The winners of the Inkwell Awards, presented to the best in comic book inking, have been announced. Inking Legend Joe Sinnott won the first Joe Winnott Award, but I guess that’s why he’s a legend. 5000 votes were cast in the various categories.
FAVORITE INKER (RETRO)
TERRY AUSTIN (winner-tie)
JOE SINNOTT (winner-tie)
Tom Palmer (runner-up)

FAVORITE INKER (MODERN)
TIM TOWNSEND (winner)
Danny Miki (runner-up)

FAVORITE FINISHER/EMBELLISHER (RETRO)
TOM PALMER (winner)
Joe Sinnott (runner-up)

FAVORITE FINISHER/EMBELLISHER (MODERN)
KEVIN NOWLAN (winner)
Norm Rapmond (runner-up)

MOST-ADAPTABLE INKER
TIM TOWNSEND (winner)
Danny Miki (runner-up)

MOST PROLIFIC INKER
DANNY MIKI (winner)
Joe Sinnott (runner-up)

PROPS AWARD
DANNY MIKI (winner)
Mark Irwin (runner-up)

THE CALL OF DUTY AWARD
BOB ALMOND (winner)
Tim Townsend (runner-up)

MVP AWARD
DANNY MIKI (winner)
Tim Townsend (runner-up)

THE JOE SINNOTT AWARD
JOE SINNOTT (winner)
Al Williamson (runner-up)

A press release is forthcoming, but the puzzling Harvey nomination in the Meanwhile … Comics in the “Best Biographical, Historical or Journalistic Presentation” category. Blog@’s JK Parkin fond this nom particularly odd:

Please don’t get me wrong here — John, Jason and Scott, the contributors to the blog, are doing some fun stuff over there. My question had nothing to do with whether their content was worthy or not to be nominated. No, the question I had was how a site that launched in April made the list when nominations for the Harveys were due in March.

Turns out a clerical error had turned votes for RC Harvey’s MEANWHILE… into votes for the little known site.

David Welsh wonders if this year’s very very odd Harvey nominations may have been the last straw:

There is the remote possibility that what one might consider counter-intuitive nominees (some listed here by Dirk Deppey) wound up there as the result of an entirely democratic groundswell of support, heretofore unexpected by the casual observer. I’m cynical, so unless I get a bunch of e-mails or comments that support that optimistic possibility, I’m going to suggest that the Harvey Awards nomination process is broken and needs to be fixed if the sponsors want to cultivate a reputation for promoting meritorious work. Because there’s plenty of meritorious work nominated, and it’s not fair that it stands a real chance of losing to something awful because the system can be massaged.

The 2008 Harvey awards are in, and the swell of support for Gemstone’s Disney comics — so evident in other years — has once again resulted in a strong showing for William Van Horn and the Disney ducks. The other big, big winner was Jeff Kinney, the Diary of a Wimpy Kid dude, who was nominated in just about every category including Best Inker, quite a feat for someone who draws stick figures.

The 2008 Harvey Awards Nominees have been announced with the release of the final ballot, presented by the Executive Committees of the Harvey Awards and the Baltimore Comic-Con. Named in honor of the late Harvey Kurtzman, one of the industry’s most innovative talents, the Harvey Awards recognize outstanding work in comics and sequential art. They will be presented September 27, 2008 in Baltimore, MD, in conjunction with the Baltimore Comic-Con.

Without further delay, the 2008 Harvey Award Nominees:

BEST WRITER

Ed Brubaker, Captain America, Marvel Comics
Jeff Kinney, Diary of a Wimpy Kid, Amulet Books
Grant Morrison, All Star Superman, DC Comics
William Van Horn, Walt Disney’s Comics and Stories, Gemstone
Brian K. Vaughan, Y: The Last Man, Vertigo/DC Comics

BEST ARTIST

Gabriel Ba, Umbrella Academy, Dark Horse Comics
John Cassaday, Astonishing X-Men, Marvel Comics
Guy Davis, BPRD, Dark Horse Comics
Frank Quitely, All Star Superman, DC Comics
William Van Horn, Walt Disney’s Comics and Stories, Gemstone

BEST CARTOONIST

Darwyn Cooke, The Spirit, DC Comics
Matt Kindt, Super Spy, Top Shelf
Jeff Kinney, Diary of a Wimpy Kid, Amulet Books
Bryan Lee O’Malley, Scott Pilgrim Gets It Together, Oni Press
Vasilis Lolos, Last Call, Oni Press
William Van Horn, Walt Disney’s Comics and Stories, Gemstone

BEST GRAPHIC ALBUM - ORIGINAL

The Arrival, Scholastic Books
Donald Duck: The Case of the Missing Mummy, Gemstone
Exit Wounds, Drawn & Quarterly
Laika, First Second
Scott Pilgrim Gets It Together, Oni Press

BEST GRAPHIC ALBUM - PREVIOUSLY PUBLISHED

The Annotated Northwest Passage, Oni Press
Antiques, Volume 1, Gemstone
Captain America Omnibus, Volume 1, Marvel Comics
Damned, Volume 1, Oni Press
Dark Tower: The Gunslinger Born, Marvel Comics

BEST DOMESTIC REPRINT PROJECT

Complete Peanuts, Fantagraphics Books
Complete Terry and the Pirates, IDW
EC Archives, Gemstone
Popeye, Fantagraphics Books
Walt and Skeezix, Drawn & Quarterly

BEST AMERICAN EDITION OF FOREIGN MATERIAL

Eduardo Risso’s Tales of Terror, Dynamite Entertainment
Exit Wounds, Drawn & Quarterly
Manga Shakespeare: Romeo and Juliet, Abrams
Moomin, Volume 2, Drawn & Quarterly
Witchblade Manga, Top Cow/Image

SPECIAL AWARD FOR HUMOR

Chris Eliopoulos, Franklin Richards series, Marvel Comics
Nicholas Gurewitch, Perry Bible Fellowship, www.pbfcomics.com
Jeff Kinney, Diary of a Wimpy Kid, Amulet Books
Bryan Lee O’Malley, Scott Pilgrim Gets It Together, Oni Press
William Van Horn, Walt Disney’s Comics and Stories, Gemstone

BEST ON-LINE COMIC

Diary of a Wimpy Kid, Jeff Kinney, www.wimpykid.com
EZ Street, Robert Tinnell and Mark Wheatley, www.comicmix.com/title/ez-street/
Penny Arcade, Jerry Holkins and Mike Krahulik, www.penny-arcade.com
Perry Bible Fellowship, Nicholas Gurewitch, www.pbfcomics.com
Surreal Adventures of Edgar Allan Poo, Dwight L. Macpherson,
Thomas Boatwright and Thomas Mauer,
www.drunkduck.com/The_Surreal_Adventures_of_Edgar_Allan_Poo

SPECIAL AWARD FOR EXCELLENCE IN PRESENTATION

The Annotated Northwest Passage, Scott Chantler, Oni Press
Diary of a Wimpy Kid, Jeff Kinney, Amulet Books
EC Archives, Various, edited by John Clark, Gemstone
Postcards: True Stories That Never Happened, edited by Jason Rodriguez, Villard
Super Spy, Matt Kindt, Top Shelf

BEST SINGLE ISSUE OR STORY

Alice in Sunderland, Dark Horse Comics
All Star Superman # 8, DC Comics
Captain America # 25, Marvel Comics
Donald Duck: The Case of the Missing Mummy, Gemstone
I Killed Adolf Hitler, Fantagraphics Books
Immortal Iron Fist # 7, Marvel Comics
Stephen Colbert’s Tek Jansen # 1, Oni Press

