SAGA SWEEPS, KING CITY TRIUMPHS
Vaughan and Staples, Graham take home Eisners
Image Comics joins the comic book industry in congratulating Brian K. Vaughan, Fiona Staples, and Brandon Graham for their Eisner Awards, received Friday night in a ceremony in San Diego.
SAGA by Vaughan and Staples, the hit family drama-meets-space opera, won awards for Best New Series, Best Continuing Series, and Best Writer — every category it was nominated in. Graham’s expansive and inventive science-fiction graphic novel KING CITY received the Eisner Award for Best Graphic Album – Reprint.
Image Comics Publisher Eric Stephenson accepted the awards for the SAGA creative team, who could not be present, but Vaughan said in a statement: “Thank you so much for this huge honor, especially because we were nominated alongside so many equally deserving series and creators (even my wife thought HAWKEYE should win). I’m just riding the coattails of co-creator Fiona Staples, one of the great comic artists of all time, so all credit to her, our peerless letterer/designer Fonografiks, and especially everyone at Image, for being so supportive of truly creator-owned books for over twenty years.”
Vaughan has previously received four Eisner Awards. These are the first Eisners Staples has won in her career, and SAGA is the first ongoing series she has drawn.
Brandon Graham’s Best Graphic Album – Reprint Eisner Award for KING CITY was his first Eisner win. KING CITY had previously been nominated for an Eisner in 2007.
Graham also could not be present for the ceremony, but released this statement: “The amount of nominations I got this year was crazy 
and that I won one even crazier. I really appreciate Eric Stephenson and Image having so much faith in me and my work to help me get to this place where my peers can see it and apparently like it. So cool.”
Dave Stewart, colorist on FATALE, also received the Best Coloring Eisner Award, for his work on seven titles, including FATALE.
Image Comics titles received eighteen Eisner Awards nominations this year. SAGA was competing against three Image Comics titles in the Best Continuing Series category — FATALE by Ed Brubaker and Sean Phillips, THE MANHATTAN PROJECTS by Jonathan Hickman and Nick Pitarra, and Rob Liefeld’s PROPHET, written by Brandon Graham and drawn by Simon Roy, Giannis Milonogiannis, Farel Dalrymple, and Brandon Graham. It was one of four Image titles nominated in the Best Writer Category, along with FATALE, written by Ed Brubaker, THE MANHATTAN PROJECTS, written by Jonathan Hickman, and MULTIPLE WARHEADS and PROPHET, both written by Brandon Graham. Image earned two nominations in the Best New Series category, thanks to FATALE and SAGA. Brandon Graham alone received four nominations: Best Writer, Best Graphic Novel — Reprint, Best Cover Artist, and Best Coloring.