# Eisner Award for Best Reality-Based Work

The Eisner Award for Best Reality-Based Work is an award for "creative achievement" in non-fiction American comic books.

## Winners and nominees

| Year | Title | Authors |
| 2000s ||||
| 2006 | Nat Turner (Kyle Baker Publishing) | Kyle Baker |
| 2006 | Embroideries (Pantheon Books) | Marjane Satrapi |
| 2006 | Epileptic (Pantheon Books) | David B. |
| 2006 | Pyongyang: A Journey in North Korea (Drawn & Quarterly) | Guy Delislefg |
| 2006 | True Story, Swear to God (Clib's Boy Comics) and True Story, Swear to God: This One Goes to Eleven (AiT/Planet Lar) | Tom Beland |
| 2007 | Fun Home (Houghton Mifflin) | Alison Bechdel |
| 2007 | I Love Led Zeppelin (Fantagraphics) | Ellen Forney |
| 2007 | Mom's Cancer (Abrams Books) | Brian Fies |
| 2007 | Project X: Cup Noodle (Digital Manga, ISBN 9781569709597) | Tadashi Katoh (author) and Akira Imai (artist) |
| 2007 | Stagger Lee (Image Comics) | Derek McCulloch and Shepherd Hendrix |
| 2008 | Satchel Paige: Striking Out Jim Crow (Center for Cartoon Studies/Hyperion Books for Children) | James Sturm and Rich Tommaso |
| 2008 | Laika (First Second Books) | Nick Abadzis |
| 2008 | The Magical Life of Long Tack Sam (Riverhead Books/Penguin Group) | Ann Marie Fleming |
| 2008 | Sentences: The Life of MF Grimm (Vertigo Comics/DC Comics) | Percy Carey and Ronald Wimberly |
| 2008 | White Rapids (Drawn & Quarterly) | Pascal Blanchet |
| 2009 | What It Is (Drawn & Quarterly) | Lynda Barry |
| 2009 | Alan's War (First Second Books) | Emmanuel Guibert |
| 2009 | Blue Pills: A Positive Love Story (Houghton Mifflin) | Frederik Peeters |
| 2009 | Fishtown (IDW Publishing) | Kevin Colden |
| 2009 | A Treasury of XXth Century Murder: The Lindbergh Child (NBM Publishing) | Rick Geary |
| 2010s ||||
| 2010 | A Drifting Life (Drawn & Quarterly) | Yoshihiro Tatsumi |
| 2010 | Footnotes in Gaza (Metropolitan Books/Henry Holt and Company) | Joe Sacco |
| 2010 | The Impostor's Daughter: A True Memoir (Little, Brown) | Laurie Sandell |
| 2010 | Monsters (Secret Acres) | Ken Dahl |
| 2010 | The Photographer (First Second Books) | Emmanuel Guibert, Didier Lefèvre, and Frédéric Lemercier |
| 2010 | Stitches (W. W. Norton & Company) | David Small |
| 2011 | It Was the War of the Trenches (Fantagraphics) | Jacques Tardi |
| 2011 | Picture This: The Nearsighted Monkey Book (Drawn & Quarterly) | Lynda Barry |
| 2011 | Special Exits: A Graphic Memoir (Fantagraphics) | Joyce Farmer |
| 2011 | Treasury of XXth Century Murder: The Terrible Axe Man of New Orleans (NBM Publishing) | Rick Geary |
| 2011 | Two Generals (McClelland & Stewart) | Scott Chantler |
| 2011 | You'll Never Know Book 2: Collateral Damage (Fantagraphics) | Carol Tyler |
| 2012 | Green River Killer: A True Detective Story (Dark Horse Comics) | Jeff Jensen and Jonathan Case |
| 2012 | Around the World (Candlewick Press) | Matt Phelan |
| 2012 | Marzi: A Memoir (Vertigo Comics/DC Comics) | Marzena Sowa and Sylvain Savoia |
| 2012 | Onward Towards Our Noble Deaths (Drawn & Quarterly) | Shigeru Mizuki |
| 2012 | Vietnamerica (Villard) | GB Tran |
| 2013 | Annie Sullivan and the Trials of Helen Keller (Center for Cartoon Studies/Hyperion Books for Children) | Joseph Lambert |
| 2013 | The Carter Family: Don't Forget This Song (Abrams ComicArts) | Frank M. Young and David Lasky |
| 2013 | A Chinese Life (SelfMadeHero) | Li Kunwu and Philippe Ôtié, translated by Edward Gauvin |
| 2013 | The Infinite Wait and Other Stories (Koyama Press) | Julia Wertz |
| 2013 | Marbles: Mania Depression Michelangelo & Me (Gotham Books) | Ellen Forney |
| 2013 | You'll Never Know Book 3: A Soldier's Heart (Fantagraphics) | Carol Tyler |
| 2014 | The Fifth Beatle: The Brian Epstein Story (M Press/Dark Horse Comics) | Vivek J. Tiwary, Andrew C. Robinson, and Kyle Baker |
| 2014 | A Bag of Marbles (Graphic Universe/Lerner Publishing Group) | Joseph Joffo, Kris, and Vincent Bailly |
| 2014 | Hip Hop Family Tree, Book 1: 1970s-1981 (Fantagraphics) | Ed Piskor |
| 2014 | March: Book One (Top Shelf Productions) | John Lewis, Andrew Aydin, and Nate Powell |
| 2014 | Today Is the Last Day of the Rest of Your Life (Fantagraphics) | Ulli Lust |
| 2014 | Woman Rebel: The Margaret Sanger Story (Drawn & Quarterly) | Peter Bagge |
| 2015 | Hip Hop Family Tree, Book 2: 1981-1983 (Fantagraphics) | Ed Piskor |
