Story of the Year

Unknown Soldier #13-14; Joshua Dysart, writer, Pat Masioni, artist

Best Writer

Alex Simmons, Archie & Friends

Best Artist

Jay Potts, World of Hurt

Best Male Character

Isaiah Pastor, World of Hurt; created by Jay Potts, writer and artist

Best Female Character

Aya, Aya: The Secrets Come Out; created by Marguerite Abouet, writer, Clement Oubrerie, artist

Rising Star Award

Jay Potts, World of Hurt

Best Reprint Publication

Aya: The Secrets Come Out; Drawn & Quarterly

Best Cover

Luke Cage Noir #1; Tim Bradstreet, illustrator

Best Comic Strip

The K Chronicles; Keith Knight, writer and artist

Fan Award for Best Comic

Luke Cage Noir; Mike Benson & Adam Glass, writers, Shawn Martinbrough, artist

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.

The first in a series of posts this month commemorating the fifth anniversary of the Glyph Comics Awards

I remember the first time I became aware of Kyle Baker as more than just a Marvel artist. I bought Why I Hate Saturn at Big Planet Comics in Maryland (it still has the sticker!) sometime during the mid-90s. I must have been there for the Small Press Expo. I don’t recall how the book got on my radar – it may have been a simple case of me picking up the book, totally ignorant of everything about it except what was in front of me, and deciding I liked it enough to buy it.

Independent comics were still a new concept to me, and I was only beginning to realize the different ways a comic book story could be told. Saturn was among these: a comic book where all the dialogue was printed below the panels, and not integrated into the art in the form of word balloons? I’d never seen something like that before. Didn’t know it could be done! But there it was. And the story itself was remarkably funny as well as insightful. In particular, I identified with the character Ricky – a black dude who wasn’t a stereotype; who in fact, reminded me a whole lot of myself.

When Baker moved to DC’s fledgling imprint Vertigo, I followed, buying books like You Are Here and King David, and marveling at how he reinvented his art style from 2-dimensional, black-and-white contour drawings to 3-dimensional, computer-generated color renditions. While I didn’t care for these books as much as I did Saturn, or his earlier graphic novel The Cowboy Wally Show, I still had great respect for him as a creative force. Other books followed – the Captain America mini-series Truth, his all-ages Plastic Man series, and his political satire Birth of a Nation (with Reginald Hudlin and Aaron McGruder).

I was quite excited when Baker decided to self-publish his own comics. Think about how many creators there are at the Big Two doing work-for-hire material. How many of them have taken the plunge into creator-owned projects – a greater risk, with no guarantees of success (even if you’re a big name star)? And of that number, how many have sustained a second career doing creator-owned books while continuing to do work-for-hire stuff? And of that number, how many self-publish their comics, as opposed to publishing through Image or Vertigo, say, and still manage to get work on Big Two superhero titles? No matter how you slice it, Kyle Baker defies the odds by living every cartoonist’s dream: successfully publishing comics that he owns and controls, while at the same time getting work at Marvel and DC that keeps him on the radar of Fandom Assembled (and pays well, no doubt).

Baker built both his historical drama Nat Turner and his autobiographical comedy The Bakers on his own (with a little help from Image towards the tail end), as much a result of his savvy business sense as his unmatched artistic talent, something that does not get talked about enough when one talks about him. Baker talked to retailers, librarians, and readers, among others, about his comics, finding out what works and what doesn’t, in terms of not only story but marketing. Remember how his Vertigo graphic novels were published European-album sized? He stopped doing that after talking to retailers and discovering they were difficult to stock at that size. His first self-published title, The Cartoonist, had a wide variety of gags within it. He kept the “Bakers” strips and ditched the rest after talking to readers and finding out that it was the one people loved most. It’s difficult to balance the art and commerce sides of a creator-owned comic, but Baker does it, and continues to do it. That’s why he’s a star.

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10 lifetime nominations, 5 wins

2006 Story of the Year, Nat Turner

2006 Best Artist, Nat Turner

2006 Best Cover, Nat Turner

2007 Best Artist, The Bakers

2008 Best Artist, Nat Turner

Archie & Friends: The Cartoon Life of Chuck Clayton

Alex Simmons website

Wikipedia entry on Chuck Clayton

Kids Comic Con, the all-ages comics convention run by Alex Simmons

To say that Alex was surprised at getting nominated for a Glyph Comics Award for his work on this book would be… understating it. But it’s definitely well-earned. Find out why this week.

