Awards

Canada Reads, a yearly contest to pick the best Canadian books of the year, has launched a campaign to select the Top 40 Essential Canadian Novels of the Decade, and two graphic novels have been selected by the public, ESSEX COUNTY by Jeff Lemire and SKIM by Mariko and Jillian Tamaki.

Anyone setting eyes on the Library of America's gorgeous new Lynd Ward boxed set will immediately add it to the Christmas wish list. (It's the first time a graphic novel has been added to the list on classic works.) But the pioneering graphic novelist is getting a new honor -- Penn State is naming an award after him, The Lynd Ward Graphic Novel Prize (also the Lynd Ward Prize for the Best Graphic Novel of the Year). Ward's daughters donated a collection of his wood engravings, original book illustrations, and other graphic art donated to the Penn State University Libraries, establishing an association. The prize of $2500 will be announced each spring and be presented to the best graphic novel, fiction or non-fiction, published in the previous calendar year in the United States by a living American citizen or resident.

The Inkwell Awards for inking were handed out on Sunday at Wizard World New England in Boston, and Mark Morales won Favorite Inker. Klaus Janson and Al Williamson won the Joe Sinnott Hall of Fame awards. Complete winners in bold below.

While comics fans were celebrating comics and other delights at New York Comic Con, publishers and fans in Europe were congregating in Frankfurt, Germany,...

Matt Fraction has become the first comics writer to win a prestigious PEN Center literary award for his "Outstanding Body of Work." The awards are presented annually to writers living west of the Mississippi. A panel of judges choose finalists in ten categories: fiction, creative nonfiction, research nonfiction, poetry, children’s literature, translation, journalism, drama, teleplay, and screenplay.

Apparently they are rioting in Canada over the fact that a man was nominated for the Kim Yale award. If by rioting, you mean writing some articles for the internet. Von Allan , the man in question nominated for the previously all-female Kim Yale Award for Most Talented Newcomer, was interviewed by the CBC and this gave rise to a couple of pieces, noting what a groundbreaker he was being nominated for an award traditionally given to women cartoonists:

Nominees for the 2010 Lulu Awards, recognizing "the people and projects that helped to open eyes and minds to the amazing comic and cartooning...

Presented Saturday night at the Small Press Expo, here are the 2010 Ignatz Award winners. Nominees were chosen by a panel comprised of Anders...

The 2010 Screams for the best in loud, blood-letting, gun-thumping entertainment were announced this week; however the comics nominees include things like ASTERIOS POLYP,...

From Baltimore last night, the winners -- ASTERIOS POLYP, David Mazzucchelli and The Rocketeer took home three, CHEW, and THE WALKING DEAD two each in various combinations. Despite ongoing controversy over the nominations, the winners were strong selections, very close to this year's Eisner winners, at least on first glance.

If you were following our live tweets of the Harveys last night, (and those from ComixMix and JahFurry) you saw portions of Mark Waid's keynote speech transcribed. While claiming it was a "vodka-fueled rant," Waid delivered a heartfelt, if off-the-cuff, talk on the importance of the idea and the supremacy of comics as a medium of ideas. He started off with remarks on the history of copyright, stating it was a means to allow ideas to go into the public domain where they could remain powerful. "No one would say we'd be better off if Shakespeare plays weren't allowed to be read and performed in high schools," he used as an example. While not advocating piracy, his main argument seemed to be that it's already done, the genie is out of the bottle, and struggling to keep ideas protected isn't as important as finding a way to profit from those ideas.

Via PR, as alluded to in an earlier post, the Hero Initiative is introducing a new award to be presented at the Harveys on Saturday, Dick Giordano Humanitarian of the Year Award.