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2020 Prism Awards recognize trailblazing queer comics

The annual award ceremony was held online in light of the ongoing COVID-19 pandemic.

10/22/2020 1:30 pm

The 2020 Prism Awards were held in a virtual ceremony on Saturday, October 17^th, 2020 and Sunday, October 18^th, 2020. The fourth time the ceremony has been held, the Prism Awards celebrate excellence and diversity in the field of queer comics.

Last year, the 3^rd Annual Prism Awards, a joint venture of the Cartoon Art Museum, the Queer Comics Expo, and Prism comics, were held at SDCC19. And just like last year, The Beat’s fearless EIC Heidi MacDonald was one of the judges for the award. However, due to the realities of COVID-19, a lot of other things changed for the 2020 Prism Award ceremony.

Originally, the 4^th Annual Prism Awards were to be held at the Cartoon Art Museum in San Francisco in April 2020. However, in light of the ongoing COVID-19 pandemic, the 4^th annual Prism Awards were held online (and while it was sad that we couldn’t get together in person, it is nice that the ceremony was free to watch and available for everyone, including a stream of the event that was watchable without any kind of account).

Each of the five categories included three finalists. Magical Boy by The Kao was awarded the 2020 Prism Award for Best Webcomic, One Day Out by Ina Bestari was awarded the 2020 Prism Award for Best Short Form Comic, Trans Girls Hit the Town by Emma Jayne was awarded the 2020 Prism Award for Small to Midsize Press Comic, Laura Dean Keeps Breaking Up With Me by Mariko Tamaki & Rosemary Valero-O’Connell was awarded the 2020 Prism Award for Best Mainstream Comic, and Heartwood by Joamette Gil was awarded the 2020 Prism Award for Best Anthology.