I did this last year, but this may be slightly truncated because of my schedule. Currently underway is the nomination process for the annual Joe Shuster Awards. The 20 members of the nominating committees (there are 2) have tabled their initial selections.

We have two concurrent committees one for English language releases, and another for French. Ultimately we aim to have 7 nominees for each of these four categories – 5 English and 2 French. In the case of a tie, we may advance an additional nominee, increasing the final number of nominees in that category to no more than 8.

Results Round 1 – Having Received 1 or more nomination. Please note that this is not the final nominees list – the final nominees will come from within these lists.

ENGLISH

The following creators were on the combined short lists for the 16 English Language Nominating Committee members. In part 2 I’ll be listing the ones who were seconded and therefore advanced to the second round of voting. Any creator appearing on 8 or more of the the NomCom short lists automatically bypasses Round 2 and is on the final ballot.

ARTIST – 31 nominated for five spots
Bachalo, Chris
Bone, J.
Bradshaw, Nick
Chang, Bernard
Churchland, Marian
Del Mundo, Mike
Eaglesham, Dale
Fabok, Jason
Finch, David
Fowler, Tom
Hepburn, Scott
Hicks, Faith Erin
Holmes, Mike
Immonen, Stuart
Jenkins, Tyler
Kirk, Leonard
Matsumota, Nina
Molnar, Steve
Nord, Cary
Paquette, Yanick
Perez, Ramon
Rossmo, Riley
Roy, Simon
Schoening, Dan
Staples, Fiona
Stewart, Cameron
Templeton, Ty
To, Marcus
Walsh, Michael
Wheatley, Doug
Yeung, Craig

COVER ARTIST – 32 nominated for five spots
Alphona, Adrian
Andrasofszky, Kalman
Andrews, Kaare
Bachalo, Chris
Bradshaw, Nick
Bunjevic, Nina
Chantler, Scott
Cooke, Darwyn
Craig, Wes
De Forge, Michael
Del Mundo, Mike
Fabok, Jason
Finch, David
Graham, Brandon
Holmes, Mike
Immonen, Stuart
Jacobs, Jesse
Jenkins, Tyler
Keown, Dale
Lashley, Ken
Manapul, Francis
McFarlane, Todd
Nord, Cary
Paquette, Yanick
Roy, Simon
St. Aubin, Claude
Staples, Fiona
Stewart, Cameron
Stokoe, James
Templeton, Ty
Tin Can Forest
Walsh, Michael

CARTOONIST – 21 nominated for five spots
Agro, Sam
Andrews, Kaare
Bachalo, Chris
Bunjevic, Nina
Carroll, Emily
Chantler, Scott
Cooke, Darwyn
Davila, Claudia
DeForge, Michael
Fawkes, Ray
Graham, Brandon
Lemire, Jeff
Manapul, Francis
Rilly, Ethan
Rioux, Jo
Rossmo, Riley
Sim, Dave
Stokoe, James
Templeton, Ty
Tin Can Forest
Wilson, Britt

WRITER – 14 nominated for five spots
Brisson, Ed
Brouillette, Yann and Michel
Cooke, Darwyn
Immonen, Kathryn
Kennedy, Fred
Lemire, Jeff
Manapul, Francis
McClorey, Phil
McCulloch, Derek
McFarlane, Todd
North, Ryan
Templeton, Ty
Torres, J.
Wiebe, Kurtis
Wong, Howard
Zubjavich, Jim

FRENCH

The following creators were on the combined short lists for the 4 French Language Nominating Committee members. In part 2 I’ll be listing the ones who were seconded and therefore advanced to the second round of voting. Any creator appearing on 3 or more of the the NomCom short lists automatically bypasses Round 2 and is on the final ballot.

ARTIST – 7 nominated for two spots
Arsenault, Isabelle
Boutin-Gagne, Patrick
Giard, Luc
Henrichon, Niko
Labrosse, Thierry
Lamontagne, Jacques
MiniKim

COVER ARTIST – 10 nominated for two spots
Arsenault, Isabelle
Boloney
Castrée, Geneviève
Doisneau, Cyril
Falardeau, Michel
Labrosse, Thierry
Lamontagne, Jacques
Loisel, Régis / Tripp, Jean-Louis
Mikaël
Samson-Dunlop, Francois

CARTOONIST – 8 nominated for two spots
A, Alex
Bédard, Sophie
Bérubé, Jean-Sébastien
Boloney
Castrée, Geneviève
Denommé, Ariane
Falardeau, Michel
Girard, Philippe

WRITER – 5 nominated for two spots
Britt, Fanny
Desharnais, Francis
Desjardins, India
Fontaine-Rousseau, Alexandre
Lamontagne, Jacques

Last week I discussed the preparation leading up and into our second round of the nominating process for the 2012 Joe Shuster Awards – looking at four very specific categories of the 10 or so awards we will be presenting in September.

You may recall that we had assembled a list of French and English creators who were at least “seconded” – that is they received 2 or more votes from our two nominating committees – one for French work and the other for English.

We determined that based on the voting that any creators with more than 50% support would make it onto the final ballot and so the French nominating committee were able to finalize their selections without the need for a second round, and the English committee finalized one cartoonist, one cover artist and all of the remaining Writer spots.

Looking over the large number of creators seconded, we moved the cut off point to all creators who were “thirded”, receiving 3 or more votes. This resulted in 10 artists, 10 cartoonists and 10 cover artists going into Round Two.

