Hilary B. Price wins the 2023 Reuben Award

Jay Stephens, Evan Dahm, Sarah Andersen and more win NCS divisional awards.

Hilary B. Price, creator of Rhymes with Orange and the youngest woman to ever have a nationally syndicated comic strip, has won this year’s Reuben Award.

The National Cartoonists Society presented the award last weekend at their annual conference in San Diego. Price was one of six nominees for the award this year, in a field that also included Daniel Clowes, Darrin Bell, Dana Simpson, Mark Tatulli and Will Henry.

Price launched the comic strip in 1995, and it’s remained an award-winning staple of the comics page ever since, winning multiple divisional awards from the National Cartoonists Society. She’s also been nominated for the Reuben Award multiple times in the past.

Rhymes With Orange has been my expressive outlet from my mid-twenties through my mid-forties,” Price told us back in 2018. “There’s a lot of change in that time – from sleeping on a futon to having a box spring and mattress, from negotiating roommates to negotiating a mortgage, from weddings to divorces. I remember a relative noting that when the strip first started, it was a window into the life of a twenty-something, but as I aged, the topics hit a broader audience. For example, more people are in the settled down phase than in the just starting out phase, so gags about long term relationships hit a wider mark than the hook-up at parties gags.”

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Smash Pages Q&A: Hilary Price and Rina Piccolo

Hilary Price launched the comic strip Rhymes with Orange in 1995 and it’s remained an award-winning staple of the comics page since then, winning multiple awards from the National Cartoonists Society. Rina Piccolo got her start in gag cartoons but in recent years has been making the daily strip Tina’s Groove, and she was one of the contributors of Six Chix. Last year Rina wrapped up both those gigs, and the two are now collaborating full time on Rhymes with Orange. I spoke with both of them to ask how this collaboration came about and how they adjusted to a new work routine.

Rina will be doing an “Ask Me Anything” (AMAfeed.com) on the topic of comics on Friday, January 12, starting at 11 am EST.

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