BEST BIOGRAPHICAL, HISTORICAL OR JOURNALISTIC PRESENTATION

Blah Blah Blog, Tom Brevoort, http://www.marvel.com/blogs/Tom%20Brevoort/
The Comics Journal, edited by Gary Groth and Michael Dean, Fantagraphics Books
Meanwhile…Comics!, John, Jason and Scott, http://www.meanwhilecomics.com
The Naked Artist: Comic Book Legends, Bryan Talbot and Hunt Emerson,
Moonstone Books
Overstreet Comic Book Price Guide, edited by J.C. Vaughn, Gemstone
Reading Comics: How Graphic Albums Work and What They Mean, Douglas Wolk,
Da Capo Press

BEST COVER ARTIST

John Cassaday, Astonishing X-Men, Marvel Comics
Marko Djurdjevic, Daredevil, Marvel Comics
James Jean, Fables, Vertigo/DC Comics
Mike Mignola, Hellboy, Dark Horse Comics
William Van Horn, Walt Disney’s Comics and Stories, Gemstone

BEST LETTERER

Chris Eliopoulos, Daredevil, Marvel Comics
Jared K. Fletcher, The Spirit, DC Comics
Willie Schubert, Walt Disney’s Comics and Stories, Gemstone
Douglas E. Sherwood, Local, Oni Books
Chris Ware, Acme Novelty Library, Acme Novelty

BEST COLORIST

Susan Daigle-Leach, Uncle Scrooge, Gemstone
Jamie Grant, All Star Superman, DC Comics
Matt Hollingsworth, Daredevil, Marvel Comics
Matt Kindt, Super Spy, Top Shelf
Laura Martin, Thor, Marvel Comics

BEST INKER

Stefano Gaudiano, Daredevil, Marvel Comics
Jeff Kinney, Diary of a Wimpy Kid, Amulet Books
Steve Leialoha, Fables, DC Comics
Mark Morales, Thor, Marvel Comics
Kevin Nowlan, Witchblade, Top Cow/Image

BEST SYNDICATED STRIP OR PANEL

Doonesbury, Garry Trudeau, Universal Press Syndicate
Get Fuzzy, Darby Conley, United Feature Syndicate
The K Chronicles, Keith Knight, Self-Syndicated
The Mighty Motor-Sapiens, Mark Wheatley, Daniel Krall, Robert Tinnell, MJ Butler,
Craig Taillerfer, Matthew Plog, and Jerry Carr, Self-Syndicated
Mutts, Patrick McDonnell, King Features Syndicate

BEST CONTINUING OR LIMITED SERIES

All Star Superman, DC Comics
Captain America, Marvel Comics
Damned, Oni Press
Daredevil, Marvel Comics
Umbrella Academy, Dark Horse Comics
Uncle Scrooge, Gemstone Comics

BEST NEW SERIES

Diary of a Wimpy Kid, Amulet Books
The Order, Marvel Comics
Resurrection, Oni Press
Thor, Marvel Comics
Umbrella Academy, Dark Horse Comics

BEST NEW TALENT

Jeff Kinney, Diary of a Wimpy Kid, Amulet Books
Jeff Lemire, Essex County, Top Shelf
Vasilis Lolos, Last Call, Oni Press
Robbi Rodriguez, Maintenance, Oni Press
Christian Slade, Korgi #1: Sprouting Wings, Top Shelf

BEST ANTHOLOGY

Flight Volume 4, edited by Kazu Kibuishi, Ballantine Books
Mome Volume 8, edited by Gary Groth and Eric Reynolds, Fantagraphics Books
Popgun Volume 1, edited by Joe Keatinge and Mark Andrew Smith, Image Books
Postcards: True Stories That Never Happened, edited by Jason Rodriquez, Villard
Walt Disney’s Comics and Stories, edited by John Clark, Gemstone

Nominations for the Harvey Awards are selected exclusively by creators - those who write, draw, ink, letter, color, design, edit or are otherwise involved in a creative capacity in the comics field. They are the only industry awards both nominated and selected by the full body of comic book professionals. Professionals who participate will be joining nearly 2,000 other comics professionals in honoring the outstanding comics achievements of 2007. Thank you to all that have already participated by submitting a nomination ballot.

Final ballots are due to the Harvey Awards by Friday, August 15, 2008. Full details for submission of completed ballots can be found on the final ballot. Voting is open to anyone involved in a creative capacity within the comics field. Final ballots are available for download at www.harveyawards.org. Those without Internet access may request that paper ballots be sent to them via mail or fax by calling the Baltimore Comic-Con (410-526-7410) or e-mailing baltimorecomicccon@yahoo.com.

This will be the third year for the Harvey Awards in Baltimore, MD. Our Master of Ceremonies will once again be Kyle Baker. Look for more details soon on how you can attend the Harvey Awards dinner.

This year’s Baltimore Comic-Con will be held September 27-28, 2008. Convention hours are Saturday 10 AM to 6 PM and Sunday 10 AM to 5 PM. The ceremony and banquet for the 2008 Harvey Awards will be held Saturday night, September 27.

Congratulations to all the nominees! If you know a nominee, please pass on the good news!

The Shuster Awards, given to the best in Canadian comics, were handed out last night. Details here.

OUTSTANDING CANADIAN COMIC BOOK WRITER
- Cecil Castellucci for The P.L.A.I.N. Janes (DC/Minx)

OUTSTANDING CANADIAN COMIC BOOK ARTIST
- Dale Eaglesham for Justice Society of America #2-4, 6-7, 9-11 (DC Comics)

OUTSTANDING CANADIAN COMIC BOOK CARTOONIST (WRITER/ARTIST)
- Jeff Lemire for Essex County Vol. 1: Tales From The Farm, Essex County Vol. 2: Ghost Stories (Top Shelf)

OUTSTANDING COVER BY A CANADIAN COMIC BOOK ARTIST
- Steve Skroce for Doc Frankenstein #6 (Burleyman)

OUTSTANDING CANADIAN COMIC BOOK COLOURIST
- Dave McCaig for Nextwave, Agents of H.A.T.E. #12, New Avengers #27-35, Fallen Son – The Death of Captain America #1: Wolverine, Marvel Comics Presents #1-4, Wolverine #50, Avengers Classic #7 (Marvel Comics) DC Infinite Halloween Special #1 (DC Comics), The Other Side #4-5 (DC/Vertigo) Stephen Colbert’s Tek Jensen #1 (ONI Press)

OUTSTANDING CANADIAN COMIC BOOK &/OR GRAPHIC NOVEL PUBLISHER
- Drawn & Quarterly

OUTSTANDING CANADIAN WEBCOMICS CREATOR / CREATIVE TEAM
- Ryan Sohmer and Lar De Souza for Least I Can Do and Looking for Group

OUTSTANDING ACHIEVEMENT BY A CANADIAN RELATED TO COMIC BOOKS
David Watkins for using comic books as a teaching tool

CANADIAN COMIC BOOK CREATOR HALL OF FAME
Stan Berneche
John Byrne
Pierre Fournier
Edwin R. “Ted” McCall

FAVOURITE CANADIAN COMIC BOOK CREATOR - ENGLISH LANGUAGE PUBLICATIONS
Faith Erin Hicks - Zombies Calling

FAVOURITE CANADIAN COMIC BOOK CREATOR - FRENCH LANGUAGE PUBLICATIONS
Philippe Girard aka phlppgrrd - Danger Public

FAVOURITE INTERNATIONAL (NON-CANADIAN) COMIC BOOK CREATOR
Ed Brubaker - Captain America, Criminal, Immortal Iron Fist, Uncanny X-Men

HARRY KREMER OUTSTANDING CANADIAN COMIC BOOK RETAILER
Big B Comics - Hamilton, Ontario

Via Jackie Estrada:

Reminder: The deadline for voting in the 2008 Will Eisner Comic Industry Awards is Friday (June 13). Eligible voters can download a pdf ballot at http://www.comic-con.org/cci/cci_eisners_08voting.shtml and mail it in (postmarked by June 13), or they can vote online at www.eisnervote.com up until midnight PST on Friday.

