The nine nominees for this year’s Sophie Castille Awards for Comics in Translation – English have just been announced. The awards will again be presented in partnership with VIP Brands, Ltd, Comica and the Lakes International Comic Art Festival, during the annual Festival weekend in Bowness-on-Windermere next month.
Sophie Castille, the namesake of the awards, was the international rights director and VP of licensing for Mediatoon and cofounder and director of Europe Comics. She died unexpectedly in 2022.
“Sophie loved to bring people together,” noted comics authority Paul Gravett on her passing, “and her memory and example live on through all of us.”
In her memory, The Sophie Castille Awards for Comics in Translation honour the vital role of translators in sharing graphic novels across nations and cultures and bringing the world’s comics together.
Now in its third year, the Sophie Castille Award – English is an award for the best translation of a non-English graphic novel into English. Publishers across the globe were invited to submit for consideration graphic novels they have published that are translations of works into English.
Similar awards for the translation of comics into other languages are also taking place in Spain, Poland, Greece, Slovenia and Italy. The ultimate goal is to have these awards in as many countries in the world as possible.
The nine nominees for this year’s Award in English are as follows:
Martha Kuhlman and Tereza Čechová for Bald, by Tereza Čechová, with art by Štěpánka Jislová. English edition by Graphic Mundi. Originally published as Bez vlasů in Czech by Nakladatelství Paseka in 2020; winner of the Czech Republic’s annual Muriel Award for best comic book of the year in 2021
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Tereza never thought she would go bald before her boyfriend did. She couldn’t imagine being unable to sweep her hair up in a ponytail or to style it in other ways. But when she lost all her hair in just a couple of months due to alopecia, her perspective on relationships and work – and above all, herself – radically changed.
Navigating the particular trauma of female hair loss, Tereza comes to terms with her new reality with humour and self-reflection in this prize-winning graphic memoir featuring eye-catching art by Štěpánka Jislová.
Tereza Čechová stopped wearing a wig a long time ago, but she hasn’t stopped talking about alopecia. She studied journalism and media sciences at the Faculty of Social Sciences at Charles University in Prague. Together with Štěpánka Jislová, she founded Laydeez do Comics Praha, which promotes the work of female comic book authors.
Štěpánka Jislová graduated from the Ladislav Sutnar Faculty of Design and Art in Pilsen. She is the author or coauthor of seven comic books, including SUPRO and Heartcore, and her short comic stories have been published in several anthologies.
Diana Schutz and Brandon Kander for Blacksad: They All Fall Down, Part Two, by Juan Díaz Canales & Juanjo Guarnido. English edition by Dark Horse Comics. Originally published in French by Dargaud in 2021
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Weekly’s been framed by Lewis Solomon, the power behind New York’s construction boom, but the king of the hill has built his empire on a mound of corpses, including union attorney Kenneth Clarke and theatre director Iris Allen, and Blacksad must take out their killer before he can take down Solomon. But with Weekly in stir and cops on his heels, the feline detective is minus an ally – and the sudden reappearance of his lost love Alma promises a dangerous distraction as he seeks to uncover the truth.
Born in Madrid in 1972, Juan Díaz Canales began his career at 18 for the Spanish animation studio Lápiz Azul, where he and Juanjo Guarnido first met. After Guarnido moved to Paris, the two traded ideas about the project that became Blacksad, a series of graphic albums written by Díaz Canales as a 1950s noir. The writer now juggles scripting for comics and animation, as well as directing for television. While Blacksad was Canales’s first published comics work, he has collaborated with several artists, most recently with Antonio Lapone on the Eisner-nominated Gentlemind, co-written with Díaz Canales’s wife Teresa Valero.
