The 37th annual Will Eisner Comic Industry Awards were administered on the evening of July 25 at San Diego Comic-Con. Considered the comics world’s highest honors, the ceremony announced winners across 32 categories. The awards went to 24 different publishers and were hosted by voice actor Phil LaMarr and comics creator Bill Morrison at the San Diego Bayfront Hotel.
Notably, this year’s ceremony marked the end of an era. Longtime award administrator Jackie Estrada retired after 35 years heading up the Eisners, which she helped turn into the prestigious prize they are today. Estrada’s announcement got a standing ovation from those in attendance, according to the Beat—whose editor-in-chief, longtime PW contributing editor and More to Come podcast cohost, took home the Eisner for Best Comics-Related Journalism.
Leading the pack of the 2025 winners was Macmillan graphic novel imprint First Second, which took home four awards, including three for Gene Luen Yang and LeUyen Pham’s PW-starred YA graphic novel Lunar New Year Love Story. In addition to the Best New Graphic Album prize, the book snagged Best Publication for Teens, with Yang also winning the Best Writer category.
DC Comics, Fantagraphics, and IDW trailed closely, with three awards each. The only other title that won multiple categories was David Mazzucchelli’s Batman Year One Artist’s Edition (IDW), for Best Archival Collection Project and Best Publication Design.
Other notable wins included Sacco’s work of graphic journalism The War on Gaza (Fantagraphics) for Best Single Issue, and Tessa Hulls’ Pulitzer-winning Feeding Ghosts (MCD/Farrar, Straus & Giroux) for Best Graphic Memoir.
The Eisner nominations are selected by a panel of judges, which this year included PW’s graphic novels reviews editor Meg Lemke. Voting is open to comic book, graphic novel, and webcomic creators as well as nominees in every category, graphic novel and comics publishers and editors, owners and managers of comic book specialty retail stores, comics educators, and graphic novels librarians.
The full list of winners can be found here.
An earlier version of this article stated that actor and comedian Thomas Lennon copresented this year’s Eisner Awards with Phil LaMarr; his cohost was Bill Morrison.
