Submitting to the 2024 Doug Wright Awards

2024 Judges

Christian Giroux
Christian Giroux is a professor, cartoonist, and artist. He has taught drawing and modernist art history and theory at the University of Guelph for twenty years. During that time, he has exhibited nationally and internationally, winning numerous public art commissions, as well as the Sobey Art Award. In recent years, he has been dedicated to the study of sequential art, through the Center for Cartoon Studies, in Vermont. His debut work of short comics, The Absentee, was recently published.

Emily Gordon
Emily Gordon is a speechwriter, editor, and poet. She has written about visual and other culture for a number of publications, was editor-in-chief of the design magazine Print, and founded the Webby Awards–honored blog Emdashes. She enjoys dual Canadian–U.S. citizenship and lives in Oakland, California.

Chris Houston
Chris Houston is the chief operating officer of Dundurn Press. Prior to that, he was a director of marketing at Penguin Random House Canada. He spent more than a decade at DK Publishing and previously worked at Scholastic Canada. A lifelong comic and graphica enthusiast, Chris went from working at a neighbourhood comic book store to managing one of Canada’s largest bookstores, the Chapters flagship store in downtown Montreal.

Vivi Partridge
Vivi Partridge is a queer comic artist based in Toronto. They were one of the core retail members at the Page & Panel comic book shop from 2017 until the store’s closing, in 2022. Recently graduated from Seneca Polytechnic’s Illustration program, Vivi likes to make work that focuses on fantasy and nostalgia. Their debut graphic novel is slated to be published with Conundrum’s new YA imprint, Emanata, in fall of 2025.

JoAnn Purcell
JoAnn Purcell uses comics as a research method to inquire into disability and difference. She received her Ph.D. in critical disability studies from York University, and her comics comprised over half of her dissertation. She is the current and founding program coordinator of Illustration at Seneca Polytechnic. Her recent publications include the articles “Disability Daily Drawn: A Comics Collaboration” in Graphic Medicine and “Comics, Caregiving and Crip Time” in Sugar, Spice, and the Not So Nice: Comics Picturing Girlhood. Her dissertation will be published by Wilfrid Laurier University Press.

Graham Sigurdson
Graham Sigurdson is an Ontario-based writer and critic. His work has appeared in Broken Pencil, Funland, and Comics Workbook Magazine.

Salgood Sam
Salgood Sam, a.k.a. Max Douglas, is a Canadian artist, author, and designer. He has been making comics and narrative art for more than thirty years while working in a variety of other media- and arts-related jobs, including freelance illustration, teaching art, and design for animation.

Cory Silverberg
Raised in the 1970s by a children’s librarian and a sex therapist, Cory Silverberg grew up to be a sex educator, author, and queer person who smiles a lot when they talk. Cory teaches and talks with young people, adults, and professionals across North America about gender, sexuality, disability, and more. Their books for young people and families, including the Stonewall Honor Book Sex Is a Funny Word, have been called “the books about sex that every family should read” by The New York Times. Their book You Know, Sex (with Fiona Smyth) won the Egghead in 2023.

Myriam Steinberg
Myriam Steinberg’s first graphic novel, Catalogue Baby: A Memoir of (In)fertility, was recognized by the Vine Awards for Canadian Jewish Literature, the Independent Publisher Book Awards (IPPY), and the Foreword INDIES Book Awards. She is the former organizer of the In the House Festival, for which she was nominated for the Y.W.C.A.’s Women of Distinction Award. Myriam has written articles for Birthing magazine, SheKnows, and the CBC. She is currently working on her second graphic novel, entitled Stick, Stay, Grow.

Irene Velentzas
Irene Velentzas is the editor of comics and graphic novels at HighWater Press. She is also a comics scholar, writing her doctoral dissertation on representations of mental illness in graphic memoir, and the co-editor of a special issue of the Journal of Graphic Novels and Comics, entitled Sexuality and Mental Illness and in Comics. Irene a critical writer for The Comics Journaland an enthusiastic conference moderator.