To be eligible to vote, one must be a professional working in the comics industry, whether as a creator (writer, artist, cartoonist, colorist, letterer), a publisher or editor, or a retailer (comics store owner or manager).

Questions can be addressed to jackie@comic-con.org

Chris Ware beat out Dominique Goblet and Naoki Urasawa for this year’s VPRO Grand Prix, an award handed out each year at the Stripdagen Haarlem in the Netherlands. Marcel Ruijters won the VPRO Hoogste Prijs for best Dutch cartoonist, and Randall C won the VPRO Debut Prize.
More info in the PR below:

Chris Ware was nominated, along with Dominique Goblet and Naoki Urasawa, by an independent jury of three national and three international comix experts. A committee of one hundred Dutch language comix experts was invited for the final vote and the majority of them chose Chris Ware as the winner. Thus, Chris Ware is celebrated as a world class comix artist, along with the likes of Manu Larcenet, Lewis Trondheim, Joe Sacco, winners of the VPRO Grand Prix in 2006, 2004 and 2002 respectively. The VPRO Grand Prix entails a prize money of euro 1,000 and is awarded binannually for the occasion of the renowned European comix festival Stripdagen Haarlem in the Dutch city of Haarlem (June 7 and .

Below follow some quotes of the committee of Dutch language comix experts motivating their choice for Chris Ware:

‘With every new book Chris ware proves himself to be one of the main vanguard artists in contemporary visual storytelling.’

‘Within the parameters of his architecturally wrought comix structures, Chris Ware succeeds in analyzing the emotional turmoil of his apparently unmoved charcaters.’

‘On a graphic plane alone, Chris Ware is no less than brilliant. His work as a comix artist, but also as the graphic designer of his own ACME Novelty Library series, various posters and reprints of classic American comix (Krazy Kat, Gasoline Alley): it is all utterly wonderful! Also his sketches in the two ACME Novelty Date Books form further proof of his masterly eye.’

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Here are your 2008 FoL awards winners, as announced last night at MoCCA at a ceremny MC’d by Emily Flake:

Kim Yale Award:
Martina Fugazzotto (senior designer, gURL.com);

Woman of Distinction:
Shelly Bond (group editor, Vertigo; editor, MINX line);

Women Cartoonists Hall of Fame:
Nell Brinkley (early 20th century cartoonist);

Lulu of the Year:
Marjane Satrapi (Persepolis)

Volunteer of the Year
Lee Binswanger

2008 Lulu Awards! Taking place 8:30 - 10:00 p.m. at the Musuem of Comic and Cartoon Art (594 Broadway Suite 401, between Prince and Houston)
More here

Just as American has the Harveys and The Eisners, Canada has the Shusters and the Doug Wright Awards, the latter established in 2005. The Doug Wright award nominees are chosen by a jury of top-notch cartoonists and the winners by another distinguished jury, and the selections definitely represent the literary end of Canadian cartooning. Here’s the list:
The 2008 DWA finalists for Best Book are:

365 Days: A Diary by Julie Doucet (Drawn and Quarterly)
Spent by Joe Matt (Drawn and Quarterly)
The Magical Life of Long Tack Sam by Ann Marie Fleming (Riverhead Books)
Southern Cross by Laurence Hyde (Drawn and Quarterly)

The 2008 DWA finalists for Best Emerging Talent are:
Essex County Vol. 1 Tales From The Farm & Vol. 2 Ghost Stories by Jeff Lemire (Top Shelf)
Pope Hats by Ethan Rilly (self-published)
Kieffer #1 by Jason Kieffer (self-published)
The Experiment by Nick Maandag (self-published)

In addition, the Wright Awards is pleased to announce a new category—the first since its debut—dedicated to works that fall outside the bounds of traditional storytelling. The Pigskin Peters Award (named after a character in the classic Canadian comic strip Birdseye Center) was created to recognize progressive works by Canadian cartoonists that are either more experimental in nature or lack a traditional narrative structure.
The finalists for the first annual Pigskin Peters Award are:
Milk Teeth by Julie Morstad (Drawn and Quarterly)
Little Lessons in Safety by Emily Holton (Conundrum Press)
Excelsior 1968 by John Martz (self-published)
Fire Away by Chris von Szombathy (Drawn and Quarterly)

The finalists for the 4th Annual Doug Wright Awards were chosen by a nominating committee that included cartoonists Chester Brown and Seth, Canadian director Jerry Ciccoritti, comics historian Jeet Heer and writer and Sequential blogger Bryan Munn.

The winners will de decided by a jury including writer and film critic Katrina Onstad, gallery curator Helena Reckitt, writer Mariko Tamaki and cartoonist Ho Che Anderson.

The winners will be handed out in Toronto in August 2008.

PR:

Comic-Con, the nation’s largest comic book and popular arts convention, announces this year’s nominees for the Russ Manning Promising Newcomer Award (or The Manning Award as it is more commonly referred).

The Manning award has been given out annually at the San Diego Comic-Con since 1982. It is presented to a comics artist who, early in his or her career, shows a superior knowledge and ability in the art of creating comics. It is named for Russ Manning, the artist best known for his work on the Tarzan and Star Wars newspaper strips and the Magnus, Robot Fighter comic book. Russ was a popular guest at the San Diego convention in the 1970s. The first recipient of the award was former Manning assistant Dave Stevens, Others to have received the award include Jan Duursema, Steve Rude, Scott McCloud, Art Adams, Eric Shanower, Dan Brereton, Jeff Smith, Gene Ha, Alexander Maleev, Goran Sudzuka, Eric Wight, R. Kikuo Johnson, and David Petersen.

The 2008 nominees are:

Fred Chao, writer/artist of Johnny Hiro (published by AdHouse)

Barry Deutsch, writer/artist of Hereville: How Mirka Got Her Sword (self-published)

Cathy Malkasian, writer/artist of Percy Gloom (published by Fantagraphics)

Mukesh Singh, artist of Shadow Hunter (published by Virgin Comics)

Christian Slade, artist of Corgi (published by Top Shelf)

The nominees were selected by a committee consisting of representatives of the West Coast Comics Club and Comic-Con International: San Diego, and the winner will be chosen by past Manning award winners and Russ Manning assistants. The recipient will be announced during the Eisner Awards ceremony on July 25 at Comic-Con International: San Diego.

More information about the Manning Awards can be found at www.comic-con.org/cci/cci_manning.shtml

As previusly announced Al Jaffee (Above) won THE Reuben, but many other awards were given out over the weekend:
Newspaper Panel: Chad Carpenter
Edtorial cartoons: Bill Schorr
Newspaper Strips Award: Jim Meddick
Advertising Illustration Award: Tom Richmond
Book Illustration Award: Sandra Boynton
Newspaper Illustration Award: Sean Kelly
Animation Feature Award: David Silverman, THE SIMPSONS MOVIE
Television Animation Award: Stephen Silver
NCS division award, Gag Cartoons: Mort Gerberg
Comic Books Award: Shaun Tan
Greeting Cards: Dave Mowder
Magazine Feature/Magazine Illustration: Daryll Collins
Milton Caniff Lifetime Acheivement Award: Sandra Boynton

Stanley Berneche, John Byrne, Pierre Fournier and Edwin R. “Ted” McCall have been annoucned as the 2008 inductees into the Canadian Comic Book Creator Hall of Fame.

Canada’s first national award recognizing outstanding achievements by Canadian creators in the creation and publication of comic books and graphic novels returns in 2008 for it’s fourth year: the JOE SHUSTER CANADIAN COMIC BOOK CREATOR AWARDS, named after pioneering Toronto-born artist Joe Shuster who, along with writer Jerry Siegel, created the iconic super-powered hero, Superman.

