Continuing the series of posts this month on the five-year history of the Glyph Comics Awards.

The previous decade has seen a marked increase in the number of new comics creators from other media, from movies and television (Kevin Smith, Joss Whedon) to music (Gerard Way, Method Man) to novels (Jodi Picoult, Laurell K. Hamilton) and more. Some have brought new ideas to market; others have provided their spin on classic characters. The Glyph Comics Awards have reflected this influx of new talent, and some of the nominees over the years were stars in other fields before they came to ours. Here are five examples.

• Reginald Hudlin was a filmmaker before entering comics in 2004, notable for comedies like House Party and The Great White Hype. His initial project was the graphic novel Birth of a Nation, with co-writer Aaron McGruder and artist Kyle Baker. A year later he came to Marvel Comics to headline a modernized relaunch of Black Panther, taking elements from previous versions by such notables as Jack Kirby, Don McGregor and Christopher Priest and combining them with his own 21st-century vision of the African monarch. The book met with controversy at first due to the fear by fans that previous continuity would be invalidated. Hudlin dodged the issue for the most part, vowing to make the B-list Avenger a vital and important part of the Marvel Universe. The first story arc, “Who is the Black Panther?”, was a fast-paced, powerful adventure that made the Panther a force to be reckoned with, not unlike his initial appearance in Fantastic Four long ago. While certain segments of fandom were put off by some of the socio-political aspects of the story arc, Hudlin stood by his interpretation. “Who is the Black Panther?” was nominated for six GCAs, including Story of the Year, but in the end won only the Fan Award, the sole prize voted on by the fans.

Hudlin has been nominated once more since, in the Fan Award for the Black Panther story arc “The Bride.” He has also served as an executive at Black Entertainment Television and is producing a Black Panther animated series inspired by his run on the book. Later this year he’ll write a Black Panther/Captain America mini-series.

• Eric Jerome Dickey is a New York Times best-selling romance novelist, whose books include Friends and Lovers, Milk in My Coffee, and Genevieve. In 2006 Hudlin wrote a story arc in Black Panther in which the titular character married the X-Man Storm. The two African superheroes had met when they were younger and had a brief romance before parting ways, a tale told many years ago in a short story forgotten by most – but not by Hudlin. As part of the hype Marvel built around this event, Dickey was brought in to write a Storm mini-series that would expand upon that short story and re-establish the relationship between the two characters. Again, there was fan outrage, partially out of fear that Storm would be taken away from the X-titles for good, but mostly because they believed the initial short story was too flimsy to retcon an epic romance into. Regardless, Dickey’s story struck just the right balance between superheroic action and romance, his specialty, giving  Storm and the Panther the impetuousness of youth while hinting at the grandeur in their lives to come. Storm was nominated for 3 GCAs, winning the Fan Award.

Dickey has not returned to comics. He has continued with his novels, the most recent being the 2009 thriller Resurrecting Midnight.

• Percy Carey was a rapper for many years under the alias MF Grimm. Though he was never as big a star as Jay-Z or Eminem, he had a cult following for many years, making records for himself and producing others. In 2007, DC Comics’ Vertigo imprint published Sentences, Carey’s graphic novel autobiography, in which he presents his violent and star-crossed life in vivid detail, in his own words. A former child star on Sesame Street, he grew up and made a name for himself  as a rapper on the underground circuit, but he also had a sideline dealing drugs, which often got him into trouble with the law. A street shootout left him paralyzed below the waist and doing jail time, but he was able to turn his life around through his music. Sentences is unflinching in its honesty, neither condoning nor condemning the things Carey did in his past, and reads more like a crime novel than a celebrity biography. Sentences was nominated for five GCAs, winning Story of the Year and Best Cover.

Carey continues to make records as the founder of his own business, Day by Day Entertainment. Recently, he had a comics column for the website Complex and worked with actor Tyrese Gibson on the latter’s comic debut Mayhem.

• Greg Rucka is a crime novelist whose works include Finder, Shooting at Midnight, and Critical Space. In 1998, he entered the comics field with the thriller Whiteout, one of the first comics released by Oni Press. A murder mystery set in Antarctica, it received great critical acclaim and went on to be one of Oni’s biggest hits ever, spawning a sequel and eventually a feature film adaptation last year. Rucka would go on to have a long and prosperous comics career, including titles such as the spy series Queen and Country, runs on DC titles such as Wonder Woman and Batman, and was one of the co-writers on the weekly epic mega-series 52. In 2006 Rucka was the writer on DC’s Checkmate, a series about a UN-sanctioned task force that keeps metahumans, good and evil, from getting too far out of line. One of the series’ mainstays was Amanda Waller, a long-time character who originally led the Suicide Squad, and now served as one of Checkmate’s leaders. Rucka endowed Waller with the same level of fire and iron will that he brought to many of the women in his other books, one reason among many why Checkmate was a popular and critical hit. Rucka’s Waller was nominated for Best Female Character in the 2008 GCAs and won.

Rucka continues to write both comics and novels. His most recent novel is 2009′s Walking Dead, and he is the current writer on DC’s Detective Comics, featuring the new character Batwoman.

• G. Willow Wilson is a journalist who specializes in modern religion and the Middle East. She studied Arabic in college and lived in Cairo for many years. A convert to Islam, she often address Islamic issues as they relate to other faiths. In 2007, she made her comics debut with the Vertigo graphic novel Cairo, an ensemble fantasy set within the titular city. A year later she moved to the main DC universe with the mini-series Vixen: Return of the Lion. A second-tier JLA member, this mini-series brought the character to her native Africa to unravel the mystery behind her parents’ death. Wilson’s familiarity with African culture and her sensitivity to racial politics as it exists there made for a comic with a good amount of depth beyond the familiar superhero tropes. Vixen was nominated for two GCAs, winning the Fan Award.

Wilson continues to write essays and do public speaking, in addition to writing comics, including the hit Vertigo series Air.