The winner of the 2026 Lynd Ward Graphic Novel Prize was announced on Monday, May 4. This year’s award went to The Weight, a Drawn & Quarterly release by Melissa Mendes, set in mid-century rural America. The black-and-white book, inspired by the writing and childhood of Mendes’s grandfather, tells the story of Edie, a girl whose otherwise happy childhood is overshadowed by her father abusing her mother.
The judges said, “Mendes captures [the] hardscrabble existence [of Edie’s family] with eloquence and zero sentimentality. This is an incredibly raw and powerful story that tackles domestic abuse, generational trauma and alcohol addiction while also showing the power of love and hope to empower us in the face of those cruelties. The drawings are rough and muscular, and the narrative is unceasing in its ability to bring us along with it. It has strong characters that feel real and true: It is a haunting story that is honestly told.”
Black Cohosh by Eagle Valiant Brosi (also published by Drawn & Quarterly) and Sofia Alarcon’s Endsickness (from Conundrum Press), were named honor books (ie. runner-ups). The former is a coming-of-age memoir by a former commune kid, while the latter is a collection of comics exploring climate change and ecological anxiety.
Mendes responded on Patreon, saying, “This is a HUGE honor for me. When I first started drawing comics, I did all wordless narratives, and Lynd Ward‘s wordless woodcut novels were a huge influence on me. And I’m so happy to be winning along with my friend Eagle Valiant Brosi, whose book Black Cohosh was one of my favorites last year. It’s really incredible. Check it out!”
Established in 2010, the Lynd Ward Graphic Novel Prize is awarded annually to the best fiction or non-fiction graphic novel of the year by the Pennsylvania Center for the Book. It is named after wordless novel illustrator Lynd Ward (1905-1985), whose works were a major influence on the development of graphic novels, and its sponsors include Penn State University Libraries. Mendes will receive the $2500 prize money, a copy of Lynd Ward: Six Novels in Woodcuts, and a commemorative engraving at a ceremony sometime later this year; Brosi and Alarcon will also receive copies of Lynd Ward: Six Novels in Woodcuts.