Georgia Webber
Georgia Webber is a comics artist and teacher best known for her debut graphic memoir, Dumb: Living Without a Voice, the chronicle of her severe vocal injury and sustained condition that causes her pain from using her voice. Her projects have been nominated for several awards, including the Doug Wrights Awards, the Ignatz Awards, and the Eisner Awards. Georgia teaches weekly comics classes and creative health practices.

Elaine M. Will
Elaine M. Will is a Joe Shuster Award–winning cartoonist and illustrator from Saskatoon. She has contributed work to a wide range of different creative projects, including magazine illustration, animation storyboards, poster design, graphic layout design, and a newspaper comic strip for Saskatoon’s Verb magazine. Elaine is the creator of Look Straight Ahead, a graphic novel about a teenage boy’s struggle with mental illness. She is currently working on The Last Band on Earth, a liminal horror graphic novel about a noise rock band trapped in a semi-post-apocalyptic city run by demons.

Categories

The Doug Wright Award for best book

The Doug Wright Award for the year’s best book recognizes a book of any size (graphic novel, single comic, mini-comic, etc.) for adults, young adults (ages 13–17), or young readers (ages 0–12) in which illustrations are integral to the story. (Books published exclusively on digital platforms are also eligible for this category.) Books will be judged on the combined quality of their illustration, writing, and production.

Entries for the best book category must be submitted online by the book’s creator(s) or publisher. There is an entry of $15 per book. (Self-published creators who cannot afford the entry fee may request to have it waived.)

The Nipper:
The Doug Wright Award for emerging talent

The Doug Wright Award for emerging talent recognizes an artist or team early in their career deserving of wider recognition, based on up to three books of any size (graphic novel, single comic, mini-comic, etc.) published in the past year in which illustrations are integral to the story. (Books published exclusively on digital platforms are also eligible for this category.) Judges will make the final decision on whether an entrant qualifies as “emerging,” though as a general rule the entrant may have published no more than one major-press book or collection. Books entered in this category may also be entered in the best book category.

Anyone may nominate a creator or team for the Nipper, with the permission and knowledge of the creator(s), by contacting the Doug Wright Awards. (Creators may also nominate themselves.) There is no entry fee for this category.

The Pigskin Peters:
The Doug Wright Award for best small or micro-press book

The Doug Wright Award for the year’s best small or micro-press book recognizes a book of any size (graphic novel, single comic, mini-comic, etc.) in which illustrations are integral to the story, not published by a major press. (Books published exclusively on digital platforms are also eligible for this category.) Experimental or avant-garde works are especially welcome in this category, and Web comics will be accepted on a case-by-case basis, provided the submission is a cohesive narrative or topic. Books will be judged on the combined quality of their illustration, writing, and production. Books (not including Web comics) entered in this category may also be entered in the best book category.

Anyone may nominate a work for the Pigskin Peters, with the permission and knowledge of the creator(s), by contacting the Doug Wright Awards. (Creators may also nominate themselves.) There is no entry fee for this category.

The Egghead:
The Doug Wright Award for best kids’ book

The Doug Wright Award for the year’s best kids’ book recognizes a book of any size (graphic novel, picture book, single comic, mini-comic, etc.) for young readers (ages 0 to 12) in which illustrations are integral to the story. (Books published exclusively on digital platforms are also eligible for this category.) Books will be judged based on the combined quality of their illustration, writing, and production. Books entered in this category may also be entered in the best book category.

Entries for the best kids’ book category must be submitted online by the book’s creator(s) or publisher. There is an entry of $15 per book. (Self-published creators who cannot afford the entry fee may request to have it waived.)

Entry Rules

Entries to the Doug Wright Awards must have been published during the previous calendar year (January 1 to December 31, 2023). The Doug Wright Awards is broad minded in what it considers a book (graphic novel, single comic, mini-comic, zine, etc.) but reserves the right to make the final call on a publication’s qualification.

Books must be published in English. Books originally published in another language and translated into English are eligible, provided the English edition was published during the current calendar year.

Creators must be a Canadian citizen or permanent resident/landed immigrant (i.e., legally allowed to work in Canada).

For books with more than one creator (i.e., a writer and artist team), each creator must be a Canadian citizen or permanent resident.

Entries may be published by a non-Canadian publisher, provided creator(s) is a Canadian citizen or permanent resident.

