The 2011 Eisner Award nominations have just been announced.

Heading the 2011 nominees with five nominations is Return of the Dapper Men, a fantasy hardcover by writer Jim McCann and artist Janet Lee and published by Archaia, with nominations for Best Publication for Teens, Best Graphic Album–New, Best Writer, Best Artist, and Best Publication Design. Two comics series have four nominations:Morning Glories by Nick Spencer and Joe Eisma (published by Shadowline/Image) and Locke & Key by Joe Hill and Gabriel Rodriguez (published by IDW). A variety of titles have received three nominations, including the manga Naoki Urasawa’s 20th Century Boys(VIZ Media), John Layman and Rob Guillory’s series Chew (Image), Daniel Clowes’s graphic novel Wilson (Drawn & Quarterly), and Mike Mignola’s Hellboy titles (Dark Horse).

The creator with the most nominations is Mignola with five (including cover artist), followed by Spencer and Hill, each with four. Several creators received three nominations: McCann & Lee, Rodriquez, Urasawa, and Clowes, plus writer Ian Boothy (for Comic Book Guy: The Comic Book and other Bongo titles) and cartoonist Jimmy Gownley (for Best Publication for Kids plus coloring and lettering on his Amelia Rules! series). 15 creators have two nominations each, a new record.

Ballots with this year’s nominees will be going out in mid-April to comics creators, editors, publishers, and retailers. A downloadable .pdf of the ballot will also be available online, and a special website has been set up for online voting. The awards will be presented at a ceremony on the evening of Friday, July 22 at Comic-Con International.

Congratulations to all the nominees!

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Big ups to our friends over at Erfworld for taking home the title last week in our first ever ComicMix Mix March Madness webcomic tournament. The wizards, witches, goblins, and noble knights slayed the adorable Gronk, in a bitter battle to the end.

We apologize for not raising Erfworld over our heads in championship glory sooner… but there was April’s Fool, so no one would believe it if we posted, and then we had to wash our hair, and we swear, our dogs ate the first draft of the story!

Anywho… Congratulations to Xin Ye and Rob Balder for besting all their competition. Good work Erf-lovers… you carry the crown– until the next bloody battles!

It’s fascinating to see the enduring appeal of C.S. Lewis’ [[[The Chronicles of Narnia]]] at a time when people poo-poo the heavy-handed religious imagery and pales in comparison to the far richer world of Middle Earth as envisioned by Lewis’ friend J.R.R. Tolkien. The films based on both series have their fans and detractors and the success of Tolkien’s trilogy paved the way for the long-overdue big budget adaptation of Narnia.

Unfortunately, Walden Media, which has been spearheading these films, has decided to aim squarely for the religious and family audiences, which has led to a look of cheapness and familiarity that has robbed the three films to date of their specialness.

Walt Disney bailed on the series after the so-so reception and box office to Prince Caspian, which many involved felt may have strayed from their targets. 20^th Century Fox stepped up and is now the studio behind the franchise and last fall released [[[The Voyage of the Dawn Traeder]]]. That film is coming to DVD on Tuesday in a variety of formats including the Blu-ray + DVD + Digital Copy or component parts. The standard DVD was sent out for review and you will have to decide for yourself if you want the more involved versions.

Picking up three years after the last film, we find Edmund (Skandar Keynes) and Lucy (Georgie Henley) packed off to stay with family, including their annoying younger cousin Eustace Scrubb (Will Poulter). They long to be in America with Susan and Peter and their parent and chafe at being the youngest, notably Lucy who is on the cusp of womanhood, yearning to be pretty and attractive to the older boys in town.

As has happened before, circumstances in the land of Narnia require their attention and they are summoned through a painting of a boat at sea hanging in their dingy quarters. Eustace, of course, comes along complaining all the way. It’s mildly amusing that he continues to journal about his adventure without acknowledging that any of this is real until he inevitably accepts the situation and embraces it. But first, he has to be turned into a fire-breathing dragon.

The story hews fairly close to the third book in the series but it has a look of cheapness about it, notably the CGI dragon and some of the visual effects. The acting is adequate but none of the leads are given much of anything to do. The thin script by an army of writers provides little substance to the characters so we just move from situation to situation in a quest story to assemble seven swords and lay them at Aslan’s table.

Aslan (voiced by Liam Neeson) remains the comforting deus ex machina Christ figure, a part that is emphasized in the final 15 minutes as we see the barrier between Narnia and Aslan’s lands where the dead reside. Lucy and Edmund, he says, have completed their role and yet what did they really do? It was Eustace who braved the fires of Mount Doom– I mean the less imaginatively named Dark Island.  Frankly, much of the Narnia material pales in comparison, from story to character to film adaptation.

This most decidedly family fare and keep that in mind when deciding to see the film or not. While the Blu-ray disc comes loaded with extras, all you will find on the standard DVD are a commentary and a handful of deleted scenes, none of which were missed.