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Also this week:

Azrael #5

Final Crisis Aftermath: Dance TP. Art by Chriscross.

Supergirl #50. Pencils by Igle. (Plus a backup story co-written by cinematic Supergirl Helen Slater!)

Black Panther: Power TP

Deathlok #4 (of 7)

Doctor Voodoo #5

Doomwar #1 (of 6). The Black Panther leads an all-star cast of heroes against Doctor Doom.

Star Trek Deep Space Nine: Fool’s Gold #3

ZMD #6 (of 6). Written by Grevioux.

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Also notable:

Green Lantern #51, Green Lantern Corps #45. Blackest Night tie-ins.

Dark Avengers #14. Siege tie-in.

Logan’s Run #1. Honestly, I’ve never understood the love for this crappy sci-fi movie, but it continues to live on, this time as a comic inspired by the film.

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Thoughts on this year’s GCA nominees:

- We’ve been doing the GCAs for five years now, and I’ve seen many different creators nominated for all sorts of comics. The one constant throughout it all has been Keith Knight and The K Chronicles. Fifth straight nomination, three consecutive wins. Seven lifetime noms for Keef. That’s respect, folks.

- With a leading six noms this year, including Story, Comic Strip and Rising Star, Jay Potts’ World of Hurt is the biggest debut in GCA history. And if it seems odd that Hurt beat out Bayou for a Story nomination, even though Bayou repeated in all its other categories from last year, well, what can I say? These things happen.

- Aya completes the hat trick in the Reprint category, and gets a Female Char nomination. Plus we go back to a full five nominees for Reprint; I hated having to shorten it last year but I had no choice.

- I hate having to do this every year, but I’ve got to remind people of this: in the Fan award poll, if you choose to submit a write-in candidate, PLEASE DO NOT CHOOSE ONE OF THE CHOICES ALREADY ON THE BALLOT! The write-in option is so you can vote for a black comic that’s NOT on the ballot, like Doctor Voodoo, or Black Panther, or heck, even the Chuck Clayton issues of Archie & Friends; it doesn’t matter as long as it’s not one of the five choices already listed! I’ve had this happen a bunch of times in the past by people who just don’t get it and I’m telling you now that if you do that, your vote WILL NOT COUNT! So please, either pick one of the five nominees or send in one of your own. Don’t send me a write-in vote for something that’s already on the ballot. Thank you.

Moving on…

Looks like Vin Diesel’s ready to make another Riddick movie… and Ving Rhames will appear in a Death Race prequel. Yay.

Jim Rugg is holding an Afrodisiac art contest where you can win some cool prizes.

THE 2010 GLYPH COMICS AWARDS NOMINEES ARE NAMED; THE FAN AWARD POLL IS OPEN

Last year, Jeremy Love’s Bayou made history at the Glyph Comics Awards (GCA) by winning five times, including for Story of the Year; a new record. In this, our fifth anniversary year, many new faces are in the running from all across the industry.

The nominees for 2010 are:

Story of the Year

Luke Cage Noir; Mike Benson & Adam Glass, writers; Shawn Martinbrough, artist

The Original Johnson; Trevor von Eeden, writer and artist

Unknown Soldier #13-14; Joshua Dysart, writer, Pat Masioni, artist

War Machine: Iron Heart; Greg Pak, writer, Leonardo Manco, artist

World of Hurt, Jay Potts, writer and artist

Best Writer

Joshua Dysart, Unknown Soldier

Jeremy Love, Bayou

Greg Pak, War Machine

Jay Potts, World of Hurt

Alex Simmons, Archie & Friends

Best Artist

Chriscross, Final Crisis Aftermath: Dance

Jeremy Love, Bayou

Shawn Martinbrough, Luke Cage Noir

Jay Potts, World of Hurt

Trevor von Eeden, The Original Johnson

Best Male Character

Black Lightning, Black Lightning Year One; Jen van Meter, writer, Cully Hamner, artist; created by Tony Isabella & Trevor von Eeden

Isaiah Pastor, World of Hurt; created by Jay Potts, writer and artist

Jack Johnson; The Original Johnson; Trevor von Eeden, writer and artist; inspired by the life of Jack Johnson

Luke Cage, Luke Cage Noir; Mike Benson & Adam Glass, writers, Shawn Martinbrough, artist; created by Archie Goodwin & John Romita Sr.

