That Time We Were Nominated for an Eisner
And that won't be the biggest news in this post.
A few days before the nominations were made public, I got two messages from Heidi MacDonald from The Beat. The first was a series of exclamation points. The next was a simple request: “check your e-mail”.
I had just finished doing a round of deliveries in the city - a task that had become quite the affair during the store’s time in a temporary location in the north of the city. Sitting in my car, I opened thumbed my way to the e-mail app and let things refresh.
In short order, I found myself looking at a message stating that Danica and I had been nominated for Best Comics Related Periodical/Journalism category in the Eisner Awards.
This had to be impossible for two reasons. The first? I was pretty sure that category was removed from the slate this year. The second? Why the hell would we be getting nominated?!
Setting aside my considerable imposter syndrome, I immediately told Danica the news. We had a brief, quiet celebration over the news, and I set about trying to be quiet about everything until the full announcement was actually made.
During this time, Danica and I were prepping the store for a big move into a new permanent location. It felt like a time of pretty significant change - and it has been.
The first third of the year has been one of the toughest of my life. There’s nothing quite like feeling something you spent years and years building almost get pulled away from you due to circumstances completely beyond your control. The work that Danica and I put into surviving that was dwarfed only by the folks in our community who showed up in a myriad of ways to help us out.1 To get through all of that and find ourselves almost on the other side with a freakin’ Eisner nomination felt overwhelming. I definitely cried a couple times that night.
I want to thank all the folks who have been reading this publication both here and over at The Beat for the past year plus. I can’t stress how much your views and support has meant to us. I always tried to tell myself we were doing something important, but my brain has never let me believe it. That said, both privately and publicly, you folks were letting us know the efforts were appreciated. All of that was incredibly helpful, and I thank you all for getting us… here.
That all said, things continue to shift and evolve in these parts.
On Sunday, May 12th, we had our last day at our temporary location in Pe Metawe Games. Just a few short days later, on Wednesday, May 15th, we opened up in our new location after three days of intense moving. To this day, we don’t have things completely in place, but we have some great plans. That said, those plans are going to involve an absence.
After more than nine years of running Variant Edition with me, Danica has announced that she will be stepping away from the store indefinitely. This is something that we’ve discussed for a long time, and something that was undoubtedly delayed by the flood that shut down our business and sent us adrift. As of Saturday, June 1st, Variant Edition will be running on my own steam for the foreseeable future, and while that’s going to be a different experience, it is all for the best. Danica will always be a part of the store, and future events. The store exists because of her, and has become what it is because of her - and while I will never say the store is better off without her, Danica will be better by stepping away, and that is the most important thing.
The Indirect Market will also continue with her input. All the best ideas in here come from talking with her to help bring life to thoughts. This was true before we started the business together, and will be true in the future.
Things are shifting. Things are evolving. Things aren’t always easy, but as long as we all do things to take care of ourselves… well, then we can never be at our worst, right?
Thanks for checking in with me today. There will be posts here every day through to Friday, as I play a bit of catch up, and share some insights that came from the store’s survival.
Talk with you soon.
-B.
Over this next week, I’ll be linking off to a few different places where I talk about that time with more specificity. Stay tuned.