Submitting to the 2025 Doug Wright Awards

Entry Rules

Entries to the Doug Wright Awards must have been published during the previous calendar year (January 1 to December 31, 2024). 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.

New printings of books previously published in another calendar year (i.e., second or third printings, etc.) do not qualify. This does not include new collections of previously published work (i.e., a collected volume of individual comic books).

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

NEW SHIPPING ADDRESS AND NOTES ON THE POSTAL STRIKE

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: Our friends at the Beguiling comic shop, in Toronto, have agreed to act as our receiving house. Please send all entries (clearly marked as DWA entries) to:

The Doug Wright Awards 2025 Entry
c/o The Beguiling
319 College Street
Toronto, Ont.
M5T 1S2

That said, Canada Post currently is on strike. This obviously does not affect those sending books through a service such as UPS, FedEx, etc. If you are in Toronto, you may drop your books off at the above address, but please insure they are packed and well labelled as DWA entries. A lot of books move through the shop on a given day, and we don’t want yours getting lost. Should the postal strike carry into January and you have no other way to send physical copies, let us know and we’ll help you figure out a solution.

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 (up to 10 per entry form—such are the limitations of our submission software) 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 (and keep your download link valid until January 31, 2025).

Three hard copies of each entry should 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, two, one, or zero copies will be accepted, provided a PDF is available. Hard copies obviously 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.

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. (and keep your download link valid until January 31, 2025).

Three hard copies of each book to be considered should 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, two, one, or zero copies will be accepted, provided a PDF is available. Hard copies obviously are not required for books published exclusively on digital platforms.

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.

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. (and keep your download link valid until January 31, 2025).

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

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. (and keep your download link valid until January 31, 2025).

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, two, one, or zero copies will be accepted, provided a PDF is available. Hard copies obviously are not required for books published exclusively on digital platforms.

Deadlines and Fees

Entries to the 2025 Doug Wright Awards open on Tuesday, December 10, 2024, and close on Friday, January 17, 2025. Late entry forms will not be accepted.

Hard copies must be received by Friday, January 24, 2025, but we’ll extend this deadline if necessary depending on the length of the postal strike. 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.

2025 Judges

Nathalie Atkinson
Nathalie Atkinson is a Canadian culture journalist. Her writing has appeared on CNN Style, Vulture, and BBC Culture, and she is a regular contributor to The Globe and Mail and Zoomer, where she writes a popular monthly fiction column. Nathalie was the originating critic of The Globe book section’s Graphica, North America’s first newspaper column dedicated to reviewing comics. She previously worked as an arts reporter, a culture columnist, and editor of the National Post’s award-winning style section, and is the creator and host of the long-running monthly film series Designing the Movies, at Toronto’s Revue Cinema.

Ivana Filipovich
After a two-decade hiatus spent working in educational media at Simon Fraser University, the Serbian-Canadian illustrator and cartoonist Ivana Filipovich returned to cartooning and writing in 2018. Since then, her comics have been published in Canada, Sweden, Slovenia, Belgium, Czechia, and Serbia. In 2023, she released her debut graphic novel, What’s Fear Got to Do with It?which was featured on CBC Books’ list of twenty Canadian comics to read. Her collection of short comics, Where Have You Been? won the Pigskin Peters, the Doug Wright Award for best small or micro-press book, in 2023. Ivana’s comics have been published in some of Europe’s most prestigious literary and cultural magazines, and her digital illustrations have been showcased in Canadian museums. As a designer, illustrator, art director, and executive producer of educational media, she has received numerous international and domestic accolades alongside her Simon Fraser University team, including a United Nations World Summit Award.

Gareth Gaudin
Gareth Gaudin is a cartoonist from Victoria, British Columbia, who has worked in a vintage comic book store for thirty-three years, drawn a daily comic strip for twenty-one years (more than 7,558 consecutive days and counting), published three hundred and sixteen issues of his comic book series, Magic Teeth, and teaches comics and graphic novels at Camosun College. He has two kids who star in their own graphic novel series, The Monster Sisters. He lives and breathes comic books.

Andrew Hawthorn
Andrew Hawthorn is an author, illustrator, and journalist living in St. John’s, Newfoundland and Labrador. His comics have appeared in Tales of the Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles and Newfoundland Quarterly. His first collection, My Milkshake Brings all the Boys to the Yardarm, was published in 2023. He has written for CBC News, StarTrek.com, the Terror Nova series, Mythology from the Rock, and The Year’s Best Fantasy and Horror.

Chris Hutsul
Chris Hutsul originally hails from Abbotsford, British Columbia. His expansive career in arts and media has ranged from majoring in printmaking at OCAD University to being a published cartoonist to working as a film director. Currently, Chris is an executive producer at a commercial film production company, which he founded in 2018. He lives in Toronto with his wife and two daughters, all of whom enjoy graphic novels.

