After taking a year off to regroup and prepare for arrival at their new home, the Harvey Awards have announced their nominees for 2018. It’s a very slimmed-down list of categories — just six, when typically they’ve had more than 20.
The most noticeable change is the lack of any awards recognizing creators; instead, the six categories recognize specific works. The other oddity is the addition of a “Best Adaptation” category, recognizing films, TV and any adaptations based on comics. Both of these changes have received criticism from comic creators since the nominees were announced yesterday.
But the Harvey Awards are no stranger to controversy. In the past they caused a few raised eyebrows over their nomination process, which led to some interesting and unexpected choices in each category. Per the press release, “Nominees for this year’s awards were selected by a handpicked group of diverse industry voices and will be voted on by eligible industry professionals.” The release doesn’t mention who they were specifically, but this quote gives a little more context: “We are proud to announce the nominees for the new slate of Harvey Awards. By opening up the process to librarians, educators, retailers and more, we believe that we have an accurate representation of this year’s best graphic works,” said Nellie Kurtzman, co-chair of the Harvey Awards Steering Committee.
For the five comic book-focused awards, the nominees are pretty strong and deserving of recognition, so I hope the controversy around the category changes doesn’t take away from that.
The awards will be announced on Oct. 5, the Friday of the New York Comic Con. Here’s the complete list of nominees:
Book Of The Year
Black Hammer: Secret Origins By Jeff Lemire, Dean Ormston and Dave Stewart (Dark Horse)
Boundless By Jillian Tamaki (Drawn And Quarterly)
Everything Is Flammable By Gabrielle Bell (Uncivilized Books)
Hostage By Guy Delisle (Drawn And Quarterly)
Kindred By Octavia E. Butler, Adapted By Damian Duffy And Illustrated By John Jennings (Abrams Comicarts)
Lighter Than My Shadow By Katie Green (Lion Forge)
Monstress By Marjorie Liu And Sana Takeda (Image)
My Favorite Thing Is Monsters By Emil Ferris (Fantagraphics)
Roughneck By Jeff Lemire (Gallery 13)
Shade The Changing Girl By Cecil Castellucci And Marley Zarcone (Dc Comics)
Spinning By Tillie Walden (First Second)
The Best We Could Do By Thi Bui (Abrams Books)
The Customer Is Always Wrong By Mimi Pond (Drawn And Quarterly)
The Flintstones By Mark Russell And Steve Pugh (Dc Comics)
The Prince And The Dressmaker By Jen Wang (First Second)
Digital Book Of The Year
Bandette By Paul Tobin And Colleen Coover (Monkeybrain)
Barrier By Brian K. Vaughn, Marcos Martin And Muntsa Vicente (Panel Syndicate)
Check, Please!: #hockey By Ngozi Ukazu (Checkpleasecomic.com)
Not Drunk Enough By Tessa Stone (Ndecomic.com)
The Tea Dragon Society By Katie O’Neill (Teadragonsociety.com)
Best Children Or Young Adult Book
Brave By Svetlana Chmakova (Jy)
Real Friends By Shannon Hale And Leuyeun Pham (First Second)
Spinning By Tillie Walden (First Second)
The Prince And The Dressmaker By Jen Wang (First Second)
The Tea Dragon Society By Katie O’Neill (Oni Press)
Best Adaptation From A Comic Book/graphic Novel
Atomic Blonde (Focus Features) – Directed By David Leitch. Adapted From “The Coldest City” (Oni Press)
Black Panther (Walt Disney Pictures) – Directed By Ryan Coogler. Adapted From “Black Panther” (Marvel Comics)
The Lego Batman Movie (Warner Bros.) – Directed By Chris Mckay. Adapted From “Batman” (Dc Comics)
Logan (20th Century Fox) – Directed By James Mangold. Adapted From “Wolverine” (Marvel Comics)
My Friend Dahmer (Filmrise) – Directed By Marc Meyers. Adapted From “My Friend Dahmer” (Abrams Comicarts)
Preacher (AMC) – Developed By Sam Catlin, Seth Rogen, Evan Goldberg. Adapted From “Preacher” (Dc/vertigo)
Riverdale (The CW) – Developed By Roberto Aguirre-sacasa. Adapted From “Archie” (Archie Comics)
The End Of The F***ing World (Netflix) – Written By Charlie Covell. Adapted From “The End Of The F***ing World” (Fantagraphics)
Thor: Ragnarok (Walt Disney Pictures) – Directed By Taika Waititi. Adapted From “Thor” (Marvel Comics)
Wonder Woman (Warner Bros.) – Directed By Patty Jenkins. Adapted From “Wonder Woman” (Dc Comics)
Best Manga
My Brother’s Husband By Gengoroh Tagame Anne Ishii (Pantheon Graphic Library)
My Hero Academia By Kohei Horikoshi (Viz Media)
My Lesbian Experience With Loneliness By Nagata Kabi (Seven Seas)
Tokyo Ghoul By Sui Ishida (Viz Media)
Your Name By Makoto Shinkai And Ranmaru Kotone (Yen Press)
Best European Book
Audubon: On The Wings Of The World by Fabien Grolleau And Jerémie Royer (Nobrow)
California Dreamin’: Cass Elliot Before The Mamas & The Papas by Pénélope Bagieu (First Second)
Flight Of The Raven by Jean-Pierre Gibrat (IDW)
The Ghost Of Gaudi by El Torres And Jesús Alonso Iglesias (Magnetic Press)
The Ladies In Waiting by Santiago García And Javier Olivares (Fantagraphics)
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