| 2015 | Can't We Talk About Something More Pleasant? (Bloomsbury Publishing) | Roz Chast |
| 2015 | Dragon’s Breath and Other True Stories (2d Cloud/Uncivilized Books) | MariNaomi |
| 2015 | El Deafo (Amulet Books/Abrams Books) | Cece Bell |
| 2015 | Nathan Hale’s Hazardous Tales: Treaties Trenches Mud and Blood (Abrams Books) | Nathan Hale |
| 2015 | To End All Wars: The Graphic Anthology of The First World War (Soaring Penguin Press) | edited by Jonathan Clode and John Stuart Clark |
| 2016 | March: Book Two (Top Shelf Productions/IDW Publishing) | John Lewis, Andrew Aydin, and Nate Powell |
| 2016 | The Arab of the Future: A Childhood in the Middle East 1978–1984 (Metropolitan Books) | Riad Sattouf |
| 2016 | Displacement: A Travelogue (Fantagraphics) | Lucy Knisley |
| 2016 | Hip Hop Family Tree Book 3: 1983–1984 (Fantagraphics) | Ed Piskor |
| 2016 | Invisible Ink: My Mother’s Secret Love Affair with a Famous Cartoonist (Fantagraphics) | Bill Griffith |
| 2016 | The Story of My Tits (Top Shelf Productions/IDW Publishing) | Jennifer Hayden |
| 2017 | March: Book Three (Top Shelf Productions) | John Lewis, Andrew Aydin, and Nate Powell |
| 2017 | Dark Night: A True Batman Story (Vertigo Comics/DC Comics) | Paul Dini and Eduardo Risso |
| 2017 | Glenn Gould: A Life Off Tempo (NBM Publishing) | Sandrine Revel |
| 2017 | Rosalie Lightning: A Graphic Memoir (St. Martin's Press) | Tom Hart |
| 2017 | Tetris: The Games People Play (First Second Books) | Box Brown |
| 2018 | Spinning (First Second Books) | Tillie Walden |
| 2018 | Audubon: On the Wings of the World (Nobrow Press) | Fabien Grolleau and Jerémie Royer, translated by Etienne Gilfillan |
| 2018 | The Best We Could Do (Abrams ComicArts) | Thi Bui |
| 2018 | Calamity Jane: The Calamitous Life of Martha Jane Cannary 1852–1903 (IDW Publishing) | Christian Perrissin and Matthieu Blanchin, translated by Diana Schutz and Brandon Kander |
| 2018 | Lennon: The New York Years (IDW Publishing) | David Foenkinos, Éric Corbeyran, and Horne Perreard, translated by Ivanka Hahnenberger |
| 2019 | Is This Guy For Real? The Unbelievable Andy Kaufman (First Second Books) | Box Brown |
| 2019 | All the Answers: A Graphic Memoir (Gallery 13) | Michael Kupperman |
| 2019 | All the Sad Songs (Retrofit Comics/Big Planet Comics) | Summer Pierre |
| 2019 | Monk! (First Second Books) | Youssef Daoudi |
| 2019 | One Dirty Tree (Uncivilized Books) | Noah Van Sciver |
| 2020s ||||
| 2020 | They Called Us Enemy (Top Shelf Productions) | George Takei, Justin Eisinger, Steven Scott, and Harmony Becker |
| 2020 | Good Talk: A Memoir in Conversations (One World/Random House) | Mira Jacob |
| 2020 | Grass (Drawn & Quarterly) | Keum Suk Gendry-Kim, translation by Janet Hong |
| 2020 | Kid Gloves: Nine Months of Careful Chaos (First Second Books/Macmillan) | Lucy Knisley |
| 2020 | Moonbound: Apollo 11 and the Dream of Spaceflight (Hill & Wang) | Jonathan Fetter-Vorm |
| 2020 | My Solo Exchange Diary, vol. 2 (Seven Seas Entertainment) | Nagata Kabi, translation Jocelyne Allen |
| 2021 | Kent State: Four Dead in Ohio (Abrams Books) | Derf Backderf |
| 2021 | Big Black: Stand at Attica (Archaia Entertainment/Boom! Studios) | Frank “Big Black” Smith, Jared Reinmuth, and Améziane |
| 2021 | Dragon Hoops (First Second Books/Macmillan Publishers) | Gene Luen Yang |
| 2021 | Invisible Differences: A Story of Asperger’s, Adulting, and Living a Life in Full Color (Oni Press) | Mademoiselle Caroline and Julie Dachez, translation by Edward Gauvin |
| 2021 | Paying the Land (Metropolitan Books/Henry Holt and Company) | Joe Sacco |
| 2021 | Year of the Rabbit (Drawn & Quarterly) | Tian Veasna, translation by Helge Dascher |
| 2023 | Flung Out of Space (Abrams ComicArts) | Grace Ellis and Hannah Templer |
| 2023 | Alfred Hitchcock: The Master of Suspense (HBM) | Noël Simsolo and Dominique Hé, translation by Montana Kane |
| 2023 | Alice Guy: First Lady of Film (Self Made Hero) | José-Louis Bocquet and Catel Muller, translation by Edward Gauvin |
| 2023 | But I Live: Three Stories of Child Survivors of the Holocaust (University of Toronto Press) | edited by Charlotte Schallié |
| 2023 | Invisible Wounds: Graphic Journalism (Fantagraphics) | Jess Ruliffson |
| 2023 | Pinball: A Graphic History of the Silver Ball (First Second/Macmillan) | Jon Chad |