Moses Lwanga, Unknown Soldier #13-14; Joshua Dysart, writer, Pat Masioni, artist; inspired by the character created by Robert Kanigher & Joe Kubert

Best Female Character

Aya, Aya: The Secrets Come Out; created by Marguerite Abouet, writer, Clement Oubrerie, artist

Lee Wagstaff, Bayou; created by Jeremy Love, writer and artist

Michonne, The Walking Dead; created by Robert Kirkman, writer, Charlie Adlard & Cliff Rathburn, artists

Misty Knight, Immortal Iron Fist; Duane Swierczynski, writer, Travel Foreman & Tom Palmer, artists; created by Tony Isabella & Arvell Jones

Nola Thomas, NOLA; created by Chris Gorak & Pierluigi Cothran, writers, Damian Couceiro, artist

Rising Star Award

Jiba Molei Anderson, The Horsemen

John Aston, Rachel Rage

Kerry & Tawanda Johnson, Harambee Hills

Julian Lytle, Ants

Jay Potts, World of Hurt

Best Reprint Collection

Aya: The Secrets Come Out; Drawn & Quarterly

Bayou Volume 1; DC/Zuda

Icon: A Hero’s Welcome; DC/Milestone

The Life and Times of Martha Washington in the 21^st Century; Dark Horse

Static Shock: Rebirth of the Cool; DC/Milestone

Best Cover

Final Crisis Aftermath: Ink #1; Brian Stelfreeze, illustrator

Luke Cage Noir #1; Tim Bradstreet, illustrator

The Original Johnson; Trevor von Eeden, illustrator

Unknown Soldier #8; Dave Johnson, illustrator

Unknown Soldier #10; Dave Johnson, illustrator

Best Comic Strip

Bayou; Jeremy Love, writer and artist

Jump Start; Robb Armstrong, writer and artist

The K Chronicles; Keith Knight, writer and artist

The Knight Life; Keith Knight, writer and artist

World of Hurt; Jay Potts, writer and artist

Fan Award for Best Comic

Adam: Legend of the Blue Marvel; Kevin Grevioux, writer, Mat Broome, Sean Parson & Alvaro Lopez, artists

Black Lightning Year One; Jen Van Meter, writer, Cully Hamner, artist

Final Crisis Aftermath: Ink; Eric Wallace, writer, Fabrizio Fiorentino, artist

Luke Cage Noir; Mike Benson & Adam Glass, writers, Shawn Martinbrough, artist

War Machine: Iron Heart; Greg Pak, writer, Leonardo Manco, artist

The judges for the 2010 competition are: David Brothers, comics blogger, 4^th Letter!; Carol Burrell, editorial director, Graphic Universe/Lerner Publishing Group; Brian Cronin, writer, Comic Book Resources; and Katie & Dan Merritt, co-owners, Green Brain Comics.

The ballot for the Fan Award for Best Comic is now open at the website for the East Coast Black Age of Comics Convention (ECBACC), www.ecbacc.com/wordpress, and will remain open through March 31, 2010. Write-in selections can be e-mailed to GCA Committee Chair Rich Watson at rich.watson@gmail.com. IMPORTANT: Write-in selections are ONLY for choices not on the online ballot. ANY WRITE-IN SELECTIONS FOR CHOICES ALREADY ON THE ONLINE BALLOT WILL NOT BE COUNTED AND WILL BE DISCARDED.

The 2010 GCA ceremony will be held May 15, 2010, in the Skyline Room of the Free Library of Philadelphia, Park Central branch, as part of ECBACC, which will take place at the Crown Plaza Philadelphia Center City, May 16, 2010.

About the Glyph Comics Awards:

The Glyph Comics Awards recognize the best in comics made by, for, and about people of color from the preceding calendar year. While it is not exclusive to black creators, it does strive to honor those who have made the greatest contributions to the comics medium in terms of both critical and commercial impact. By doing so, the goal is to encourage more diverse and high quality work across the board and to inspire new creators to add their voices to the field.