Juanjo Guarnido was born in Granada, Spain, in 1967. After meeting Juan Díaz Canales at the Lápiz Azul animation studio, Guarnido moved to Paris in 1993 to join the Walt Disney Studios satellite in Montreuil, where he worked as an animator. While there, Guarnido began drawing his first graphic album, working long-distance with Díaz Canales toward the 2000 publication of Blacksad: Somewhere within the Shadows. The overwhelming success of the title has allowed Guarnido to take on other projects, like Sorcelleries with writer Teresa Valero and the recent best-selling Les Indes Fourbes with writer Alain Ayroles.
Margaret Morrison for Capital & Ideology by Claire Alet and Benjamin Adam. English edition by Abrams ComicArts. Originally published in French by Sueil in 2021
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Thomas Piketty’s powerful and bestselling Capital and Ideology is now available in this accessible and richly illustrated full-colour graphic novel format.
Praised by Piketty himself as a “magnificent adaptation” of his original book, this graphic novel adaptation is perfect for anyone looking to understand the wealth gap and why society is the way it is today.
Claire Alet and Benjamin Adam make the original work’s ideas more accessible through the addition of a family saga. Jules, the main character, is born at the end of the 19th century. He is a person of private means, a privileged figure representative of a profoundly unequal society obsessed with property.
He, his family circle, and his descendants will experience the evolution of wealth and society. Eight generations of his family serve as a connecting thread running through the book, all the way up to Léa, a young woman today, who discovers the family secret at the root of their inheritance.
The book concludes with six compelling proposals for participatory socialism in the 21st century.
Friendly and approachable illustrations by cartoonist and children’s book author Benjamin Adam are easy to understand without diluting the subject matter. The material is adapted expertly by Claire Alet, a former journalist at Alternatives Economiques.
Claire Alet graduated from Sciences-Po and worked as a journalist at Alternatives Economiques for several years. She is also author of documentary films for Arte and directs a literature of reality series at Bayard.
Benjamin Adam is a cartoonist and illustrator of children’s books living in France. Joker (La Pastèque, 2015) and Soon (Dargaud, 2019) are among his most recently published books. Soon was selected as one of several graphic novels translated into English by Europe Comics, an initiative by the European Commission meant to spread the heritage and art of European graphic novels worldwide.
Jerome Saincantin & Erica Olson Jeffrey for Harry Dickson – Mysterion, by Jean Ray, Onofrio Catacchio, Doug Headline and Luana Vergari. English edition by Cinebook. Originally published in French as Harry Dickson – Mystera by Dupuis in 2023
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Famous investigator Harry Dickson is just back in London after some well-deserved holidays, and already Scotland Yard are seeking his help again, for there are very strange events afoot. A famous heiress and writer, Delphina Cruikshank, has vanished from a locked house. The corpse of an executed murderer has disappeared.. while the doctor who was autopsying him was murdered. And Mysterion, Miss Cruikshank’s new character, may not be entirely fictional!
Onofrio Catacchio is the creator of the character Stella Rossa, who first appeared in the magazines Fuego and Nova Express, later collected in volumes published by Granata Press.
Victor Martins for Not Today: Undoing Home Repairs by Ana Margarida Matos. English Edition by Fieldmouse Press. Originally published in Portuguese as Hoje Não by Chili Com Carne
Caught in the COVID pandemic lockdowns, Not Today: Undoing Home Repairs is a daily record between January 16 and June 26, 2021. The author starts a lockdown diary with the premise that she will never lose track of time again. As time moves on, she beings documenting anything and everything that happens in the day, from little things like her dinner menu to catastrophic things like the COVID-19 case load. As the lockdown stretches on, the swirl of Margarida’s thoughts become claustrophobic and labyrinthine. A dense and beautiful debut work that questions what is, and what is to come.