There is no limit to how many individual titles a creator or group of creators submit in a single year.

Books may be submitted by creators or publishers.

Hard copies will not be returned unless a previous agreement has been made between the Doug Wright Awards and creator, such as in the case of a small-run publication with a limited print run.

The decision of the judges will be final.

Submission Requirements

About hard copies: We think books are best judged when seen in person. That said, how many hard copies you send, if any, is up to you. Each category has its own set of judges, so to ensure at least one judge sees a hard copy of your book, you would have to send at least one copy of your book per category entered. If you want all judges to see your hard copy, you must send three copies per category entered. If sending less than three copies per category, you must submit a PDF of your book.

Please note: The mail can be slow these days. We highly recommend you not wait until too close to the deadline to send in hard copies.

Envelopes/single books maybe sent to:

The Doug Wright Awards
P.O. Box 611, Stn. P
Toronto, Ont.
M5S 2Y4

For larger boxes, please contact dougwrightawards@gmail.com to arrange delivery. Please do not send boxes to the P.O. Box.

The Doug Wright Award for best book

Entries must be submitted via the Doug Wright Awards online portal. While a form is required for each entry, you may pay for all entries together to avoid having to re-enter your payment information each time (i.e., if you are entering two titles at $15 each, you may pay $30 for the first entry and $0 for the second).

If available, a PDF of the entire entry, including cover, must be submitted. Please combine covers and interiors into a single PDF, and name your PDF in a way that suggests the publication’s title. If your PDF is too large for our portal to handle, please send via e-mail to dougwrightawards@gmail.com.

Three hard copies of each entry must be sent to the above address, along with a note clearly stating the category of entry and the creator’s name(s). In the event of a small run or high-priced book, one copy will be accepted, provided a PDF is available. Hard copies are not required for books published exclusively on digital platforms.

The Nipper: The Doug Wright Award for emerging talent

Entries must be submitted via the Doug Wright Awards online portal. A form is required for each entry.

Three hard copies of each book to be considered must be sent to the above address, along with a note clearly stating the category of entry and the creator’s name(s). In the event of small run or high-priced books, one copy of each will be accepted, provided a PDF is available.

Please include a list of notable publications with entry. This may include self-published, micro-press, and major press publications.

The Pigskin Peters: The Doug Wright Award for best small or micro-press book

Entries must be submitted via the Doug Wright Awards online portal. A form is required for each entry.

The Egghead: The Doug Wright Award for best kids’ book

Deadlines and Fees

Entries to the 2024 Doug Wright Awards open on Tuesday, December 12, 2023, and close on Friday, January 19, 2024. Late entries will not be accepted.

Hard copies must be received by Friday, January 26, 2023. (The mail can be slow these days, so please do not wait too long to mail in your entires.) Please note: Each category has its own set of judges. If you are sending hard copies and entering the same book in more than one category, please send separate hard copies for each category.

The entry fee per submission for best book and best kids’ book (The Egghead) is $15. There is no entry fee for the emerging talent (The Nipper) and best small or micro-press book (The Pigskin Peters) awards.

Judging Process

Entries in each category are evaluated by a three-member jury. Each jury consists of at least one cartoonist, one judge with industry expertise (editor, publisher, reviewer, journalist, librarian, bookseller, academic, etc.), and a third judge who either falls into one of the above categories or is not directly involved in the industry but has a deep knowledge, understanding, and appreciation of the medium.

We attempt to make our juries as diverse as possible by selecting judges with a variety of professional backgrounds, from a variety of regions (not necessarily confined to Canada), and who reflect Canada’s various cultural communities.

Judges are given approximately four weeks to read entries and make their final decision. Juries meet via conference call to deliberate and come to a consensus on their category’s short list and winner. Juries are strongly encouraged to pick a single winner, but ties do happen.

Whenever possible, judges will evaluate books in their printed form. However, logistics may sometimes mean a judge can only view a publication in a digital format.

Judges choose winning entries based on the combined quality of their illustration, writing, and production. Other factors may include style, creativity, and originality.

If you would like to be a judge for the Doug Wright Awards, please contact us at dougwrightawards@gmail.com.

For more information on the Doug Wright Awards, check out out FAQ.