Cromartie High School Manga Gets Eisner Nod
ADV Manga, the book imprint of ADV Films, is proud to announce that Cromartie High School, Japan’s #1 comedy series, has been nominated for an Eisner Award. The Eisner Awards are named after comics pioneer Will Eisner and is North America’s most prestigious prize for comics. The Cromartie High School manga series is nominated in the category of “Best U.S. Edition of Foreign Material” for 2005, the only Japanese work to be so honored.
Cromartie High School is the brainchild of Eiji Nanaka [check spelling], an unconventional manga artist known for his stated dislike of manga. The off-the-wall series is set in Japan’s most notorious reform school, which Nanaka populates with a motley crew of thugs, misfits, and the occasional gorilla. What begins as a parody of the popular “boys fighting” genre quickly devolves into an absurdist comedy unlike any other manga on the market. Cromartie High School earned Nanaka a Kodansha Award in his native Japan, where it inspired a top-rated anime series (distributed in North America by ADV Films). Recently Cromartie High School was adapted into a live action movie.
The first volume of Cromartie High School was published in North America in March 2005, and ADV Manga has published five volumes to date. The series is a fan favorite that has drawn raves from the US comics press, such as this notice from The Comics Reporter: “Unlike most comedic manga I’ve read, Cromartie High School isn’t a slick re-working of a situational comedy set-up, or a soap opera with a high concept twist, but a bizarre, self-referential, and sometimes brave-in-its-convictions wallow in stupidity… This is a funny comic book.” The manga has also drawn positive notices in such varied publications as Publishers Weekly, Official Playstation Magazine, Newtype USA, Kirkus Review, Anime Insider, and School Library Journal. Recently the New York Public Library named Cromartie High School volume one to its prestigious “Books for the Teen Age” recommended list.
The Eisner Awards are voted on by comic book industry professionals, including authors, artists, and retailers. The Eisner Awards ceremony takes place at Comicon International in San Diego in July.