The Mississippi Library Association has awarded Jane’s World creator Paige Braddock with its Mississippi Authors Award for 2021, in the fiction category.
The award as presented to Braddock for the graphic novel collection Love Letters to Jane’s World, which was published by Oni Press. It collects “the most quintessentially Jane storylines from the strip’s early, middle and later years, and pairs them with ‘love letters’ and notes of appreciation from notable fans.”
Braddock created Jane’s World in the 1990s, and the comic strip ran for 20 years. The strip was the first gay-themed comic to receive online distribution by a national newspaper syndicate in the United States. In 2006, it was nominated for an Eisner Award. The strip concluded in 2018 with an event that couldn’t have happened in the United States when the strip began: the lead character, Jane, married her longtime on-again, off-again girlfriend Dorothy. Given all the recent headlines about LGBTQ+ graphic novels being banned in different parts of the country, it’s gratifying to see Jane’s World honored like this.
According to the MLA’s website, the Mississippi Authors Awards seek to recognize and encourage Mississippi authors and promote interest in local authors’ books, whether the books are about Mississippi or another subject. The honored author must be a Mississippian by birth or have lived in Mississippi for at least five consecutive years.