The 2025 Doug Wright Awards nominations are in, celebrating another year of excellence in Canadian comics across four categories. The winners of the 21st edition will be declared on Saturday, June 7, 2025, at Toronto’s Arts & Letters Club.
The Doug Wright Awards have occurred annually during the Toronto Comic Arts Festival weekend. Begun in 2005, it was named after esteemed Canadian newspaper cartoonist Doug Wright, who was best known for a wordless gag strip called Doug Wright’s Family and The Nipper, which was published in The Montreal Standard/The Weekend and The Canadian between 1949 and 1980.
The poster for this year’s award was designed by Maurice Vellekoop.
Books nominated for the 2025 awards were all published in the 2024 calendar year, in the English language. The judging process comprises a three-member jury for each category, which mixes practitioners, industry experts, and a third person who may not be directly involved in the industry but has a deep understanding of the comics medium.
While the panel for each category is not known, the eleven judges involved this year include culture journalist Nathalie Atkinson; Serbian-Canadian illustrator and cartoonist Ivana Filipovich; veteran cartoonist, educator and comic store retailer Gareth Gaudin; author illustrator, journalist Andrew Hawthorn; film producer, director and former cartoonist Chris Hutsul; award-winning queer comic artist and children’s book illustrator Kate Phillips; multidisciplinary visual artist Pamela Marie Pierce; veteran visual storyteller Ken Steacy; award-winning artist and graphic novelist Diana Tamblyn; arts journalist and film programmer Eric Veillette; experimental multidisciplinary artist Stanley Wany; and Chinese-Canadian comics and picture book illustrator Lis Xu. [Note: while Lis Xu is nominated in the Egghead (best Kids Book) category, it is assumed she was not on that particular panel as a judge].
The 2024 winners were E.M. Carroll‘s A Guest in the House (First Second) in Best Book; Vincy Lim in The Nipper/Emerging Talent; Tyler Landry‘s Old Caves (Uncivilized) for Pigskin Peters/Best Small-Press; and Otis & Peanut, by Naseem Hrab and Kelly Collier (Owlkids Books) for The Egghead/Best Kids.
The Doug Wright Award for Best Book
- Age 16, by Rosena Fung (Annick Press)
- Bog Myrtle, by Sid Sharp (Annick Press)
- I’m So Glad We Had This Time Together, by Maurice Vellekoop (Random House Canada)
- The Field, by Dave Lapp (Conundrum)
- The Jellyfish, by Boum; translated by Robin Lang & Helge Dascher (Pow Pow Press)
- The Wendy Award, by Walter Scott (Drawn & Quarterly)
The Nipper: The Doug Wright Award for Emerging Talent
- Boum for The Jellyfish; translated by Robin Lang and Helge Dascher (Pow Pow Press)
- James Collier for Ballpark (Wig Shop / More or Less Books)
- Rosena Fung for Age 16 (Annick Press)
- Frances V. Reilly for The Harrowing Tales of La Corriveau (Dirty Water Comics)
- Sid Sharp for Bog Myrtle (Annick Press)
The Pigskin Peters: The Doug Wright Award for Best Small- or Micro-Press Book
- Be Yourself! Oh, Not Like That…, by Emilia Strilchuk (Self-published)
- Customer Service, by Patrick Allaby (Self-published)
- The Cosmic Con, by Ron Kasman (At Bay Press)
- The Same Water, by Richard Fairgray (Richard Sux)
- The Slenderest of Leashes 1, by Xiaoxiao Li (Self-published)
The Egghead: The Doug Wright Award for Best Kids’ Book
- Alterations, by Ray Xu (Union Square Kids)
- Lost at Windy River: A True Story of Survival, by Trina Rathgeber, Alina Pete & Jillian Dolan (Orca Book Publishers)
- The New Girl, by Cassandra Calin (Graphix/Scholastic)
- The Racc Pack, by Stephanie Cooke & Whitney Gardner (Simon & Schuster Books for Young Readers)
- The Shit Witch, by Lis Xu (Self-published)
Giants of the North: The Canadian Cartooning Hall of Fame
- Richard Comely (1950-), “the co-creator and original publisher of Canada’s iconic superhero Captain Canuck, a character celebrating his fiftieth anniversary in 2025”
- Lou Skuce (1886–1951), “a newspaper and advertising cartoonist (and so much more) known throughout his career as Canada’s Greatest Cartoonist.”