Kate Phillips
Kate Phillips is an award-winning, queer comic artist and children’s book illustrator. Originally from Baddeck, Nova Scotia, Kate now lives in Kjipuktuk (Halifax) and spends her days juggling illustration, design, and comics. Her small press comic work includes The Usual, High Tide, A Brush with Debt, and Spray Days, and she has storyboarded, lettered, and coloured for a number of other projects. Kate also has illustrated children’s books including Deal With It: Biphobia, Norm the Bull Goes Missing, and the upcoming Gaelic children’s book, An Stàball.

Pamela Marie Pierce
Pamela Marie Pierce is a multidisciplinary visual artist working in Rothesay, New Brunswick, which exists on the traditional lands of the Wolastoqiyik people. Her studio practice focuses on contemporary figurative work, portraiture, illustration, and comic art. She works in pen and ink, watercolour, gouache, and oil. Pamela’s comics have appeared in multiple publications, including Heavy Metal and Harbour: A Compendium, and her work can be found in private and public collections across Canada and abroad.

Ken Steacy
Ken Steacy’s visual storytelling career spans a half a century, as writer, artist, art director, editor, and publisher. He has chronicled the exploits of Astro Boy, Iron Man, Harry Potter, and the Star Wars gang, and in addition to producing his own I.P., has collaborated with Douglas Coupland, Harlan Ellison, and Trina Robbins. With Margaret Atwood, he created the graphic novel War Bears, a bittersweet story of the rise and demise of a fictional Canadian comic-book publisher during the Second World War, which was optioned as a series for broadcast. The recipient of an Eisner Award and an Inkpot Award, in 2009 Ken was inducted into the Joe Shuster Awards Canadian Comic Book Hall of Fame. From 2012 to 2021, he taught Comics & Graphic Novels, a program he co-created with his wife, the award-winning visual storyteller Joan Steacy, at Camosun College, in Victoria, British Columbia. For many years, Ken has appeared on Desert Bus for Hope, an online fundraiser for Child’s Play, a registered charity dedicated to improving the lives of children in hospitals worldwide.

Diana Tamblyn
Diana Tamblyn is an award-winning artist and graphic novelist who has been actively writing and drawing comics for more than twenty years. She has exhibited her comics at small press fairs and comic book festivals in both Canada and the U.S. and has had artwork displayed in various group and solo shows. In 2005, she was chosen by The Globe and Mail as a Canadian cartoonist to watch. She is the founder of the Ting Comic and Graphic Arts Festival, held in London, Ontario, and recently curated the show Words and Pictures: Cartoonists from Southwest Ontario, for Museum London. Diana graduated from Concordia University, in Montreal, with a bachelor of fine arts in film animation.

Eric Veillette
Eric Veillette is an arts journalist and film programmer living in the west end of Toronto. A former culture reporter for CBC/Radio-Canada, where he presented regular radio segments on Canadian comics, his work has been featured in The Globe and Mail, Toronto Star, Spacing, and Rue Morgue, and on France 24. From 2015 to 2020, he was the programming director at Toronto’s historic Revue Cinema and currently is writing a book on the history of movie-going in Toronto.

Stanley Wany
Stanley Wany is a multidisciplinary artist whose work consists of revisiting colonial and historical archives with the aim of extracting the history of his Afro-descendant ancestors. He began his exploration as an editor and creator of experimental graphic novels that explore the nonlinearity of narration and the unconscious. After a residency in Finland, he made the leap into visual art, continuing his research, this time incorporating the historicity of narratives present in popular culture. Through drawing, painting, installation, and experimental graphic novels, he deepens his reflections on popular culture, myths, and the subconscious in relation to the experience of people of Afro-descendants in Western society. By experimenting with connoted mediums such as coffee, molasses, indigo, and cotton, he embodies the concept of “creolization” developed by Édouard Glissant. In 2025, in partnership with the CIÉCO research and reflection group, he will participate in a research residency on decolonial museology at the Redpath Museum. He recently completed a master’s degree at the University of Quebec in Montreal, as well as a research-creation residency at the International Studio and Curatorial Program, in Brooklyn.

Lis Xu
Lis Xu is a Chinese-Canadian comics and picture book illustrator. Her work includes When Molly Drew Dogs and The Adventures of Kelp Creatures. Her comics have appeared in Gytha Co-op, POLLE, and Pulping. Lis is a founding member of Doug Wright Award–nominated Wavering Line Collective. She draws mostly with traditional media, and is always thinking about the John Waters quote, “Sometimes, stupid and cute are enough.”