The seventh annual Mike Wieringo Comic Book Industry Awards, honouring the best comics of 2022, were held at Baltimore Comic-Con this weekend. Canadian comic creator Kate Beaton won Best Cartoonist, and Best Non-Fiction Comic Work for her powerful autobiography, Ducks: Two Years in the Oil Sands, while Chris and Laura Samnee won Best Single Issue or Story, and Best Kids Comic or Graphic Novel for Jonna and the Unpossible Monsters.
The full list of winners, including a number of British comic creators such as Joe Glass, Sean Phillips and Zoe Thorogood, follows.
Best Cartoonist (Writer/Artist): Kate Beaton
Kate Beaton is a Canadian cartoonist who lives in Toronto, appeared on the comics scene in 2007 with her online work, Hark! A Vagrant! Since then, she has become a fan favourite and has garnered a significant following, with illustrations appearing in places like the New Yorker, Harper’s, and Marvel’s Strange Tales anthology.
Her first book with D+Q, Hark! A Vagrant, spent five months on the New York Times bestseller list, and topped best of the year lists from Time, E!, Amazon, and Publishers Weekly. Beaton’s cartoons often display a wonderfully light touch on historical and literary topics. The jokes are a knowing look at history through a very modern perspective, and a campaign against anyone with the idea that history is boring.
The Princess and the Pony, Kate’s first picture book came out with Scholastic in July 2015 to starred reviews from School Library Journal, Kirkus, Booklist, Publisher’s Weekly, and many others. Her second comic collection Step Aside, Pops, was also released through Drawn and Quarterly. Kate Beaton lives in Toronto, Canada.
Best Writer: Ed Brubaker
Ed Brubaker is one of the most acclaimed writers in comics, winning five best writer Eisner and Harvey Awards in the last ten years. His bestselling work with Sean Phillips on CRIMINAL, INCOGNITO, FATALE, and THE FADE OUT has been translated around the world to great acclaim, and Marvel’s movies featuring his co-creation, The Winter Soldier, have all been international blockbusters.
Ed lives in Los Angeles with his wife and their crazy dog, where he works in comics, film, and television, most recently on HBO’s new hit series WESTWORLD.
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Best Artist or Penciller: Evan “Doc” Shaner
Evan is a DC Comics exclusive cartoonist. His past works include Future Quest, The Terrifics, Man of Steel, Supergirl, and Doom Patrol, Strange Adventures, and The New Champion of SHAZAM! among others. He lives in Michigan with his wife, two children, and dog.
Best Inker: Klaus Janson
Klaus Janson is a German-born American comics artist, working regularly for Marvel Comics and DC Comics and sporadically for independent companies. While he is best known as an inker, Janson has frequently worked as a penciller and colourist.
Best Letterer: Hassan Otsmane-Elhaou and Stan Sakai (tie)
Hassan is also the Eisner Award-winning editor of PanelxPanel, the monthly digital magazine celebrating the comics medium.
Stan began his comics career as a letterer, while perfecting his comic art. He also wrote and illustrated The Adventures of Nilson Groundthumper and Hermy; a comic series with a medieval setting, influenced by Sergio Aragones’s Groo the Wanderer. The characters first appeared in Albedo #1 in 1984, and were subsequently featured in issues of Critters, GrimJack, Amazing Heroes and Furrlough.
Stan became famous with the creation of Usagi Yojimbo, the epic saga of Miyamoto Usagi, a samurai rabbit living in late-sixteenth and early-seventeenth-century Japan.
Best Colourist: Jordie Bellaire
Jordie Bellaire is an Eisner winning colourist best known for her colour work on Vision, Batman, Pretty Deadly and others.
Following the success of her Eisner-nominated writing debut at Image, Redlands with co-creator Vanesa R. Del Rey, Jordie launched the BOOM! Studios reboot of Buffy the Vampire Slayer and is currently writing The Adventures of Young Diana for DC’s Wonder Woman while coloring many interesting projects at Marvel, DC and Dark Horse. She lives in Portland, Oregon.
Best Cover Artist: Greg Smallwood
Greg Smallwood is a comic book artist who made his debut in 2013 with the award-winning series, Dream Thief, a supernatural noir he co-created with Bram Stoker award winner Jai Nitz. In 2014, he began a long run as artist on Marvel’s Moon Knight, working with Eisner award winners Brian Wood and Jeff Lemire. For his work on the series, Smallwood won the 2015 Russ Manning Award for Most Promising Newcomer.
