Today, The Beat and The Center for Cartoon Studies are proud to reveal the winners of the tenth annual Cartoonist Studio Prize Award in both the Print Comics and Webcomics categories. Each of the 2022 Cartoonist Studio Prize Award winners will receive a $1000 prize and a Wacom One Creative Pen Display.
The tenth annual Cartoonist Studio Prize was made possible thanks to sponsorship by Felix Comic Art and Wacom.
2022 Cartoonist Studio Prize Award Winners
The tenth Cartoonist Studio Prize Award for Print Comic is awarded to:
Stone Fruit by Lee Lai, published by Fantagraphics.
Here’s the description of Stone Fruit from the website:
Bron and Ray are a queer couple who enjoy their role as the fun weirdo aunties to Ray’s niece, six-year-old Nessie. Their playdates are little oases of wildness, joy, and ease in all three of their lives, which ping-pong between familial tensions and deep-seated personal stumbling blocks. As their emotional intimacy erodes, Ray and Bron isolate from each other and attempt to repair their broken family ties — Ray with her overworked, resentful single-mother sister and Bron with her religious teenage sister who doesn’t fully grasp the complexities of gender identity. Taking a leap of faith, each opens up and learns they have more in common with their siblings than they ever knew.
At turns joyful and heartbreaking, Stone Fruit reveals through intimately naturalistic dialog and blue-hued watercolor how painful it can be to truly become vulnerable to your loved ones — and how fulfilling it is to be finally understood for who you are. Lee Lai is one of the most exciting new voices to break into the comics medium and she has created one of the truly sophisticated graphic novel debuts in recent memory.
And the tenth Cartoonist Studio Prize Award for Webcomic is awarded to:
Blind Alley by Adam de Souza, www.blind-alley.com.
Here’s the description of Blind Alley from the website:
This comic strip is about growing up in the strange and lonely neighborhood of Blind Alley.
New strips are posted twice a week on Mondays and Fridays.
The Beat and The Center for Cartoon Studies wish to thank everyone who submitted their work for consideration.
Have you had a chance to read Stone Fruit or Blind Alley? What about any of the other comics that were included on this year’s shortlist?
The Beat wants to hear from you! Give us a shout-out, here in the comment section or over on social media @comicsbeat, and let us know!
