It’s hard to keep up with all the comics awards news, but the BIG news ia that Baltimore Comicon will host the inaugural edition of the Ringo Awards this September. Named after the late artist Mike Wieringo, the Ringo nominees will be selected by both pros AND fans. As the announcement says:
Pro and Fan Comic Book Awards come to “America’s Greatest Comic Book Convention” and YOU GET A VOTE!
The Mike Wieringo Comic Book Industry Awards is an annual celebration of the creativity, skill and fun of comics.
The awards make their debut this year as part of the fan- and pro-favorite convention, The Baltimore Comic-Con.
Unlike other professional industry awards, the Ringo Awards include fan participation in the nomination process along with an esteemed jury of comics professionals.
More than 20 categories will be celebrated with top honors being given at an awards ceremony Saturday, September 23, 2017.
The first jury includes John Haines, Jamar Nicholes, Chris Powell, Hannah Mean-Shannon and José Villarubia. More details at the website.
• As you may have surmised, the Ringos are filling the void at Baltimore Comicon left by the departure of the Harvey Wards which will now be held at New York Comic Con. No details have been forthcoming on the new edition of the Harveys.
• At This weekend’s Ann Arbor Comic Arts Festival , Raina Telgemeier’s Ghosts won the Dwayne McDuffie Award for Kids Comics. There were ton other “notable books” for the McDuffie Kids:
NewsPrints by Ru Xu
Lowriders in Space Book 1 by Cathy Camper and Raul the Third
The Shadow Hero by Gene Luen Yang and Sonny Liew
Little White Duck by Na Liu
Lola: A Ghost Story by J. Torres and Elbert Orr
Giants Beware by Rafael Rosado and Jorge Aguirre
Phoebe and her Unicorn Book 1 by Dana Simpson
Lucky Penny by Yuko Ota and Ananth Hirsh
Ms. Marvel Volume 1: No Normal by G. Willow Wilson and Adrian Alphona
How to Find a Fox by Nilah Magruder
Also, via pr,
After describing the ten titles, Telgemeier surprised the audience by announcing that she had purchased one hundred books—ten each of the ones she had just highlighted—to give away to young people in attendance. Following the award ceremony, the giveaway table was mobbed by young readers.
“In the spirit of sharing the love of comics,” Telgemeier said, “I decided to take this opportunity to share some of my favorite comics with the audience at A2CAF, in the hope that they will find more amazing work to discover.”
There was some concern about the McDuffie Kids Award this year that not enough books by and about people of color were included in the nominees, considering that the award was created to spotlight diverity. The “Honors list” does include a pretty wide swath of titles. It’s also noted that anyone can “recommend” a book for the award by emailing [email protected]. Recommended comics published in 2016 will be included on a list of honorable mentions. In future years, nominations will be solicited and forwarded to McDuffie Award judges for consideration for the award shortlist. While this year had some flaws, it looks like they are working to make it more inclusive in the future.
At this weekend ELCAF fest in London, illustrator Akvile Magicdust (aka Akvile Miseviciute, creator of Lucy the Confused Girl for VICE) wonthe ELCAF x WeTransfer award, which funds the development, publication and marketing of a publication idea.
The award is open to exhibitors at any ELCAF, and Magicdust won £3,500 as a grant to help her publish a project.
Last year’s winner was Nicolas Burrows who published The Elephant Hotel as a result.
[Via It’s Nice That]
