin’ It Old School Raymond Bean Retail Price: $9.95 Paperback: 190 pages Publisher: AmazonEncore – (2010-08-03) ISBN / EAN: 1935597086 / 9781935597087

Brilliance Audio, UNABR; On-sale Date, 8/2/10; Listen to sample

2 CD’s; 9781441883742; $39.97

1 MP3-CD; 978-1441883766; $39.97

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Sabini self-pubbed the original title with BookSurge (now changing its name to CreateSpace), which was acquired by Amazon in 2005.

Sweet Farts Raymond Bean Retail Price: $9.99 Paperback: 142 pages Publisher: BookSurge Publishing – (2008-11-11) ISBN / EAN: 1439201307 / 9781439201305

Brilliance Audio, UNABR; On-sale Date, 8/2/10; Listen to sample

2 CD’s; 9781441883636; $39.97

1 MP3-CD; 9781441883650; $39.97