Ryan Holmberg for Oba Electroplating Factory by Yoshiharu Tsuge. English edition by Drawn and Quarterly. Originally published in Japanese as 大場電気鍍金工業所 in 1973 by Futabasha
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An alt-manga legend strikes out on his own, creating some of his most revealing and personal works. Oba Electroplating Factory is a startlingly bleak but nonetheless captivating portrait of mid-century Japan in its most unglamorous iteration. Glimpses of the artist reflecting upon his life, his work, and his contemporaries pepper the narrative landscape: a wife teases her husband about a former fling on a trip to the hot springs, a young cartoonist is aghast at the cavalier conduct of his supposed betters, and imperfect men must grapple with the discomfort of their own honesty.
Tsuge’s stories are studies in staging nature, working to evoke stillness and movement in such a way that renders his chosen setting a character all on its own.
Following the breakthrough success of Nejishiki, Yoshiharu Tsuge forged a path for autofiction in manga and changed the cultural landscape of comics forever. Some of his most revealing and personal works were published between 1973 to 1974. As much as it is a testament to the author’s predilection for addressing sensitive and mature themes in response to his culture, this volume also collects works from the only period in which Tsuge tries his hand at writing for a mainstream audience in earnest.
This is the fourth volume in the complete works of a legendary manga-ka, an indispensable addition to the literary comics canon and shining example of world literature at its most human.
Andrea Rosenberg for Return to Eden by Paco Roca. English edition by Fantagraphics. Originally published in Spanish as Regreso al Edén by Astiberri Ediciones in 2020
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It all starts with a photograph: an ordinary scene of a young woman and her family picnicking at a Valencian beach in 1947. Now in her twilight years, Antonia cherishes this photo dearly; it holds the memories of her upbringing, her family ― the key to her Eden. Taking off from this routine family outing, cartoonist Paco Roca paints a heartfelt portrait of his mother’s formative years. This delicate portrayal of a humble family is at once an intimate biographical story and a broader reflection of the hardscrabble existence many faced in post-war Spain. Antonia and her family soldier through constant hunger, the shady dealings of the black market, traumas of war and parental abuse, and the oppressive atmosphere wrought by the Catholic church and Franco’s authoritarian regime ― and yet, they find oases of joy and wonder in cinema, imagination, and small acts of kindness.
Roca is known the world over for his quietly powerful graphic novels, from Twists of Fate to The House, and this latest masterwork may just be his magnum opus. In Return to Eden, Roca manages to charge quotidian life with rare poignancy, in all its daily struggles and daydreams, and readers will come away deeply affected.
Paco Roca (Francisco Martínez Roca) is a graphic artist and a cartoonist from Valencia, Spain, who has won several art/writing awards. His graphic novel Wrinkles has been adapted into an animated movie.
Montana Kane for The Incredible Story of Cooking: From Prehistory to Today, 500, 000 Years of Adventure by Benoist Simmat and Stéphane Douay. English Edition by NBM Graphic Novels. Originally published in French as L’Incroyable Histoire de la cuisine by Les Arènes BD in 2021
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For the first time, a graphic novel, by the authors of Wine, A Graphic History, tells the story of humanity through the evolution of cuisine. From the discovery of fire to organic cooking, this book is aimed at all curious people and foodies.
As soon as humans mastered fire, they invented cooking. Did you know that Sapiens invented steam cooking and freezing? That the Mesopotamians created soups, bread, beer, ovens? That gastronomy and tableware have been symbols of political power? These great discoveries changed the world, but also the way we eat. From America, the conquistadors brought spices, peppers, potatoes… Portuguese missionaries brought the frying technique to distant samurai who made the first tempuras. These are the beginnings of globalisation. In the 19th century with the industrial revolution, “capitalist” cuisine emerged: it was the beginning of the food industry. In the 21st century, the organic and buy local movements are shown as a reaction against the harmful effects of this culinary and gastronomic standardization.
To finish in style, find twenty-two recipes for dishes mentioned throughout our story that you can make at home…
Benoist Simmat is a journalist on economics and successful comic book writer. He is most notably the author of Wine, A Graphic History which sold over 100,000 copies in France and has been translated into many languages.