In 2008 four more creators will be inducted into the Canadian Comic Book Creator Hall of Fame - they will be honoured at the JSA ceremony on Saturday, June 14th in Toronto, Canada at the Lillian Smith Library Auditorium (239 College St., E. of Spadina Ave., Toronto). The ceremony will be co-hosted by our returning master-of- ceremonies dynamic duo, Rick Green (the Frantics; the Red Green Show & History Bites) and Rob Salem (Toronto Star & Drive-In TV) and, as always, it will be an evening to remember.

The Joe Shuster Award presentations will kick off in the evening at 8PM and will be preceded by a day long Sequential Art Symposium which, along with the awards, are free to the public. The Symposium will run from 10AM to 5PM and include participants such as Darwyn Cooke, Tom Grummett, and author John Bell (Invaders from the North). The Symposium will be accompanied by an exhibit of artwork by Canadian comic book artists to salute the historic 70th anniversary of the publication of Joe Shuster’s renowned co-creation, Superman, in June 1938’s Action Comics # 1. The exhibit, entitled Visions of an Icon, will include original images of the Man of Steel by Canadian artists, including Darwyn Cooke, Dave Sim, Todd McFarlane and a vast array of additional creators.

More:

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The 2008 Friends of Lulu Award Nominations have just been announced. (Above image by Hope Larson.)

Kim Yale Award:
MARTINA FUGAZZOTTO (senior designer, gURL.com)
KIKI JONES (gURL Comix artist)
JULIA WERTZ (The Fart Party)

Woman of Distinction:
SHELLY BOND (group editor, Vertigo; editor, MINX line);
CINDY FOURNIER (VP Operations, Diamond Comic Distributors);
JANNA MORISHIMA (director, Diamond Kids Group)

Women Cartoonists Hall of Fame:
NELL BRINKLEY (early 20th century cartoonist);
MARTY LINKS (Bobby Sox/Emmy Lou);
TARPE MILLS (Miss Fury);
LOUISE SIMONSON (X-Factor; Superman: The Man of Steel)

Lulu of the Year:
AUDRA FURUICHI (Nemu-Nemu);
gURL Comix (www.gURL.com);
STEPHANIE MCMILLAN (Minimum Security);
RUTU MODAN (Exit Wounds);
MARJANE SATRAPI (Persepolis)

PR follows:

It’s time for a true FoL first. Every year, Friends of Lulu, the national, non-profit organization, which has brought more women and girls into comic books for close to 15 years, recognizes several women who have made notable contributions in the ever-expanding comics industry. As yet another extremely successful year for women in comics continues, FoL is proud to keep the momentum going by bringing the Lulu Awards, usually presented in a West Coast event, to New York City for the first time. The 2008 Friends of Lulu award nominees have been selected by the comic-reading public, and the voting period for the award winners has begun.

This year’s well-deserved trophies will be presented at the exciting Lulu Awards event on Saturday, June 7, 2008 at the Museum of Comic and Cartoon Art (MoCCA) in Manhattan, at 594 Broadway, Suite 401 (between Houston and Prince Streets). This event starts at 8:30 p.m. and takes place during the annual, highly popular MoCCA Art Festival (the weekend of June 7 and 8; for more information, please go to www.moccany.org). Refreshments will be served, and the night’s M.C. will be the lively illustrator Emily Flake. The suggested donation for admission to this sure-to-be-enjoyable event is $8, and admission is free for Friends of Lulu and MoCCA members. FoL kindly requests that attendees RSVP by purchasing tickets for the event beforehand, at our site, www.friends-lulu.org. A number of tickets will also be available at the door.

Those people interested in voting for their favorite nominees simply need to visit the Friends of Lulu Website at www.friends-lulu.org/awardsVote.php by Tuesday, May 27; the voting period closes at the end of that day. Only current Friends of Lulu members can vote, and information about how to join the organization is at the main site, www.friends-lulu.org.

Alan Gardner reports that Mad’s Al Jaffee gas this year’s Reuben Award for the Outstanding Cartoonist of the year. Congrats!

The winners of the 2008 Glyph Comics Awards were announced in a ceremony at the East Coast Black Age of Comics Convention on Friday, May 16. Aya, Sentences and Satchel Paige: Striking Out Jim Crow were multiple winners. The list:

Story of the Year
Sentences: The Life of MF Grimm; Percy Carey, writer, Ronald Wimberly, artist

Best Writer
James Sturm, Satchel Paige: Striking Out Jim Crow

Best Artist
Kyle Baker, Nat Turner: Revolution

Best Male Character
Emmet Wilson, Satchel Paige: Striking Out Jim Crow; co-created by James Sturm, writer, and Rich Tommaso, artist

Best Female Character
Amanda Waller, Checkmate; Greg Rucka, writer, Joe Bennett & Jack Jadson, artists

Rising Star Award
Marguerite Abouet, Aya

Best Reprint Publication
Aya, Drawn & Quarterly; Chris Oliveros, publisher, Helge Dascher, translator

Best Cover
Sentences: The Life of MF Grimm; Ronald Wimberly, illustrator

Best Comic Strip
The K Chronicles; Keith Knight, story and art

Fan Award for Best Comic
Fantastic Four: The New Fantastic Four; Dwayne McDuffie, writer, Paul Pelletier & Rick Magyar, artists
According to pr:

Sentences is the first DC comic to win Story of the Year out of four nominations, including Welcome to Tranquility (2008), The American Way (2007), and Seven Soldiers: Guardian (2006). This is the third consecutive year that the Story of the Year winner also won Best Cover. Baker and Knight have won for the third year in a row in their respective categories. Baker’s win is his fifth overall, the most by any individual. Baker has eleven total nominations, also the most by any individual. A Marvel comic has won the Fan Award three straight times. The previous wins were for Storm (2007) and Black Panther: Who is the Black Panther? (2006).

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The Eagle Awards winners have been posted. We’re told a 17-year-old girl has been put in charge of the awards for next year; which will surely lead to a more timely posting of the winners, if only on her LJ:

Favorite Newcomer Writer
MATT FRACTION

Favourite Newcomer Artist
DAVID AJA

Favourite Comics Writer
ALAN MOORE

Favourite Comics Writer/Artist
ALAN DAVIS

Favourite Comics Artist: Pencils
FRANK CHO

Favourite Comics Artist: Inks
D’ISRAELI (MATT BROOKER)

Favourite Artist: Fully-Painted Artwork
ALEX ROSS

Favourite Colourist
LAURA MARTIN

Favourite Letterer
DAVE GIBBONS

Favourite Editor
THARG (MATT SMITH)

Favourite Publisher
MARVEL

Favourite Colour Comicbook - American
HELLBOY: DARKNESS CALLS

Favourite Colour Comicbook - British
SPECTACULAR SPIDER-MAN

Favourite Black and White Comicbook - American
THE WALKING DEAD

Favourite Black and White Comicbook - British
HOW TO DATE A GIRL IN 10 DAYS

Favourite New Comicbook
THOR

Favourite Manga
DEATH NOTE

Favourite European Comics
REQUIEM, VAMPIRE KNIGHT

Favourite Comics Story published during 2007
CAPTAIN AMERICA 25-30: THE DEATH OF CAPTAIN AMERICA

Favourite Comics Cover published during 2007
WORLD WAR HULK 1A (DAVID FINCH)

Favourite Original Graphic Novel
THE LEAGUE OF EXTRAORDINARY GENTLEMAN: BLACK DOSSIER

Favourite Reprint Compilation
ABSOLUTE SANDMAN VOLUME 2

Favourite Comics Hero
BATMAN

Favourite Comics Villain
JOKER

Favourite Magazine About Comics
WIZARD

Favourite Comics-Related Book
OUR GODS WEAR SPANDEX: The Secret History of Comic Book Heroes (Chris Knowles)

Favourite Comics-Based Movie Or TV
300

Favourite Comics Related Website
MARVEL.COM

Favourite Web-Based Comic
THE ORDER OF THE STICK

Roll of Honour
MIKE MIGNOLA

While the Eagle award winners still haven’t been put online, more informal awards called the 2008 Golden Champagne Glass Awardshave been announced. They were presented at some kind of drunken bar fest during the Bristol con in the UK, and apparently we really did win one for Best Journalist (US). Organizer Tony Lee assures us that we really did win by a plurality of votes, so we can only say…thanks! It’s an honor just to be nominated, but winning is nice too.

