Tag: Cartoonist Cooperative

Hourly Comic Day gets a new organizer, moves to Feb. 8

The annual event that encourages artists to draw a comic every hour celebrates its 20th anniversary.

Hourly Comics Day, the annual challenge where creators commit to making and posting a comic every hour for an entire day, has a new organizer and a new date, beginning this year.

The Cartoonist Cooperative has taken over the event and its website, following its lapse by the event’s founder, Simone Veil. Veil founded the event in 2006, making this year the event’s 20th anniversary.

Traditionally the day has been held on Feb. 1, but the Coop has decided to move it to Feb. 8 to avoid conflicts with the start of the U.S.’s Black History Month, which marks its 100th anniversary in the United States this year.

“In prior years, Black cartoonists have noted that when social media and blogs are saturated with posts from non-Black cartoonists focusing on their daily lives, it can make the first day of this important month feel like an afterthought,” the announcement on the site read. “As Feb 1st was an arbitrarily chosen date, there is no reason it cannot be changed, particularly given the anniversary.”

It’s a fun day to follow on social media, so be sure to check your favorite platform on Feb. 8 using the hashtag #HourlyComicsDay. You can see some of my favorites from 2025 here. For more information, visit the event’s website.

Cartoonist Cooperative announces nominees for the 2024 Minicomic Awards

The annual award recognizes creators making under-the-radar, short-form comics.

The Cartoonist Cooperative has announced the nominees for their 2024 Minicomics Awards, which they started giving out in 2022.

Founded by cartoonists Leslie Hung and Sloane Leong, the awards shine a light on “the unique, challenging, and under-recognized work in this short form medium.” The awards are presented across five categories based on genre, including horror, science fiction, fantasy, romance and autobiography.

The winners will be announced in a virtual ceremony on March 14 at 3 p.m. Pacific. The five winners will split a prize of $3,700.

Here are this year’s nominees:

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Quick Hits | ‘Chivalry’ wins at the Locus Awards

Plus: #ComicsBrokeMe, Lambda Literary Awards, Hoopla adds manga and more.

Awards | Chivalry, the short story by Neil Gaiman adapted into a graphic novel by Colleen Doran, has won a Locus Award in the category of “Illustrated and Art Book.” The graphic novel, which was published by Dark Horse, was up against several traditional art books and a few other graphic novels like The Night Eaters in the category. Artist Charles Vess also won another Locus Award in the category of “Best Artist.”

Industry | Writing for the Daily Beast, Chris Kindred talks to several comic creators about the #ComicsBrokeMe hashtag that Shivana Sookdeo created after the death of Ian McGinty and the stories they shared about working in the comics industry.

“The act of creating hundreds of well-illustrated pages takes serious time, significant strain on the body, and mental stamina. So many of us have sustained significant damage to our health trying to make ends meet,” Sookdeo told Kindred.

The article also notes the creation of the Cartoonist Cooperative, a creator-run organization trying to address these issues within the industry.

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Sunday Comics | New Emily Carroll comics debut on the web

Check out new comics by Skottie Young, Aaron Conley, Kagan Mcleod, J Bone 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.

Emily Carroll’s new graphic novel won’t arrive until August, but you can tide yourself over with two new comics on the creator’s website.

The first, A Pretty Place, is likely one you won’t see in print, or if you do, it won’t be the same experience. It’s an interactive comic about someone “visiting their lady,” and you can click around a map of the house to see what happens. If you’re familiar with Carroll’s work, then you can guess this is less of a romance and more of a horror comic.

Speaking of which, Carroll has also posted a fan comic for the game Bloodborne by FromSoftware.

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Quick Hits | ‘Dilbert’ fallout

Also: news on Dina Norlund, Cartoonist Cooperative, the Minicomic Awards and more.

With the comic strip Dilbert being dropped by both newspapers and its distributor after its creator’s racist remarks on YouTube, many newspapers have a gap to fill on their comics page. The Washington Post will fill their Dilbert-sized hole with Heart of the City by Steenz, and Women Write About Comics caught up with the cartoonist at the Emerald City Comic Con to talk about the change.

“I think it’s a big deal because of two reasons,” Steenz told WWAC. “Reason number one is that I’m Black, and he hates Black people. [laughs] No, but it’s a nice way to just stick it to him, you know? But it’s also a big deal because we still rarely see a new influx of creators and syndicated comic strips, and I would like to see more of that. Obviously, legacy comics are there for a reason. Everyone’s going to want to keep reading Zits, everyone’s going to keep reading, you know, Jump Start, because those creators are still around and they want to keep making those comics. But I also want to see some new things. You should be able to get a newspaper and find someone new and not just have the old standards.”

In related news, the Associated Press spoke with several cartoonists about Scott Adams and his remarks, including Candorville creator Darin Bell, who is running a response to Adams in his comic strip this week.

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