Stéphane Douay has been illustrating comics for over twenty years. He has illustrated the series Matiè re fantô me (published by Dupuis), Commandant Achab (Casterman) and Les Anné es rouge & noir (Les Arènes).
Robin Lang and Helge Dascher for The Jellyfish by Boum (Samantha Leriche-Gionet). English edition by Pow Pow Press. Originally published in French as La méduse by Pow Pow in 2023
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Odette is a twenty-something year old with their own place, a steady job at a local bookstore, an adorable pet rabbit, and a budding crush on one of their customers. But Odette is haunted by something only they can see: a jellyfish that’s floating in their eye, blocking their vision. It’s a seemingly minor annoyance…until the jellyfish starts multiplying.
Showcasing stunning and inventive artwork by Boum (Boumeries), The Jellyfish is a tour-de-force of graphic storytelling, a powerful, occasionally terrifying story of facing the thing that we fear the most and finding a light to guide us through the darkness.
Boum (Samantha Leriche-Gionet) was born in Montreal in 1985. Holder of a bachelor’s degree in animation, she has seen her short films travel around the world. Since 2011, Boum has dedicated her time to creating comics. Her many works include A Small Revolution and her long-running, award-winning series Boumeries. She has a husband, two daughters, two cats, and a long to-do list. Over the past fifteen years, Boum has suffered from a number of eye conditions. In March 2021, she became permanently blind in her right eye.
Winners’ Announcement
The winners of this year’s Sophie Castille Award – English will be announced during this year’s Lakes International Comic Art Festival (Friday 26th – Sunday 28th September 2025) in Bowness-on-Windermere.
The jury again comprises three judges:
Alex Fitch is the presenter of the UK’s only monthly broadcast radio show on comics – Panel Borders – on the Arts Council Radio Station in London. He has been widely published on the topics of film and graphic novels, lectures on the History of Animation at the University of Brighton, and is an award-winning postgraduate comics scholar.
Dr Harriet E. H. Earle is a senior lecturer of English at Sheffield Hallam University and a research fellow at the Centre for War, Atrocity, and Genocide at Nipissing University in Canada. She is the author of Silence in the Quagmire: The Vietnam War in US Comics and Comics: An Introduction.
Gabi Putnoki is the driving force behind the Graphic Novel Reading Room, a comic community initiative spreading the love of graphic novel reading and bringing new readers to the form.
Head downthetubes for…
• The Sophie Castille Award website: sophie-castille-awards.org
• ICV2, 13th July 2022: Tributes to Sophie Castille
• ComicWatch: Translating BLACKSAD: A Conversation with Editor and Translator Diana Schutz
• The Lakes International Comic Art Festival is online at: comicartfestival.com | comicscanchangetheworld.com | BlueSky | Facebook | Instagram| YouTube
• For more on the Lakes International Comic Art Festival’s Comic Development Work please visit Comics Can Change the World at comicscanchangetheworld.com | Follow Comics4Change on BlueSky
- About the Author
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John is the founder of downthetubes, launched in 1998. He is a comics and magazine editor, writer, and Press Officer for the Lakes International Comic Art Festival. He also runs Crucible Comic Press.
Working in British comics publishing since the 1980s, his credits include editor of titles such as Doctor Who Magazine and Overkill for Marvel UK, Babylon 5 Magazine, Star Trek Magazine, and its successor, Star Trek Explorer, and more. He also edited the comics anthology STRIP Magazine and edited several audio comics for ROK Comics; and has edited several comic collections and graphic novels, including volumes of “Charley’s War” and “Dan Dare”, and Hancock: The Lad Himself, by Stephen Walsh and Keith Page.
He’s the writer of comics such as Pilgrim: Secrets and Lies for B7 Comics; “Crucible”, a creator-owned project with 2000AD artist Smuzz; and “Death Duty” and “Skow Dogs”, with Dave Hailwood.
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