About the Awards and the Awards Association

The Canadian Comic Book Creator Awards Association was established in 2004 as a not-for-profit organization. The central purpose of the Awards Association is to hand out the annual JOE SHUSTER AWARDS for Canadian Comic Book Creators – and by doing so, give recognition to — and raise awareness of — the efforts made by Canadians who make, publish and sell comic books, webcomics and graphic novels.

From coast to coast, Canada is home to many of the comic book industry’s top talents. The JOE SHUSTER AWARDS are a way of recognizing and celebrating the achievements of Canadian creators – past, present and future.

The Joe Shuster Awards are also Canada’s first national award recognizing outstanding achievement in the creation of comic books. They are named after pioneering Toronto-born artist Joe Shuster who, along with writer Jerry Siegel, created the iconic super-powered hero, Superman. The name is used with the approval of the Estate of Joe Shuster – Michael Catron, Estate Agent.

DEFINING OUR ROLE

When it comes to defining comics our job is to be as INCLUSIVE as possible when narrowing the selections down to an EXCLUSIVE number of annual nominees – there is only one winner in each category though! We strive to ensure that our nominates represent the entire country’s output – whether that output is in English or French (Canada’s two official languages) or in other languages – the central defining characteristic of our nominees are that they are Canadian. We don’t censure Canadian creators who work with non-Canadian publishing houses – while Canada is a large and diverse country, for the creative awards, there are a very limited number of Canadian publishers.

We are also comics-industry focused — creative awards are for specific roles in the creation of comic books, graphic novels and BD —- each of those end results are really the sum of their parts — in most cases people are brought in to play specific parts, very much in the same way that one might direct a movie – there is a writer, a director, a cinematographer, an editor, etc. With comics there are writers, artists (pencillers, inkers, colourists), cover artists, letterers, editors and publishers.

However, we do have a special distinction for Cartoonists — a cartoonist is someone who does the central job of both writing and illustrating. These are the comic industry’s auteurs.

WHY CANADA?

Canada has a rich tradition of supporting our national arts communities with awards that recognize the achievements of our citizens. Canadians are very proud and supportive of our national arts communities, and our position is that promoting Canadians in comics will help raise their profile within the country. Promoting retailers will help customers find the comics they are interested in reading, and promoting publishers will help support and encourage the continued development of Canadian publishing houses.

THE EXECUTIVE

The Association Executive (also known as Administrative) Committee exists to oversee and coordinate the efforts of the Nominating and Judging sub-Committees, as well as fundraising and promotion. Membership in this committee changes from year to year and follows an election process established in the organizational charter and by-laws.

In recent years the Association has expanded to develop a network of resources that are centered around this very website — with weblinks to Canadian creators, webcomics, publishers and retailers.

The Awards Association is a group of participating individuals and therefore has no physical office or telephone number – postal submissions are sent to a post office box (see the contact us page).

NOMINATIONS

The nominating committee is selected by the Executive Administrative committee and is newly reconstituted for each year of the awards. The nominating committee consists of a cross-section of comic book journalists and experts from across Canada.

In January of each year, the Awards Association releases a list of eligible creators and their works, from which the nominating committee members select their top choices in each category. Any original comic book, graphic novel or comics-related publication featuring work by a Canadian creator that was shipped to retailers between January 1 and December 31 of the previous year in either French or English is eligible. In most categories translated works are not eligible for consideration, nor are collections of previous published materials (such as webcomics) as these are considered to be REPRINTS.

WHO IS CANADIAN?

For the purposes of the JOE SHUSTER AWARDS (as determined by the Nominating Committee), a Canadian is defined as a native (citizen) or long-term inhabitant (permanent resident) of Canada, or an individual who was born in Canada and now resides elsewhere (possessing either Canadian or dual citizenship). However, this is a fluid definition which can be re-evaluated by the nominating committee on a case by case basis. Awards may change from year to year, including or subtracting, as determined by the awards Executive Committee.

WHO DECIDES?

Although these awards were chosen, in their first three incarnations, by a public vote, the process changed in 2007-8 to decision by a jury of individuals to ensure each nominee is given adequate consideration.