In 2018, he made his writing debut on the critically-acclaimed Vampironica for Archie Comics and his art on the series won the National Cartoonist Society Comic Books Award that same year. In addition to his interior art, he is also a prolific cover artist, known for his work on The Punisher, The Archies, and Star Wars.
Best Series: Something is Killing the Children by James Tynion IV and Werther Dell’Edera, BOOM! Studios
When children begin to go missing in the town of Archer’s Peak, all hope seems lost until a mysterious woman arrives to reveal that terrifying creatures are behind the chaos – and that she alone will destroy them, no matter the cost…
• Buy the Something is Killing the Children Book One Deluxe Edition (AmazonUK Affiliate Link)
Best Single Issue or Story: Jonna and the Unpossible Monsters by Chris and Laura Samnee, Oni Press
An all-ages comic action adventure. Rainbow has been searching for her sister, Jonna, for a year. The last time she saw Jonna was also the first time she saw one of the monsters that now roam the planet. They’re big, ugly, and dangerous creatures, driving humanity to the brink of extinction. Though there isn’t much hope for survival out in the wild, Rainbow knows that her sister is out there somewhere — and she’ll do anything to find her.
• Buy the collected editions from AmazonUK (Affiliate Link)
Best Original Graphic Novel: It’s Lonely at the Centre of the Earth by Zoe Thorogood, Image Comics
Cartoonist Zoe Thorogood records six months of her own life as it falls apart in a desperate attempt to put it back together again in the only way she knows how. It’s Lonely at the Centre of the Earth is an intimate and metanarrative look into the life of a selfish artist who must create for her own survival. A poignant and original depiction of a young woman’s struggle with mental health ― through the ups and downs of anxiety, depression, and imposter syndrome ― as she forges a promising career in sequential art and finds herself along the way.
Zoe Thorogood, who seems stunned she won and award, is a comics creator based in Middlesbrough. Her most recent works also include The Impending Blindness of Billie Scott and HAHA. She also frequently works as a cover artist and concept artist.As well as her comics practice Zoe also enjoys doing concept art and character design on a freelance basis. Most recently, she’s worked for Image Comics as a cover artist.
Best Anthology: Young Men in Love: A Queer Romance Anthology, A Wave Blue World | Edited by Joe Glass & Matt Miner | Cover Art by Kevin Wada
Featuring the work of Sina Grace, Chris Shehan, Charles Pulliam-Moore, David Booher, Anthony Olivera, Terry Blas and more
Haphazard pirates, wayward ghosts, dashing knights, rampaging kaiju (and down-to-earth regular joes!) are all assembled here to amaze and delight you in a wildly unique anthology celebrating love between men, from an astounding array of comics creators who know exactly how it feels.
Young Men in Love is a heartwarming, uplifting, and vibrant return to the glory days of romance comics.
Best Humour Comic: The Illustrated Al: The Songs of ‘Weird Al’ Yankovic by Various, Z2 Comics
Winner of five Grammy Awards and 11 notations, “Weird Al” Yankovic has written some ALL of the greatest songs of both the 20th and 21st centuries. Z2 gathered some of the top living cartoonists to express Al’s “Yankovisions” visually within this book’s pages. The great Al-merican songbook features 20+ classic songs interpreted by such artists as Drew Friedman, Mike & Laura Allred, Bill Plympton, Aaron Augenblick, Peter Bagge, Sam Viviano, Steve Chanks, Danny Hellman, Felipe Sobreiro, Gideon Kendall, Michael Kupperman, Wes Hargis + many more.
Best Webcomic: Lore Olympus by Rachel Smythe, Webtoon
Scandalous gossip, wild parties, and forbidden love – witness what the gods do after dark in this stylish and contemporary reimagining of one of mythology’s best-known stories.
• Buy the collections of Lore Olympus from AmazonUK (Affiliate Link)
Best Humor Webcomic: Evil Inc by Brad J. Guigar
Evil Inc is a corporation run for super-villains by super-villains, which you can read first on Patreon. It’s the creation of Brad Guigar, one of the longest-running webcartoonists in the world, having published his daily strips and other comics on the Web since February 2000. His current ongoing comics are Evil Inc and its nsfw companion, Evil Inc After Dark. He has published over two dozen collections of his comics, and he is the author of three books on the subject of cartooning: The Everything Cartooning Book, How To Make Webcomics, and The Webcomics Handbook.
He also operates a tutorial-and-advice site, Webcomics.com, and he teaches Arts Entrepreneurship, Sequential Art, and Storytelling at both Hussian School of Art and The University of the Arts in Philadelphia. He records a weekly podcast with fellow cartoonist Dave Kellett called ComicLab which can be found wherever you get your podcasts.
