Announcing the nominees of the 20th annual Doug Wright Awards!
Posted on 09. Apr, 2024 by Brad Mackay in Uncategorized
Our judges were holed up reading all winter but finally have emerged with their lists of nominees for the 20th annual Doug Wright Awards!
The Doug Wright Award for best book
Val-d’Or Neon
Olivier Ballou
(Self-published)
A Guest in the House
Emily Carroll
(First Second)
Harvey Knight’s Odyssey
Nick Maandag
(Drawn & Quarterly)
Naked: The Confessions of a Normal Woman
Éloïse Marseille
(Pow Pow Press)
Roaming
Jillian Tamaki and Mariko Tamaki
(Drawn & Quarterly)
JAJ
Michael Nicoll Yahgulanaas
(Douglas & McIntyre)
The Nipper: The Doug Wright Award for emerging talent
James Collier
The Lonesome Shepherd
(Wig Shop)
Vincy Lim
When I was a kid I was taught how to die. Now that I’m an adult I’m learning how to live. (I love you.) and When She Set Fire to My Friends’ Houses
(Self-published)
Syd Madia
Syd Madia’s Dracula
(Self-published)
Christopher Twin
Bad Medicine
(Emanata/Conundrum)
Kyle Vingoe-Cram
Kettle Harbour
(Conundrum)
The Pigskin Peters: The Doug Wright Award for best small- or micro-press book
Endsickness No. 2
Sofia Alarcon
(Self-published)
The Lonesome Shepherd
James Collier
(Wig Shop)
Old Caves
Tyler Landry
(Uncivilized)
Power 9: Part One
John Little and David Little
(Self-published)
Index
Sven, Rachel Evangeline Chiong, and Joyce Kim
(Self-published)
The Egghead: The Doug Wright Award for best kids’ book
ThunderBoom
Jack Briglio and Claudia Dávila
(Kids Can Press)
Pluto Rocket: New in Town
Paul Gilligan
(Tundra Books)
Hockey Girl Loves Drama Boy
Faith Erin Hicks
(First Second)
Otis & Peanut
Naseem Hrab and Kelly Collier
(Owlkids Books)
Bad Medicine
Christopher Twin
(Emanata/Conundrum)
Nominees for the 2024 Doug Wright Awards were selected from entries of books published in the 2023 calendar year. The short list and winners were chosen by a panel of three judges for each category.
This year, 200 entries by Canadian authors and artists were submitted from dozens of publishers and self-published authors.
Creators with multiple nominations include James Collier and Christopher Twin, while Olivier Ballou’sVal-d’Or Neonis only the second self-published book to be nominated in the best book category in the award’s history.
Publishers of multiple nominees include Conundrum, Drawn & Quarterly, and First Second.
Each winner will receive a small cash prize, and the winner of The Nipper will be awarded a week-long stay at the Valleyview Artist Retreat, in Caledon, Ontario. Congratulations to all of this year’s nominees!
Giants of the North: The Canadian Cartooning Hall of Fame
This year’s Giants of the North inductees are Deni Loubert, the one-time publisher and founder of Renegade Press and one-time publisher and co-founder of Aardvark-Vanaheim; and Maurice Vellekoop, the artist and cartoonist whose most recent book is I’m So Glad We Had This Time Together.
The Ceremony
The 20th annual Doug Wright Awards takes place on Saturday, May 11th, at 8 p.m. ET, at the Arts & Letters Club, 14 Elm Street, Toronto, hosted by Dustin Harbin. The event will also be livestreamed on YouTube.
This year’s ceremony will double as the launch of The Collected Doug Wright (1963–1980), the second and final volume of this series, featuring an extensive section of strips from Wright’s masterpiece, Doug Wright’s Family (a.k.a. Nipper). The book—the first from our own Giants of the North imprint—will be available for sale at the ceremony and during the Toronto Comic Arts Festival.
Judges
Thanks to this year’s judges: Christian Giroux, Emily Gordon, Chris Houston, Vivi Partridge, JoAnn Purcell, Salgood Sam, Graham Sigurdson, Cory Silverberg, Myriam Steinberg, Irene Velentzas, Georgia Webber, and Elaine Will. Read more about each of our judges on the Doug Wright Awards Web site.
Sponsors
Thanks also to this year’s sponsors: Crowdfundr, Gytha Press, Koyama Provides, Broken Pencil, Valleyview Artist Retreat, Strange Adventures, the Arts & Letters Club, the Beguiling, and the Toronto Comic Arts Festival.
About the Doug Wright Awards
The Doug Wright Awards were founded in 2005 to celebrate excellence in the field of Canadian comics. The awards are named for Doug Wright (1917–1983), the creator of the long-running strip Doug Wright’s Family (a.k.a. Nipper), one of the most widely read and loved Canadian comics of the twentieth century.
Media Requests
dougwrightawards@gmail.com
20th annual Doug Wright Awards poster by Matthew Daley.
