ALA announces first-ever Outstanding Comics for Young Adults Awards

‘The Boy Wonder,’ ‘Raised by Ghosts’ and more were recognized by the ALA’s Graphic Novels & Comics Round Table.

Adult comics aren’t the only ones getting a new awards program from the American Library Association. The ALA also announced this week the first winners of the Outstanding Comics for Young Adults Awards.

Like the adult awards, the YA-centered awards have three categories — fiction, non-fiction and series — with a winner and one or two honor books, or runners up.

“In this inaugural year for the award, the selection process was extremely competitive. The committee felt it was essential to choose titles that were truly outstanding to set a high precedent for the future. The entire Young Adult selection committee is honored to be a part of this milestone year. As comics librarians, our primary goal is to connect deserving creators and their amazing stories with readers from any age or background,” said committee chair Micki Waldrop.

Check out the inaugural winners below.

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Rob Liefeld quits the upcoming ‘Mighty Crusaders’ revival at Archie

Archie still plans to release the first issue in June as originally planned, but with a new writer providing the script.

Comics creator Rob Liefeld has left the Mighty Crusaders revival project, which was announced last December. He left because he said a key plot point was revealed on a variant cover created by Tone Rodriguez for Camelot Books and Comics.

“When the key plot point/element is revealed on a retail variant cover – it’s probably time to exit the stage on this one…. like seriously?” Liefeld wrote on Facebook earlier this month. He said he found out about the cover when Rodriguez tagged him in a Facebook post about it.

He later added in another post: “So, earlier this week I posted to one of my groups how I’m trying to keep all the contents of one of my upcoming projects under wraps. I want the reveals and the twists to be fresh and happen organically. I love the story and art and was trying to protect it as best I can. And I had succeeded in doing so. The cover with the big twist being publicly shared as I’m walking out the door to a farewell party for friends was like the big gut punch. All the wind goes out of the sails and the enthusiasm with it. It’s this practice … that needs better management. Everyone is trying to one up the other guy because the shelf life on these comics is so small. Publishers need to do better.

Archie followed up today by announcing that The Mighty Crusaders: The Shield #1 will still be released on June 30, as previously announced, using the artwork that Liefeld already turned in. They said that a new writer would be brought in to script Liefeld’s pages.

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