Above you can see the award presentation by Tony and some other jolly fellows, and there seems to have been a lot of drinking involved, so you can see this is clearly the kind of award we deserve to win.

As mentioned here before, nominations for the 2008 Lulu Awards are open. Anyone can nominate. These are the categories:

The Women Cartoonists Hall of Fame nominees must have published work, whether self-published, company-published, or Web-published. An individual cannot win more than once.

Women of Distinction nominees must have worked in the comic industry in a non-creator role, such as editing, publishing, reporting, or retail.

The Lulu of the Year Award honors the creator(s), book or other project whose work best exemplifies Friends of Lulu’s mission.

The Kim Yale Award nominees must have published work, whether self-published, company-published, or Web-published. Nominees must be nominated for this category within three years of their first published work. An individual may not be nominated more than twice, and cannot win more than once. The award is named for comics writer Kim Yale, a founding Lulu member who passed away in 1997.

Come on peeps, let’s get the best people for the job recognized for their efforts. Suggest possible nominees in the comments.

For Hall of Fame, previous winners include:
Rumiko Takahashi, Lynda Barry, Wendy Pini, Marge Henderson Buell, Marie Severin, Dale Messick, Ramona Fradon, Trina Robbins and Hilda Terry.
Who is left to nominate? LOTS OF PEOPLE!
Moto Hagio
Kanako Inuki
Machiko Hasegawa
Rose O’Neill
Nell Brinkley
Tarpe Mills
Lilly Renée
Dori Seda
Aline Kominsky Crumb
..okay that’s just for a start.

The Kim Yale award is a bit harder to parse because tehre are SO many young women coming up and blowing the doors off. I haven’t even made up my mind, but a couple of examples:

Julia Wertz
Sarah Oleksyk
Laura Park

Lulu of the Year?
Hard not to start with Rutu Modan and Marjane Satrapi.

More ideas?

§ 12th Tezuka Osamu Cultural Prize Winners have been revealed:

Masayuki Ishikawa won the 2-million-yen (about US$20,000) Manga Grand Prize for his Moyashimon medical comedy manga. The manga follows a college student who discovers that he can see and communicate with the germs all around him — germs that appear as super-deformed characters. This was the third year in a row that Moyashimon has been nominated. Fumi Yoshinaga’s Ohoku was also nominated for three years running, but has yet to receive the award. The second-place finisher this year was Umimachi Diary 1: Semishigure no Yamugoro.

Meanwhile, the Eagle awards were presented Saturday night in Bristol, and everyone is still too hungover to even list the winners. That’s right, not one single person has seen fit to send out a press release! And we’re not the only ones t notice!

SF Awards Watch:

Has anyone seen a bunch of Eagle Awards flitting around the place looking for somewhere to land?

Richard Bruton:

This Internet thingy isn’t that good really is it?

The Eagle Awards were given out last night yet nowhere on the Interwebby thing can I find the results. Someone must know!

Of course it doesn’t help that the awards are technically the 2007 Eagle Awards. Given to work from 2007. But presented in 2008. Time to re-date the damn things I think.

Forbidden Planet:

Mike Conroy has been in touch to say that the full official list of winners for the Eagle Awards, announced at the Bristol comics bash at the weekend, should be going up shortly (in fact, hopefully tomorrow). There’s been a bit of a re-organisation behind the scenes of the awards, with Mike not being able to dedicate as much time to it as before due to his own work and the fact that both the Eagles and the Bristol Expo seem to grow bigger each year, although he said that the exhibitors he spoke to seemed to think they still hadn’t lost the fannish roots.

Come on, people, surely everyone is sober now!

UPDATE: Tony Lee captures the spirit of Bristol:

The bottles of gin have been tidied away and the boxes of pizza are being folded into rubbish bin sized portions. Having been bought at around 2am on the Friday night, this pizza has been the sustenance for all our needs and has pretty much kept us alive since day one. The three day pizza is now looking bad, but not to Dan, who munches slowly while crying weakly to himself.

The Friends of Lulu Blog reports that nominations for the 2008 Friends of Lulu Awards are open and ANYONE can nominate:

Lulu Awards: Nominations are open!

You don’t have to be a member to nominate!
You don’t have to be female to nominate!
Heck, you don’t even have to like us to nominate!
But you do need to know of a female comic creator that you want
to see recognized for her hard work in this industry.

You’ll find the form here. Go and ANyone got suggestions for the various categories? I would nominate Rutu Modan and Marjane Satrapi for Lulu of the Year, for instance.

Cartoonist and art teacher Phoebe Gloeckner has won a Guggenheim Fwllowship. The Fllowships are prosented to advanced professionals in a variety of creative and scientific fields to enable them to work on projects with creative freedom. Gloeckner will use hers to work on a graphic novel..

Gloeckner will use her fellowship to create a graphic narrative about a Mexican girl murdered at the turn of this century in Ciudad Juarez, a major U.S.-Mexico border crossing adjacent to El Paso, Texas. The project represents a radical change in her work, she says. Rather than draw images, Gloeckner developed a three-dimensional technique, teaching herself to use tools and to construct nearly everything she would normally draw.

“The fellowship will allow me to immerse myself in the final stages of this process, which will require several more trips to Juarez and long periods of focused work,” she says. “I’m so very happy and grateful to have received a Guggenheim Fellowship, and acknowledge that it wouldn’t have been possible without the support of family, friends and colleagues.”

Congrats, Phoebe!

They’re out! Labelled “the most diverse yet” we’re just looking at the list andthey are definiely very indie friendly while not entirely ignoring the superheroes here and there with nominations for everything from Urasawa to Comic Foundry.
Here’s awards administrator Jackie Estrada’s press release:

The nomination list for the 2008 Will Eisner Comic Industry Awards represents the most diverse slate of titles and creators in the 20-year history of the awards (considered the “Oscars” of the comic book industry). The nominees range from literary Japanese graphic novels to comics based on popular TV series, from massive hardcover collections of classic comic strips and comic books to cutting-edge anthologies, from goofy humor titles to works about the Soviet space program, a Chinese vaudeville magician, and the Negro Leagues. In fact, the nominations are so varied that it is difficult to summarize any trends.

No one publisher or creator dominates this year’s nominations, which were chosen by a blue-ribbon panel of judges. DC Comics, which has traditionally been at the top of the list, has 11 nods (+ 6 shared) for such titles as Brian K. Vaughan’s Y the Last Man (Continuing Series, Penciller/Inker, Writer) and Darwyn Cooke’s The Spirit (Continuing Series, Coloring, Lettering). Dark Horse has 12 nominations (+ 4), spearheaded by Joss Whedon’s Buffy the Vampire Slayer Season 8 (Continuing Series, New Series, Writer, Coloring) and Umbrella Academy (Limited Series, Cover Artist, Coloring). Also right up there is Marvel Comics, with 11 nominations (+ 2), with Stephen King’s Dark Tower: The Gunslinger Born garnering 4 of those (Limited Series, Penciller/Inker, Cover Artist, Coloring). Close behind is alt-comics publisher Fantagraphics, with 11 nominations, including 4 for the quarterly anthology Mome (two in Short Story, Anthology, Lettering) and 2 for the retro Fletcher Hanks collection I Shall Destroy All the Civilized Planets!