Best Non-Fiction Comic Work: Ducks: Two Years in the Sand by Kate Beaton, Drawn & Quarterly
Ducks has also recently been nominated for the Brooklyn Public Library Book Prize.
Before there was Kate Beaton, New York Times bestselling cartoonist of Hark A Vagrant, there was Katie Beaton of the Cape Breton Beatons, a tight-knit seaside community. After university, Katie heads out west to take advantage of Alberta’s oil rush, part of the long tradition of East Coast Canadians who seek gainful employment elsewhere when they can’t find it in the homeland they love so much. With the singular goal of paying off her student loans, what the journey will actually cost Katie will be far more than she anticipates.
Arriving in Fort McMurray, Katie finds work in the lucrative camps owned and operated by the world’s largest oil companies. As one of the few women among thousands of men, the culture shock is palpable. It does not hit home until she moves to a spartan, isolated worksite for higher pay. Katie encounters the harsh reality of life in the oil sands where trauma is an everyday occurrence yet never discussed. For young Katie, her wounds may never heal.
Beaton’s natural cartooning prowess is on full display as she draws colossal machinery and mammoth vehicles set against a sublime Albertan backdrop of wildlife, Northern Lights, and Rocky Mountains. Her first full length graphic narrative, Ducks: Two Years in the Oil Sands is an untold story of Canada: a country that prides itself on its egalitarian ethos and natural beauty while simultaneously exploiting both the riches of its land and the humanity of its people.
Best Kids Comic or Graphic Novel: Jonna and the Unpossible Monsters by Chris and Laura Samnee, Oni Press
Best Presentation in Design: Richard Stark’s Parker: The Martini Edition – Last Call, IDW Publishing
The long-awaited companion to the Award-winning Martini Edition collects The Score and Slayground in a beautiful oversized slipcase edition. It features more than 100 pieces of never-before-seen Parker art by Darwyn Cooke; a round table talk with Ed Brubaker, Sean Phillips, Bruce Timm, and Scott Dunbier on Parker and Cooke; and a brand-new 17-page story by multiple Eisner Award-winning creators Ed Brubaker and Sean Phillips.
Darwyn Cooke crafted four universally acclaimed Parker graphic novels, adapted from the works of Richard Stark (a pseudonym for Donald Westlake), before his untimely death. This volume will be (along with the Martini Edition) the last word on Cooke’s brilliant Parker stories.
This edition is a loving tribute to the legacy of Darwyn Cooke and Parker.
The Mike Wieringo Comic Book Industry Awards is an annual celebration of the creativity, skill and fun of comics, named after Michael Lance “Mike” Wieringo (June 24, 1963 – August 12, 2007), who often signed his work Ringo, is an American comics artist best known for his work on DC Comics’ The Flash, Marvel Comics’ Fantastic Four, and his co-creation Tellos. Nominations are determined by fans and pros alike.
Mike thought good comics were entertaining and innovative. If you could hold his attention and delight and intrigue his artistic sensibilities at the same time, he’d shout your name from the rooftops. And, if it turned out you were a decent, nice person to boot, he’d be your friend for life.
Mark Waid and Dan Mora won the Mike Wieringo Comic Book Industry Spirit Award for Batman/Superman: World’s Finest, while Chris Claremont received the Hero Initiative Lifetime Achievement Award, and Al Milgrom was given the organisation’s Dick Giordano Humanitarian Award.
The following Fan Award winners were also announced, many of them web comics:
• Fan Favourite Hero: Sam Young, Let’s Play
• Fan Favourite Villain: Adam, The Guy Upstairs
• Fan Favourite New Series: Nevermore by Kate Flynn and Kit Trace, Webtoon
• Fan Favourite New Talent: Ellie Wright
• Fan Favourite Publisher: Dark Horse
Congratulations to all the winners!
The founder of downthetubes, which he established in 1998. John works as a comics and magazine editor, writer, and on promotional work for the Lakes International Comic Art Festival. He is currently editor of Star Trek Explorer, published by Titan – his third tour of duty on the title originally titled Star Trek Magazine.
Working in British comics publishing since the 1980s, his credits include editor of titles such as Doctor Who Magazine, Babylon 5 Magazine, and more. He also edited the comics anthology STRIP Magazine and edited several audio comics for ROK Comics. He has also edited several comic collections, including volumes of “Charley’s War” and “Dan Dare”.
He’s the writer of “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.
Categories: Comics, Creating Comics, downthetubes Comics News, downthetubes News, Events, US Comics
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