75th annual NCS Reuben Awards nominees announced

Winners will be revealed in October.

The National Cartoonist Society has trickled out the nominees for this year’s Reuben Award and the accompanying NCS Divisional Awards over the last few months, as they prepare for the big awards ceremony in October.

The divisional awards include categories that cover comic books, webcomics, political cartoons and more. I’ve included the nominations that are relevant to the world of comics, but you can find the complete nominations lists here and here.

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Nominees announced for the 2021 Ringo Awards

Winners are scheduled to be announced at the Baltimore Comic-Con in October.

The nominees for the 2021 Ringo Awards have been announced, marking the fifth year for the awards program named for artist Mike Wieringo, who passed away in 2007.

Nominees were chosen by fans, along with a panel of judges that included retailer and online host Amy Dallen, Teaching Graphic Novels author Dr. Katie Monnin, podcaster/broadcast journalist John Siuntres, cartoonist Steenz and artist Brain Stelfreeze.

The fifth annual awards presentation will take place at The Baltimore Comic-Con on Oct. 23.

Here are the nominees:

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Sunday Comics | Afghanistan, masks and killer bees

Check out recent comics by Jay Hosler, Alex de Campi, Christine Larsen, MariNaomi, B.J. Mendelson and more.

Here’s a round up of some of the best comics we’ve seen online recently. If we missed something, let us know in the comments below or on social media.

As the United States ends its occupation of Afghanistan, political cartoonist and The Nib founder Matt Bors looks back at the comics he created as a result of a trip he took to the country in 2010:

In August of 2010 I embarked on a month long trip through Afghanistan with fellow cartoonists Ted Rall and Steven Cloud. We traveled unembedded throughout the North of the country and in the capital of Kabul. It was the ninth year of the war and, at the time, the height of the Taliban insurgency and US troop presence.

The goal of the trip was to hear from Afghans directly, see the occupation for ourselves, and share those experience—through writing, comics, and photography. I captured a lot in sketchbooks and filed a series of comics through my syndicate where papers normally ran my political cartoons. The following comics are a series of vignettes on Afghanistan and represent some my earliest attempts at more realistic nonfiction comics. These originally ran online at Cartoon Movement, but appear to be lost to web decay, so I wanted to publish them again here—for posterity and for any insight they still hold.

You can see his comics here.

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DC, Webtoon partner to make webcomics

The partnership will bring popular DC characters to the webcomics juggernaut’s worldwide platform.

DC Comics and Webtoon have announced a partnership that will bring DC’s characters to the popular webcomics platform.

According to the press release, these will be “standalone series” that “will appeal to all fans, without the need to know or read any previous stories,” but they will be set in the DC Universe.

“DC is excited to introduce our iconic characters to a new generation of fans worldwide,” said DC General Manager Daniel Cherry III. “We’ve been working closely with the Webtoon writers and artists to adapt our characters and stories to Webtoon’s mobile format. Our shared goal is to create fun and compelling DC stories that all readers will enjoy. This partnership is yet another example of DC’s ambition to ‘meet fans where ever they are’ and continue sharing DC fandom. ”

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Sunday Comics | A cartoon journey around Vermont

Check out recent online comics from Caanan Grall, Ben Passmore, Matthew Dow Smith, Lar DeSouza and more.

Here’s a round up of some of the best comics we’ve seen online recently. If we missed something, let us know in the comments below or on social media.

Vermont’s indie newspaper Seven Days produces an issue dedicated to comics every year, with the most recent one arriving about a month ago. Contributors included Sally Pollak, Michael Tonn, Jordan Barry, Coco Fox, Ezra Veitch and more, while Vermont cartoon laureate James Kochalka provided the cover.

“… any of the stories in the following pages could have been reported and written traditionally,” Assistant Arts Editor Dan Bolles wrote. “Presented in graphic form, however, they shimmer through the lenses of talented artists, who see the material differently from reporters.”

Some of the topics they covered included a visual trip through Guster lead singer Ryan Miller’s Vermont (shown above), a look at a Vermont law that allows to-go cocktails and an excerpt from a comic about the U.S. health care system created by Vermont’s Center for Cartoon Studies. You can find links to all these different comics from Bolles’ write-up on the issue.

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AdHouse will collect the Immonens’ ‘Grass of Parnassus’

The hardcover collection will be released in September.

AdHouse Books will publish a hardcover collection of Kathryn Immonen and Stuart Immonen’s Grass of Parnassus in September.

The husband and wife duo have worked together in the past on Never As Bad As You Think, Moving Pictures and Marvel’s Hellcat. They initially launched Grass of Parnassus on Instagram, although the account for it no longer exists. You can, however, see a lot of artwork, sketches and behind-the-scenes information on the Immonens’ Twitter feed. And you can check out a trailer for it below:

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Help fund a third volume of ‘The Abominable Charles Christopher’

Karl Kerschl is crowdfunding another edition of his award-winning webcomic.

The Abominable Charles Christopher, the award-winning webcomic by Karl Kerschl, is now up on Kickstarter.