The awards are named for the blog Glyphs (http://www.PopCultureShock.com/glyphs), started in 2005 by comics journalist Rich Watson as a means to provide news and commentary of comics with black themes, as well as tangential topics in the fields of black science-fiction/fantasy and animation.

About ECBACC:

The East Coast Black Age of Comics Convention (www.ecbacc.com/wordpress) is an annual gathering of comic book creators and retailers who create and sell material that caters to black readers of all ages. In addition to selling their work, they also take part in panel discussions and self-publishing workshops for aspiring creators. The convention is held in Philadelphia each May. There is also a reception held the preceding night. ECBACC is an outgrowth of the original Black Age of Comics Convention in Chicago, founded by Turtel Onli.

For more information about ECBACC, contact event coordinator Akinseye Brown at blackageofcomics@ecbacc.com.

SUBMISSIONS FOR THE 2010 GLYPH COMICS AWARDS ARE NOW BEING ACCEPTED; JUDGES NAMED

This past May, history was made at the Glyph Comics Awards (GCA) ceremony as Jeremy Love’s Bayou became the most celebrated book in GCA history, winning all five awards in which he and his webcomic was nominated, including Story of the Year. Expectations are high for another exciting competition this year.

The panel of judges for the 2010 competition is:

• David Brothers, comics blogger, 4^thLetter!
• Carol Burrell, editorial director, Graphic Universe/Lerner Publishing Group
• Brian Cronin, writer, Comic Book Resources
• Katie Merritt, co-owner, Green Brain Comics; former president, Friends of Lulu
• Dan Merritt, co-owner, Green Brain Comics

Any comics publisher – small, large, corporate, independent, self-published – as well as online comic creators and cartoonists for newspapers and other periodicals, are invited to submit black-themed material released from January 1 – December 31, 2009 for consideration for award recognition. The Committee defines black-themed work as any comic with any combination of the following: a black protagonist(s), or at least a black character(s) pivotal to the direction of the story; a setting(s) or a theme(s) that explores the black experience within the United States and/or abroad, past, present, and/or future; and/or a comic of any kind written and/or illustrated by a black creator(s).

Anyone wishing to submit their comic book or comic strip for consideration in the 2010 competition should e-mail GCA Committee Chair Rich Watson at rich.watson@gmail.com for further information. Hard copies are preferred, though submissions of e-files will also be accepted. Online comics creators and newspaper/periodical cartoonists with websites should send a direct URL link to their site or page. Daily cartoonists must have a minimum of one month’s work archived and available for viewing; weekly cartoonists a minimum of two months. The deadline for submissions is January 31, 2010.

The 2010 Glyph Comics Awards ceremony will be held at the East Coast Black Age of Comics Convention (ECBACC) in May 2010.

About the Glyph Comics Awards:

The Glyph Comics Awards recognize the best in comics made by, for, and about people of color from the preceding calendar year. While it is not exclusive to black creators, it does strive to honor those who have made the greatest contributions to the comics medium in terms of both critical and commercial impact. By doing so, the goal is to encourage more diverse and high quality work across the board and to inspire new creators to add their voices to the field.

The awards are named for the blog Glyphs (http://www.PopCultureShock.com/glyphs), started in 2005 by comics journalist Rich Watson as a means to provide news and commentary of comics with black themes, as well as tangential topics in the fields of black science-fiction/fantasy and animation.

About ECBACC:

The East Coast Black Age of Comics Convention (www.ecbacc.com/wordpress) is an annual gathering of comic book creators and retailers who create and sell material that caters to black readers of all ages. In addition to selling their work, they also take part in panel discussions and self-publishing workshops for aspiring creators. The convention is held in Philadelphia each May. There is also a reception held the preceding night. ECBACC is an outgrowth of the original Black Age of Comics Convention in Chicago, founded by Turtel Onli.

For more information about ECBACC, contact event coordinator Maurice Waters at maurice.waters@ecbacc.com.

Also: Did you see Captain Save a Hood at Comic-Con? (Thanks to Pam for the link.)