Hall of Fame

Six individuals were selected for Hall of Fame awards in the first year, and four each subsequent year. , Inductees are chosen by a panel of Canadian comic book experts and historians.

THE HARRY KREMER AWARD

A special tribute was given in the first year of the JOE SHUSTER AWARDS posthumously to Harry Kremer, the original owner of Now & Then Books in Kitchener-Waterloo — a true pioneer in the industry and a constant and tireless promoter of the medium — in the category of Canadian Comic Book Retailer Award. This has been chosen by the awards committee and will serve to usher in the Harry Kremer Memorial Award for Canadian Comic Book Retailer for subsequent years of the JOE SHUSTER AWARDS.

THE GENE DAY AWARD

In 2009, a special tribute was given to Hall of Fame Creator Gene Day (1951-1982) who is the namesake for our self-publishing award.

Gene began his career in the Canadian alternative comix scene. In the seventies he began his own publishing imprint, Shadow Press / House of Shadows and put out over twenty issues of Dark Fantasy, a horror/fantasy/sci-fi digest that featured the early writings of Joe Lansdale, Charles De Lint, John Bell and Charles R. Saunders, amongst others; a short-lived comic publication, Out of the Depths and various other one-shots, portfolios, and prints. Day drew for the Skywald magazines Psycho and Nightmare from 1974, as well as the Canadian comic anthology, ORB, and Mike Friedrich’s independent comics company Star Reach, contributing to the Star Reach anthology, Image and Quack. Day did illustrations for fantasy role-playing games and had a collection of his comic stories, ‘Future Day’, published by Flying Buttress Press as a hardcover graphic novel in 1979.

He was a longtime inker on Marvel’s ‘Master of Kung Fu’ title by Mike Zeck, starting in 1976 and later took over as full penciler on the series. He also inked on the licensed ‘Star Wars’ series, pencilled by Carmine Infantino, as well as ‘The Mighty Thor’ and ‘Marvel Two-in-One’ featuring ‘The Thing’. From 1985 to 1986, Renegade Press published four issues of Gene Day’s ‘Black Zeppelin’, an anthology series primarily featuring stories and painted covers Day completed before his death, as well new contributions by Sim, Bruce Conklin, Augustine Funnell, and Charles Vess. More of his work appeared posthumously in Caliber Comics’ anthology series Day Brothers Presents, which also featured the work of Day’s artist brothers, David and Dan Day.

Dave Sim credits Gene Day as his earliest and most influential mentor and the inspiration for his own self-publishing efforts. Gene Day was inducted into the Canadian Comic Book Creator Hall of Fame in 2007.

Location and timing of Ceremony

April 2005 – Paradise Toronto Comicon, Hall F, Direct Energy Centre
April 2006 – Paradise Toronto Comicon, Hall C, Direct Energy Centre
June 2007 – Regency Ballroom, Holiday Inn on King
June 2008 – Lillian H. Smith branch, Toronto Public Library System
Sep. 2009 – Innis Town Hall, Innis College, University of Toronto
June 2010 – Innis Town Hall, Innis College, University of Toronto

Please visit the CONTACT US page for more information on how to contact the Awards Association.

Directorship & Membership Rules

As chosen by the majority of membership in the Executive Committee. The Directorship of the Awards Association includes a Director and an Associate director. In the first three incarnations (before the ratification of the organizational charter in 2007), the positions were referred to as Chief Coordinator and Assistant and were voted on annually.

In the winter of 2007, the CCBCAA membership ratified an organizational charter, (1) created the position of Executive Director and Associate Director (supplanting Chief Coordinator / Assistant Coordinator). Directors of the CCBCAA are voted into their positions for two award seasons, unless they vacate the position prior to the end of term. (2) Removal of an officer policy initiated – removal of any officer requires notification of reasons for removal one meeting in advance of the discussion and then a 2/3 majority vote is required for removal. No individual may hold the position of Executive Director for any longer than Five (5) consecutive years.

In March 2010 the association ratified a more detailed public conflict of interest policy (posted elsewhere on this website) which corresponded with, and formalized, existing internal organizational rules on the subject and also applied similar rules followed by awards administered by the Canada Council for the Arts.