Image Comics has 8 nominations (+ 1) for a wide variety of titles, while AdHouse Books has 6 (+ 1), including 4 for newcomer Fred Chao’s Johnny Hiro (Single Issue, New Series, Humor Publication, Writer/Artist-Humor). Oni Press clocks in with 5 (+ 1) nominations, while Drawn & Quarterly has 5 (including 2 for Rutu Modan’s critically acclaimed Exit Wounds). Companies with 4 nominations each are Renaissance Press (all for Jimmy Gownley’s Amelia Rules!) , Sunday Press, Viz, and Scholastic (3 for Shaun Tan’s wordless graphic novel The Arrival). Companies with 3 nominations each are Archaia, First Second, Hyperion, and Top Shelf.

Five creators have 4 nominations each: writer/artists Fred Chao and Jimmy Gownley, and writers James Sturm (3 of them for Satchel Paige: Striking Out Jim Crow), Brian K. Vaughan (for both Buffy and Y the Last Man), and Joss Whedon (for Buffy, Astonishing X-Men, and the online Sugarshock!). Only three other creators have more than 2 nominations: artist Jae Lee (Dark Tower: The Gunslinger Born), writer/artist Shaun Tan (The Arrival), and writer/artist/editor Chris Ware (Acme Novelty Library #18; Best American Comics 2007).

The judges added one new category this year, splitting the previous Best Title for a Younger Audience category into two: Best Publication for Kids and Best Publication for Teens, to reflect all the great material that is being produced for these audiences. All in all, this year’s nominations are the most ever: 148 nominations in 29 categories (not including Hall of Fame).

Japanese comics and creators are particularly well represented on the ballot. In addition to 6 titles (instead of 5) being nominated in the Best U.S. Edition of Foreign Material–Japan category, they can be found in the Short Story (2 nominees), Continuing Series (Naoki Urasawa’s Monster), Publication for Kids, Archival Collection–Comic Books, Writer/Artist, and Penciller/Inker categories.

The 2008 Eisner Awards judging panel consists of John Davis (director of pop culture markets, Bookazine), Paul DiFilippo (SF and comics author), Atom! Freeman (owner of Brave New World Comics in Santa Clarita, CA), Jeff Jensen (senior writer, Entertainment Weekly), and Eva Volin (supervising children’s librarian for the Alameda Free Library in Alameda, CA).

Ballots will be going out in late 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. Voting is already under way at www.eisnervote.com for one category, Hall of Fame, for which the judges chose the nominees in March. The deadline for voting in this category is April 18. The results in all categories will be announced in a gala awards ceremony on the evening of Friday, July 25 at Comic-Con International.

The Eisner Awards are presented under the auspices of Comic-Con International, San Diego, a nonprofit educational organization dedicated to creating awareness of and appreciation for comics and related popular art forms. primarily through the presentation of conventions and events that celebrate the historic and ongoing contributions of comics to art and culture. Jackie Estrada has been administrator of the Awards since 1990. She can be reached at jackiee@mindspring.com.

More information about the Eisner Awards can be found at http://www.comic-con.org/cci/cci_eisners_main.shtml.

2008 Will Eisner Comic Industry Award Nominees

Best Short Story
“Book,” by Yuichi Yokoyama, in New Engineering (PictureBox)
“At Loose Ends,” by Lewis Trondheim, in Mome #8 (Fantagraphics)
“Mr. Wonderful,” by Dan Clowes, in New York Times Sunday Magazine (accessible online at www.nytimes.com/2008/02/16/magazine/funnypagesClowes.html)
“Town of Evening Calm,” by Fumiyo Kouno, in Town of Evening Calm, Country of Cherry Blossoms (Last Gasp)
“Whatever Happened to Fletcher Hanks?” by Paul Karasik, in I Shall Destroy All the Civilized Planets! (Fantagraphics)
“Young Americans,” by Emile Bravo, in Mome #8 (Fantagraphics)

Best Single Issue (or One-Shot)
Amelia Rules! #18: “Things I Cannot Change,” by Jimmy Gownley (Renaissance)
Delilah Dirk and the Treasure of Constantinople, by Tony Cliff (self-published)
Johnny Hiro #1, by Fred Chao (AdHouse)
Justice League of America #11: “Walls,” by Brad Meltzer and Gene Ha (DC)
Sensational Spider-Man Annual: “To Have or to Hold,” by Matt Fraction and Salvador Larroca (Marvel)

Best Continuing Series
The Boys, by Garth Ennis and Darick Robertson (Dynamite)
Buffy the Vampire Slayer, Season 8, by Joss Whedon, Brian K. Vaughan, Georges Jeanty, and Andy Owens (Dark Horse)
Naoki Urasawa’s Monster, by Naoki Urasawa (Viz)
The Spirit, by Darwyn Cooke (DC)
Y: The Last Man, by Brian K. Vaughan, Pia Guerra, and Jose Marzan, Jr. (Vertigo/DC)

Best Limited Series
Atomic Robo, by Brian Clevinger and Scott Wegender (Red 5 Comics)
Dark Tower: The Gunslinger Born, by Peter David, Robin Furth, and Jae Lee (Marvel)
Nightly News, by Jonathan Hickman (Image)
Parade (with Fireworks), by Michael Cavallaro (Shadowline/Image)
The Umbrella Academy, by Gerard Way and Gabriel Bá (Dark Horse)

Best New Series
Buffy the Vampire Slayer, Season 8, by Joss Whedon, Brian K. Vaughan, Georges Jeanty, and Andy Owens (Dark Horse)
Immortal Iron Fist, by Ed Brubaker, Matt Fraction, David Aja, and others (Marvel)
Johnny Hiro, by Fred Chao (AdHouse)
The Infinite Horizon, by Gerry Duggan and Phil Noto (Image)
Scalped, by Jason Aaron and R. M. Guéra (Vertigo/DC)

Best Publication for Kids
Amelia Rules! and Amelia Rules! Funny Stories, by Jimmy Gownley (Renaissance)
Star Wars: Clone Wars Adventures, edited by Jeremy Barlow (Dark Horse)
Mouse Guard: Fall 1152 and Mouse Guard: Winter 1152, by David Petersen (Archaia)
The Wall: Growing Up Behind the Iron Curtain, by Peter Sis (Frank Foster Books/Farrar, Straus & Giroux)
Yotsuba&!, by Kiyohiko Azuma (ADV)

Best Publication for Teens
Laika, by Nick Abadzis (First Second)
The Mighty Skullboy Army, by Jacob Chabot (Dark Horse)
The Annotated Northwest Passage, by Scott Chantler (Oni)
PX! Book One: A Girl and Her Panda, by Manny Trembley and Eric A. Anderson (Shadowline/Image)
Satchel Paige: Striking Out Jim Crow, by James Sturm and Rich Tommaso (Center for Cartoon Studies/Hyperion)

Best Humor Publication
Dwight T. Albatross’s The Goon Noir, edited by Matt Dryer (Dark Horse)
Johnny Hiro, by Fred Chao (AdHouse)
Lucha Libre, by Jerry Frissen, Bill, Gobi, Fabien M., Nikola Witko, Hervé Tanquelle et al. (Image)
Perry Bible Fellowship: The Trial of Colonel Sweeto and Other Stories, by Nicholas Gurewitch (Dark Horse)
Wonton Soup, by James Stokoe (Oni)

Best Anthology
Best American Comics 2007, edited by Anne Elizabeth Moore and Chris Ware (Houghton Mifflin)
5, by Gabriel Bá, Becky Cloonan, Fabio Moon, Vasilis Lolos, and Rafael Grampa (self-published)
Mome, edited by Gary Groth and Eric Reynolds (Fantagraphics)
Postcards: True Stories That Never Happened, edited by Jason Rodriguez (Villard)
24Seven, vol. 2, edited by Ivan Brandon (Image)