Kerschl is crowdfunding a third collection of strips, but if you missed the first two books, no worries — they can be purchased during the campaign as well.

“The story of The Abominable Charles Christopher began way back in 2007 as a long-form webcomic inspired by The Epic of Gilgamesh,” the Kickstarter page reads. “It’s been collected in two self-published volumes to date, chronicling Charles’ adventures through the Cedar Forest and into the kingdom of the bratty child-king, Gilgamesh. Now, the long-awaited third volume is here to continue Charles’ story!”

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Sunday Comics | Ty Templeton, pandemic dogs and Eisner noms

Check out webcomics by Sarak Mirk, Simon Hanselmann, Alec Longstreth and more.

Here’s a round up of some of the best comics we’ve seen online recently. If we missed something, let us know in the comments below.

We’d like to extend our best wishes to Ty Templeton, who recently revealed he has been diagnosed with stage 3 colo-rectal cancer in his autobiographical webcomic Bun Toons.

“So, I’m going to be having the fuzzy, floppy-eared, FUN kind of Cancer. I’ve decided,” he posted. “I’m not looking for sympathy — my experience of chemo and radiation (so far) has been quite tolerable — and I’m fairly confident I’m coming out the other side of this, alive and hopping, later this year. But I wanted folks informed, so they don’t wonder why I got SUPER-lazy this year, and just stopped drawing Batman Adventures Continue (and why I missed a couple of deadlines late last year too!).”

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Tapas taps Jamie S. Rich as its new editor-in-chief

The former DC editor joins the webcomics company next week.

Former DC and Vertigo editor Jamie S. Rich has joined the webcomics juggernaut Tapas as its new editor-in-chief.

“Growing up reading indie and self-published comics in the 1980s, I saw whole new worlds, and I started telling my stories, too,” Rich told The Hollywood Reporter. “These days the realm may be digital, but it’s still comics. It’s still words and pictures, the basic components of modern storytelling. So, the great thing about Tapas is that it provides a platform for new voices, a place for the storytellers coming up now to share their voices. Anything is possible in a comic book.”

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Sunday Comics | The Superman/Batman fan comic that was nominated for an Eisner

Check out free comics on the web from Chan Chau, Connor Willumsen, Kerry Callen and more.

Here’s a round up of some of the best comics we’ve seen online recently. If we missed something, let us know in the comments below.

The 2021 Eisner Award nominees were released last week, so let’s start off by highlighting two of the comics nominated in the “Best Short Story” category. Up first is “Soft Lead” by cartoonist Chan Chau, a fan comic about Clark Kent and Bruce Wayne. Is this the first time a fan comic has ever been nominated for an Eisner? I’m guessing the answer is yes. Chau is also nominated in that same category for their short story “Parts of Us,” which appeared in the anthology Elements: Earth, A Comic Anthology by Creators of Color. They’re also currently working on the next Baby-Sitters Club graphic novel.

“I’m having an incredibly hard time coming up with words, but this all came as a huge shock,” Chau said about the double nomination. These two stories have been very dear to me, and to have them recognized means the world.”

“Soft Lead” re-imagines Clark Kent as a cartoonist, and the Daily Planet publishes his comic strips about his cat. He has a bit of a crisis as he contemplates whether it’s selfish to be doing something he enjoys — drawing cats — instead of saving the world. Luckily, he has a fan in Bruce Wayne.

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‘Bite-Sized Archie’ arrives on TinyView, comiXology

Archie Comics’ fun web series gets a syndication deal and a digital collection.

Bite Sized Archie, the fun webcomic that appears on Archie Comics’ website and social media channels, can now be found on TinyView and soon on comiXology as well.

The strip is the brainchild of two Archie employees — Ron Cacace, director of publicity & social media for Archie, and Vincent Lovallo, who serves as art director. They’ve done more than 20 strips featuring Archie characters, including the traditional Archie gang as well as some of their horror line characters, like Vampironica.

“We created Bite Sized Archie because we were looking for a new way to deliver funny and relevant comics content directly to our dedicated fans on social media,” said writer and Archie Comics Director of Publicity & Social Media Ron Cacace. “We’re continually amazed and humbled by the positive feedback from readers of all ages. And getting to add the series to a platform like Tinyview, where a whole new audience will be able to follow along weekly alongside our current readers on social media, it’s such a wonderful feeling and we’re so grateful for the opportunity.”

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‘Cosmoknights’ webcomic returns June 4

Hannah Templer’s ‘epic lesbian-gladiators-in-space adventure’ returns to the web next week, with another graphic novel planned for 2022.

Hannah Templer’s Cosmoknights will return to the web next week, while Top Shelf plans to collect the second volume into a graphic novel next year.

The first volume, which was recently nominated for Nutmeg Award, introduced a universe where “mech-suited warriors duel over the daughters of the aristocracy, and a fledgling resistance of lady knights aim to bring down the system from within.”

Templer has also revealed the cover for the second volume:

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