Nominees announced for the 2023 Ignatz Awards

The annual awards celebrate outstanding achievement in independent comics and cartooning.

The Small Press Expo, aka SPX, has announced the nominees for the 2023 Ignatz Awards.

The Ignatz Awards, which have been handed out since 1997, celebrate the outstanding achievements of independent comics, graphic novels and alternative political cartoons. Named for the mouse that appears in the Krazy Kat comics by George Herriman, the logo changes each year as a new artist draws the mouse and his weapon of choice, the brick. The logo for this year was drawn by 2022 Ignatz Promising New Talent Winner Juni Ba.

The nominees were chosen by a panel of comics professionals that included Ellen Lindner, Juniper Kim, L. Nichols, Ally Shwed, Jason Little and Kotaline Jones.

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‘Laila Starr,’ ‘No One Else’ and more win 2022 Ignatz Awards

The annual awards honoring excellence in independent comics, graphic novels and minicomics returned in person at the Small Press Expo.

For the first time since 2019, the annual Ignatz Awards returned to a live, in-person event at the Small Press Expo last night, presenting awards in 10 categories to small press creators.

The Ignatz Awards, which have been handed out since 1997, celebrate the outstanding achievements of independent comics, graphic novels and alternative political cartoons. They are named for the mouse that appears in the Krazy Kat comics by George Herriman.

Nominees were determined by a jury that included Cuyler Hedlund, Breena Nunez, Josh O’Neil, Alex Hoffman and Hazel Newlevant. Anyone could vote on the winners, which was done over email rather than in person at the show, like it’s been in previous years.

Congratulations to this year’s winners, marked in bold below:

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2020 Ignatz Award nominees announced

The Ignatz Awards celebrate outstanding achievement in independent comics and cartooning.

The Small Press Expo has announced the 2020 Ignatz Award nominees. The Ignatz Awards, which have been handed out since 1997, celebrate the outstanding achievements of independent comics, graphic novels and alternative political cartoons.

The nominees were determined by a panel that included Scott Cederlund, November Garcia, Malala Gharib and Rosemary Valero-O’Connell.

Voting for the annual Ignatz Awards is usually limited to the attendees of the Small Press Expo, but with no physical event being held this year, they are opening it up to everyone. You can register to vote here.

The awards presentation will be livestreamed Sept. 12. And here are the nominees:

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SPX, TCJ, OMG: A Hot Take

Brigid Alverson responds to a recent opinion piece on TCJ.com and shares her thoughts on comiXology/Amazon’s presence at this weekend’s Small Press Expo.

I know that contentious commentary is part of the The Comics Journal brand, but maybe it’s time to drop it. Especially because the latest article isn’t just mean-spirited, it’s straight-up wrong.

I am referring, of course, to RJ Casey’s recent post, ominously titled “A Plague Comes to SPX,” in which he warns that Amazon is poised to ruin comics.

I’m at SPX, and I went to the exhibitors’ reception last night, where, like everyone else, I got a copy of Hit Reblog, the book he disparages:

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Ferris, Nowak, Fink and more take home 2017 Ignatz Awards

Annual awards presented at this weekend’s Small Press Expo honor excellence in independent comics.

My Favorite Thing is Monsters by Emil Ferris continued to rack up accolades this weekend as it took home two Ignatz Awards last night. Other winners at the annual awards presentation included Jess Fink’s Chester 5000, Ben Passmore’s Your Black Friend and Carolyn Nowak’s Diana’s Electric Tongue.

Named after the brick-throwing mouse from Krazy Kat, the awards honor “excellence in independent comics” and are selected by a jury of five creators and voted on by attendees of the Small Press Expo. The jurors for this year’s nominations were Neil Brideau, Glynnis Fawkes, Sara Lautman, Trungles and David Willis.

The complete list of nominees can be found below, with the winner in bold.

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Smash Pages Q&A: Glynnis Fawkes on ‘Greek Diary’ and more

The creator discusses working as an illustrator on archeological digs, co-editing a new issue of ‘The Strumpet,’ upcoming projects and more.

Earlier this year Glynnis Fawkes published Greek Diary, a collection of comics about the previous summer that was spent working on an archeological dig in Greece and a trip through the Greek islands. Fawkes has been working since art school as an illustrator for archeological digs, and has illustrated a number of scholarly books including Three Stones Make a Wall by Eric Cline and Kinyras: The Divine Lyre by her husband John Curtis Franklin. This interest can be seen in a lot of Fawkes’ comics work like Corinthian Diary, Time Out in Palestine and Alle Ego, which was given a MoCCA Art Festival Award of Excellence in 2016.

When it debuted at this year’s MoCCA Arts Festival, Greek Diary received the Silver Medal for Long Form Work. This year also saw the release of Reign of Crumbs from Kilgore Books, which collects many of Fawkes’ diary comics that have appeared in Mutha Magazine, The New Yorker.com and elsewhere. Fawkes has also been in both of issues of Resist!, and is co-editing and contributing to the new issue of The Strumpet coming out this fall.

Fawkes will be at the Small Press Expo, or SPX, this weekend in Bethesda, Maryland. You can find her at SPX table I7B and will have copies of Cinderbunny and the “spanking new” Strumpet 5, as well as Reign of Crumbs and Greek Diary.

Fawkes and I spoke after she returned from this year’s trip to Greece.

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‘March,’ Emil Ferris among 2017 Ignatz Awards nominees

Cathy Malkasian, Anya Davidson, Box Brown, Dustin Harbin, Jillian Tamaki, Ed Piskor, Leslie Stein and many more up for this year’s awards

The Washington Post shares this year’s slate of Ignatz Awards nominees, which are presented annually at the Small Press Expo in Bethesda, Maryland.

Named after the brick-throwing mouse from Krazy Kat, the awards are selected by a jury of five creators and voted on by attendees of the show. The jurors for this year’s nominations were Neil Brideau, Glynnis Fawkes, Sara Lautman, Trungles and David Willis.

Check out the complete list below.

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