Best Digital Comic
The Abominable Charles Christopher, by Karl Kerschl, www.abominable.transmission-x.com
Billy Dogma, Immortal, by Dean Haspiel, www.deanhaspiel.com/immortal.html
The Process, by Joe Infurnari, www.theprocesscomic.com
PX! By Manny Trembley and Eric A. Anderson, www.pandaxpress.com
Sugarshock!, by Joss Whedon and Fabio Moon, http://www.myspace.com/darkhorsepresents?issuenum=1&storynum=2

Best Reality-Based Work
Laika, by Nick Abadzis (First Second)
The Magical Life of Long Tack Sam, by Ann Marie Fleming (Riverhead Books/Penguin Group)
Satchel Paige: Striking Out Jim Crow, by James Sturm and Rich Tommaso (Center for Cartoon Studies/Hyperion)
Sentences: The Life of MF Grimm, by Percy Carey and Ronald Wimberly (Vertigo/DC)
White Rapids, by Pascal Blanchet (Drawn & Quarterly)

Best Graphic Album—New
The Arrival, by Shaun Tan (Arthur A. Levine/Scholastic)
Bookhunter, by Jason Shiga (Sparkplug Books)
Essex County, vols. 1-2: Tales from the Farm/Ghost Stories, by Jeff Lemire (Top Shelf)
Exit Wounds, by Rutu Modan (Drawn & Quarterly)
Percy Gloom, by Cathy Malkasian (Fantagraphics)

Best Graphic Album—Reprint
Agents of Atlas Hardcover, by Jeff Parker, Leonard Kirk, and Kris Justice (Marvel)
Gødland Celestial Edition, by Joe Casey and Tom Scioli (Image)
James Sturm’s America: God, Gold, and Golems, by James Sturm (Drawn & Quarterly)
Mouse Guard: Fall 1152, by David Petersen (Archaia)
Super Spy, by Matt Kindt (Top Shelf)

Best Archival Collection/Project—Comic Strips
(The Complete) Dream of the Rarebit Fiend, by Winsor McCay (Ulrich Merkl)
Complete Terry and the Pirates, vol. 1, by Milton Caniff (IDW)
Little Sammy Sneeze, by Winsor McCay (Sunday Press)
Popeye, vol. 2: Well Blow Me Down, by E. C. Segar (Fantagraphics)
Sundays with Walt and Skeezix, by Frank King (Sunday Press)

Best Archival Collection/Project—Comic Books
Amazing Spider-Man Omnibus, vol. 1, by Stan Lee and Steve Ditko (Marvel)
Apollo’s Song, by Osamu Tezuka (Vertical)
The Completely MAD Don Martin, by Don Martin (Running Press)
Daredevil Omnibus, by Frank Miller and Klaus Janson (Marvel)
I Shall Destroy All the Civilized Planets! by Fletcher Hanks (Fantagraphics)

Best U.S. Edition of International Material
The Arrival, by Shaun Tan (Arthur A. Levine/Scholastic)
Aya, by Marguerite Abouet and Clement Obrerie (Drawn & Quarterly)
Garage Band, by Gipi (First Second)
I Killed Adolf Hitler, by Jason (Fantagraphics)
The Killer, by Matz and Luc Jacamon (Archaia)

Best U.S. Edition of International Material—Japan
The Ice Wanderer and Other Stories, by Jiro Taniguchi (Fanfare/Ponent Mon)
MW, by Osamu Tezuka (Vertical)
Naoki Urasawa’s Monster, by Naoki Urasawa (Viz)
New Engineering by Yuichi Yokoyama (PictureBox)
Tekkonkinkreet: Black & White, by Taiyo Matsumoto (Viz)
Town of Evening Calm, Country of Cherry Blossoms, by Fumiyo Kouno (Last Gasp)

Best Writer
Ed Brubaker, Captain America, Criminal, Daredevil, Immortal Iron Fist (Marvel)
James Sturm, Satchel Paige: Striking Out Jim Crow (Center for Cartoon Studies/Hyperion)
Brian K. Vaughan, Buffy the Vampire Slayer (Dark Horse); Ex Machina (WildStorm/DC), Y: The Last Man (Vertigo/DC),
Joss Whedon, Astonishing X-Men (Marvel); Buffy the Vampire Slayer (Dark Horse)
Brian Wood, DMZ, Northlanders (Vertigo/DC); Local (Oni)

Best Writer/Artist
Jeff Lemire, Essex County: Tales from the Farm/Ghost Stories (Top Shelf)
Rutu Modan, Exit Wounds (Drawn & Quarterly)
Shaun Tan, The Arrival (Arthur A. Levine/Scholastic)
Chris Ware, Acme Novelty Library #18 (Acme Novelty)
Fumi Yoshinaga, Flower of Life; The Moon and Sandals (Digital Manga)

Best Writer/Artist—Humor
Kyle Baker, The Bakers: Babies and Kittens (Image)
Fred Chao, Johnny Hiro (AdHouse)
Brandon Graham, King City (Tokyopop); Multiple Warheads (Oni)
Eric Powell, The Goon (Dark Horse)
James Stokoe, Wonton Soup (Oni)

Best Penciller/Inker or Penciller/Inker Team
Steve Epting/Butch Guice/Mike Perkins, Captain America (Marvel)
Pia Guerra/Jose Marzan, Jr., Y: The Last Man (Vertical/DC)
Jae Lee, Dark Tower: The Gunslinger Born (Marvel)
Takeshi Obata, Death Note, Hikaru No Go (Viz)
Ethan Van Sciver, Green Lantern: Sinestro Corps (DC)

Best Painter or Multimedia Artist (interior art)
Ann-Marie Fleming, The Magical Life of Long Tack Sam (Riverhead Books/Penguin Group)
Eric Powell, The Goon: Chinatown (Dark Horse)
Bryan Talbot, Alice in Sunderland (Dark Horse)
Ben Templesmith, Fell (Image); 30 Days of Night: Red Snow; Wormwood: Gentleman Corpse (IDW)

Best Cover Artist
John Cassaday, Astonishing X-Men (Marvel); Lone Ranger (Dynamite)
James Jean, Fables (Vertigo/DC); The Umbrella Academy (Dark Horse); Process Recess 2; Superior Showcase 2 (AdHouse)
J. G. Jones, 52 (DC)
Jae Lee, Dark Tower: The Gunslinger Born (Marvel)
Jim Lee, All Star Batman and Robin the Boy Wonder (DC); World of Warcraft (WildStorm/DC)

Best Coloring
Jimmy Gownley, Amelia Rules! (Renaissance)
Steve Hamaker, Bone, vols. 5 and 6 (Scholastic); Shazam: Monster Society of Evil (DC)
Richard Isanove, Dark Tower: The Gunslinger Born (Marvel)
Ronda Pattison, Atomic Robo (Red 5 Comics)
Dave Stewart, BPRD, Buffy the Vampire Slayer, Cut, Hellboy, Lobster Johnson, The Umbrella Academy (Dark Horse); The Spirit (DC)
Alex Wald, Shaolin Cowboy (Burlyman)

Best Lettering
Jared K. Fletcher, Catwoman, The Spirit (DC); Sentences: Life of MF Grimm (Vertigo/DC)
Jimmy Gownley, Amelia Rules! (Renaissance)
Todd Klein, Justice, Simon Dark (DC); Fables, Jack of Fables, Crossing Midnight (Vertigo/DC); League of Extraordinary Gentlemen: The Black Dossier (WildStorm/DC); Nexus (Rude Dude)
Lewis Trondheim, “At Loose Ends,” Mome 7 & 8 (Fantagraphics)
Chris Ware, Acme Novelty Library #18 (Acme Novelty)

