[comix] TOMER HANUKA IN NEW YORK TIMES MAGAZINE
NEWS RELEASE: FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
Eisner Nominated Cartoonist Tomer Hanuka Covers New York Times Magazine
New York, April 19, 2003: New York cartoonist Tomer Hanuka has provided the cover, a full comics page and two additional illustrations for the
New York Times Magazine for Sunday, April 27, 2003 of the on the subject of North Korean teenage refugees. Tomer Hanuka was just nominated for “Best Short Story” for the 2003 Will Eisner Comic Industry Awards for his “Telekinetic," in
Bipolar #3 (ISBN: 1-891867-24-5; DCD: FEB03 1706; Alternative Comics).
Bipolar #4 (ISBN: 1-891867-35-0; DCD: FEB03 1703) will be released this May from Alternative Comics.
Tomer and Assaf Hanuka are brothers, artists and collaborators on
Bipolar, one of the strangest and most disturbingly beautiful comics to be found anywhere. Born in Israel, the brothers have pursued separate careers, Tomer as an illustrator in New York for everything from
The New Yorker to
Entertainment Weekly, Assaf doing graphic novels for the French market. Both are incredibly talented, and the result is hauntingly powerful. Tomer and Assaf Hanuka are also identical twins. They share a similar genetic structure but were raised in different places. This condition creates a special tension between their stories and styles and is the foundation of
Bipolar. Assaf, with writer Etgar Keret is telling the story of “Pizzeria Kamikaze” about a guy with a broken heart who committed suicide only to find himself at Pizza Kamikaze, a regular day job in a world where everyone died before and now it's about passing time. Tomer is telling personal stories with a twisted time sense that will put you right now, a year ago, and in the future.
“Ever felt like there was someone else in your house, even when you knew there wasn't?” said Tomer Hanuka when asked to describe his Eisner Award nominated short story "Telekinetic" from
Bipolar #3, "A chronic stomachache and a picture that won't stay still pushes our hero to confront this someone and discover the legend of Shmilove, the world's first Telekinetic.”
After three years of mandatory Army service in Israel, Tomer Hanuka moved to New York. He works as a freelance illustrator for publications such as the
New Yorker,
The New York Times,
Rolling Stone, and
TIME. He was awarded the Gold and Silver medals from the Society of Illustrators. In addition to his comics work with Alternative Comics, Tomer Hanuka regularly paints lush covers for DC Comics and contributes remarkable short stories for comic book anthologies. He lives in Brooklyn.
Titles from small press, alternative, and non-direct market publishers had their strongest showing ever in this year’s Eisner Awards nominations. The judges for the 2003 Will Eisner Comic Industry Awards chose works from over 40 different publishers for the 26 categories.
The Will Eisner Comic Industry Awards are considered the "Oscars" of the comic book industry. They are handed out each year in a gala ceremony at Comic-Con International: San Diego, the largest and oldest comics convention in the United States, drawing over 63,000 people last year. Ballots will be going out in early May to some 4,000 comics publishers, creators, and retailers. The results will be announced in a gala awards ceremony at Comic-Con: International: San Diego on the night of Friday, July 18 at the San Diego Convention Center’s new ballroom.
The Eisner Awards are named for renowned cartoonist Will Eisner (creator of "The Spirit" and several award-winning graphic novels), who always attends the ceremony to personally hand the trophies to the winners. The Awards are given out in more than two dozen categories covering the best publications and creators of the previous year (such as Best Short Story, Best Graphic Album, Best Writer, and so on). The finalists on the ballot are selected by a blue-ribbon committee that considers thousands of entries submitted by publishers and creators. The nominees are then voted on by all parts of the comic book industry: writers, artists, and other creators; publishers; editors; and retailers and distributors.
The Eisner Awards, established in 1987, came under the auspices of the San Diego Comic Convention, Inc., a nonprofit corporation, in 1990. The Awards Administrator is Jackie Estrada. The awards program has been funded by contributions from distributors, retailers, media companies, and such industry suppliers as major printers of comics.
"The primary purpose of these awards," says Estrada, "is to call attention to and celebrate the best that the comics art form has to offer. A glance at any of the ballots from the last several years reveals a wide range of projects, subject matters, and levels, from such serious works as art spiegelman’s
Maus and Joe Sacco’s
Safe Area Gorazde to such lighter fare as Jeff Smith’s
Bone and Sergio Aragonés’s
Groo. The point is that reading comics can be a rewarding experience for people with a variety of tastes and of any age."
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For more about Tomer Hanuka, visit
http://www.indyworld.com/bipolar/ or his website at
http://www.thanuka.com.
For a recent interview with Tomer Hanuka and Assaf Hanuka, see:
http://www.comicon.com/cgi-bin/pulse.cgi?http%3A//www.comicon.com/cgi-bin/ultimatebb.cgi%3Fubb%3Dget_topic%26f%3D36%26t%3D000112
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