Special Recognition
Chuck BB, Black Metal (artist, Oni)
Matt Silady, The Homeless Channel (writer/artist, AiT/PlanetLar)
Jamie Tanner, The Aviary (writer/artist, AdHouse)
James Vining, First in Space (writer/artist, Oni)

Best Comics-Related Periodical/Journalism
Comic Art #9, edited by Todd Hignite (Buenaventura Press)
Comic Foundry, edited by Tim Leong (Comic Foundry)
The Comics Journal, edited by Gary Groth, Michael Dean, and Kristy Valenti (Fantagraphics)
The Comics Reporter, produced by Tom Spurgeon and Jordan Raphael (www.comicsreporter.com)
Newsarama, produced by Matt Brady and Michael Doran (www.newsarama.com)

Best Comics-Related Book
The Art of P. Craig Russell, edited by Joe Pruett (Desperado)
The Artist Within, by Greg Preston (Dark Horse)
Manga: The Complete Guide, by Jason Thompson (Del Rey Manga)
Meanwhile . . . A Biography of Milton Caniff, by R. C. Harvey (Fantagraphics)
Reading Comics: How Graphic Novels Work and What They Mean, by Douglas Wolk (Da Capo Press)
Understanding Manga and Anime, by Robin Brenner (Libraries Unlimited/Greenwood Publishing)

Best Publication Design
(The Complete) Dream of the Rarebit Fiend, designed by Ulrich Merkl (Ulrich Merkl)
Complete Terry and the Pirates, designed by Dean Mullaney (IDW)
Heroes, vol. 1, designed by John Roshell/Comicraft (WildStorm/DC)
Little Sammy Sneeze, designed by Philippe Ghielmetti (Sunday Press)
Process Recess 2, designed by James Jean and Chris Pitzer (AdHouse)
Sundays with Walt and Skeezix, designed by Chris Ware (Sunday Press)

Hall of Fame
Judges’ Choices: R. F. Outcault, Major Malcolm Wheeler-Nicholson

Nominees (4 will be selected by voters):
Matt Baker
John Broome
Reed Crandall
Rudolph Dirks
Arnold Drake
George Evans
Creig Flessel
Graham Ingels
Mort Meskin
Tarpe Mills
Gilbert Shelton
George Tuska
Mort Weisinger
Len Wein
Barry Windsor-Smith

The nominees for the 2008 Joe Shuster Awards have just been announced.

Nominees were selected by a two round voting process. Now that the list of nominees has been finalized, the nominated creators will have their work reviewed by a jury, who will ultimately decide which of the nominated creators will receive a Joe Shuster Award. In previous years winners were selected by a public vote.

Between now and the end of May, fans can vote for the following categories online at www.joeshusterawards.com:
- FAVOURITE CANADIAN COMIC BOOK CREATOR – ENGLISH LANGUAGE
- FAVOURITE CANADIAN COMIC BOOK CREATOR - FRENCH LANGUAGE
- FAVOURITE INTERNATIONAL (NON-CANADIAN) COMIC BOOK CREATOR

Winners will be announced at a public ceremony on June 14th in Toronto. The awards will be the final event at the Sequential Art Symposium to be held in the auditorium of the Toronto Public Library’s Lillian Smith branch on College Street on Saturday, June 14. The Symposium will feature talks related to comics and the 70th anniversary of the Superman character created by Jerry Siegel and Joe Shuster, as well as a Superman-themed art exhibit entitled “Visions of an Icon” featuring work by Canadian comic book artists. Guests for the symposium include Darwyn Cooke, Tom Grummett, J. Torres, Ty Templeton and more creators to be announced. All nominees are invited to attend and participate.

And the honorees are:
OUTSTANDING CANADIAN COMIC BOOK WRITER
- Ian Boothby for Bart Simpson’s Treehouse of Horror #13, Futurama #29, 31-33, Simpsons Comics #126, 128, 130, 134, 136 (Bongo)
- Cecil Castellucci for The P.L.A.I.N. Janes (DC/Minx)
- Maryse Dubuc for Les Nombrils 2: Sale Temps pour les Moches (Editions Dupuis)
- Jim Munroe for Therefore Repent (No Media Kings) Comics Festival! 2007 (Legion of Evil Press)
- phlppgrrd aka Philippe Girard for Danger public (La pastèque)
- Ty Templeton for Howard the Duck #1-3, Marvel Adventures The Avengers #17-19, She-Hulk #20-21 (Marvel Comics)
- J. Torres for The Black Canary Wedding Planner #1, Blue Beetle #15, Wonder Girl #1-4, Wonder Woman #11-13 (DC Comics), Legion of Super-Heroes in the 31st Century #1,2,5,6, Teen Titans GO! #39-50, The Batman Strikes #29, 34 (DC/Johnny DC), Ninja Scroll 5-7, 10, 12 (DC/Wildstorm), Degrassi TNG: Extra Credit Vols. 3-4 (H.P, Fenn Publishing Co.)
- Howard Wong for After the Cape #1-3, After the Cape II #1-2 (Image Comics)

OUTSTANDING CANADIAN COMIC BOOK ARTIST
- Dale Eaglesham for Justice Society of America #2-4, 6-7, 9-11 (DC Comics)
- David Finch for Moon Knight #7-8, Fallen Son: The Death of Captain America #4: Spider-Man, Legion of Monsters: Morbius #1 (Marvel Comics)
- Tom Grummett for Exiles #100, Thunderbolts Presents Zemo: Born Better #1-4, Mystic Arcana: Black Knight #1 (Marvel Comics)
- Pia Guerra for Y the Last Man #55-59 (DC/Vertigo), Bart Simpson’s Treehouse of Horror #13 (Bongo)
- Stuart Immonen for Ultimate Spider-Man #111-117, Marvel Comics Presents #1-4, Nextwave: Agents of H.A.T.E. #12 (Marvel Comics)
- Karl Kerschl for All-Flash #1, 52 #47 (DC Comics)
- Thierry Labrosse for Moréa 5: La Brûlure des Ténèbres (Soleil Production)
- Jacques Lamontagne for Les Druides 3: La Lance de Lug, Les Contes de l’Ankou 3: Au Royaume des Morts (Soleil Production)

(more…)

With the San Diego con news cycle increasingly taken over by mega movie marketing events it was perhaps inevitable that a few events would migrate to other venues — one such is now the Annual Friends of Lulu Awards, which are moving to MoCCA, as the following PR shows. Should be a fun party!

Nominations for the four award categories are open to all, not just members, and will be taken at the NYCC next week.

Friends of Lulu is moving the organization’s Lulu Awards event from the San Diego Comic-Con to the popular MoCCA Art Festival (aka Artfest) this year!

The annual Lulu Awards, which recognize the efforts women make in comics, will be held at the Museum of Comic and Cartoon Art in Manhattan on Saturday, June 7 at 8:30 p.m.. Light refreshments will be served, and there will be a suggested donation of $7.00 at the door.

The Museum of Comic and Cartoon Art, along with IDW, DC Comics and Archie Comics, is sponsoring this major event.

“We are excited to bring an award event to MoCCA Artfest, and just as excited not to be competing with the multitude of great events at San Diego Comic-Con this July. We are able to reach a larger group of people eager to see wonderful creators recognized for their hard work in this field,” Treasurer Marion Vitus notes.

On the schedule to present awards are the previous years’ award winners, including Rachel Nabors and Abby Denson, and on the roster to emcee the event is Lulu Eightball creator Emily Flake.

The new Lulu Awards date, in June instead of July, means the nominations are right around the corner; nominations will be open to non-members this year and begin at the joint MoCCA/Friends of Lulu table at the New York Comic-Con starting Friday, April 18.

Look for more details on the Friends of Lulu blog.