ARTIST

5 spots open – Top 10 contenders

Chris Bachalo (Wolverine and the X-Men), Andy Belanger (Kill Shakespeare), Marian Churchland (Northlanders), Dale Eaglesham (Alpha Flight), Stuart Immonen (Fear Itself), Jeff Lemire (Jonah Hex), Yanick Paquette (Swamp Thing), Ramon Perez (Captain America and the First Thirteen), Cameron Stewart (Batman Incorporated Leviathan Strikes!), Doug Wheatley (Star Wars Dark Times – Out of the Wilderness)

CARTOONIST

4 spots open – Top 10 contenders (incl. 1 creator confirmed)

Chester Brown (Paying for It), Darwyn Cooke (“The Seventh” from Parker: The Martini Edition), Ray Fawkes (One Soul), Jesse Jacobs (Even the Giants), Jeff Lemire (Sweet Tooth), Francis Manapul (The Flash), Pat McKeown (Hair Shirt), Kagan McLeod (Infinite Kung Fu), Joe Ollmann (Mid-Life), Ramon Perez (Tale of Sand), Seth (Great Northern Brotherhood of Canadian Cartoonists).

COVER ARTIST

4 spots open – Top 10 contenders (incl. 1 creator confirmed)

Kalman Andrasofszky (Various), Kaare Andrews (Various), Darwyn Cooke (Various), Michael Del Mundo (Various), David Finch (Various), Jeff Lemire (Sweet Tooth, Jonah Hex), Francis Manapul (Various), Yanick Paquette (Various), Alexander Perkins (Kill Shakespeare 11), Doug Wheatley (Various), Chrissie Zullo (Cinderella: Fables are Forever).

The 13 member nominating committee is then asked to rank their choices by order of preference from 1 to 10. 1 being most preferred (and being counted as 10 points), 10 being least preferred (and counted as 1 point).

They had one week to send in their rankings, and the great thing about this stage of the process is that all 13 members have to take into consideration all of the ten potential nominees. Their cumulative point scores will determine who will advance to the final ballot.

So last week I discussed what goes on in the first round of nominating for the Joe Shuster Awards, by examining four specific categories and how the process works. About how we ask our 17 member committee (which is in fact two unique groups – 13 on the English committee, and 4 on the French), to each supply us with a ranked list of their top five choices from the master list of eligible creators that we supplied them (and updated when necessary). They had two and a half months to look over the list and narrow down their choices.

It is very important to us here at the Joe Shuster Awards that there be a sense of transparency about what we do and how we do it. You may not agree completely with our methods, but it is key that we are up front about them. We want the Final Ballot to accurately reflect in the best way that we can the most outstanding work that was done by Canadian creators in the previous year.

Because of the large group nominating we end up with a very wide variety of creators in each of the categories, but what is important to us here at this point in the process as we tabulate the results is where those lists are overlapping — because in order to advance for consideration to Round Two and/or the final ballot, at least one other member of the nominating committee had to select that same creator on their list.

We also have a caveat to that rule — and that is that any creator that is nominated by more than 50% of our nominating committee members automatically bypasses the second round of discussion/voting and goes on the Final Ballot for Jury Consideration.

Now that we have our list of seconded creators, we take a closer look at the number of votes received by each and the rankings given (I won’t be revealing the specific rankings, however in the next post I’ll let you know who advanced to Round Two.

The 4 member French nominating committee was able to finalize their selections in the first round as in all four categories at least 2 nominees in each received over 50% of the vote – 2 Artists, 3 Cartoonists, 3 Writers and 2 Cover Artists advance to the Final Ballot. Generally we look for a 5 English, 2 French split in each category, but if it’s clear that our nomcom feels that there are 3 strong candidates for consideration at the jury level we will increase the number of spots to 8 for a 5/3 split.

The 13 member English nominating committee was a lot more divided. In fact, no Artists, and only 1 Cartoonist and 1 Cover Artist advance to the Final Ballot. However, 5 Writers did receive more than 50% support so all advance and the category is finalized.

(However, I cannot share with you at this time which 8 of the 13 writers will end up on the final ballot at this time. So feel free to make some predictions…!)

In order to finalize the remaining spots we have to advance to second round of voting. Those creators with 3 or more votes but less than 7 votes will go on to ROUND TWO. That worked out perfectly to 10 creators per category.

Please note, for the sake of brevity, I’ve tried listing only one project per creator – as they are nominated for their body of work, some of the listings would be quite lengthy otherwise.

ARTIST
24 Seconded, 12 received 3 or more nominations
2 creators receive over 50% support and advance to the Final Ballot – 5 spots open

Chris Bachalo (Wolverine and the X-Men), Andy Belanger (Kill Shakespeare), Pierre Bouchard (Motel Galactic), Patrick Boutin-Gagne (La Bete du Lac: le Guardiaen), (Svetlana Chmakova (Witch and Wizard: The Manga), Marian Churchland (Northlanders), Darwyn Cooke (House of Mystery), Marc Delafontaine (Les Nombrils T.5), Dale Eaglesham (Alpha Flight), Tom Grummett (Incredible Hulks), Patrick Henaff (Le Testament du Capitaine Crown T.1), Stuart Immonen (Fear Itself), Fred Jourdain (Le Dragon Bleu/The Blue Dragon), Karl Kerschl (House of Night), Jeff Lemire (Jonah Hex), Steve Molnar (Star Trek Ongoing), Yanick Paquette (Swamp Thing), Stephanie Poulin (Au Pays de la Memoire Blanche), Ramon Perez (Captain America and the First Thirteen), Riley Rossmo (Green Wake), Fiona Staples (Jonah Hex), Cameron Stewart (Batman Incorporated Leviathan Strikes!), Doug Wheatley (Star Wars Dark Times – Out of the Wilderness), Jim Zubkavich (SkullKickers).

CARTOONIST
20 seconded, 11 received 3 or more nominations
4 creators receive over 50% support and advance to the Final Ballot – 4 spots open

Alex A. (L’Agent Jean T.1), Claude Auchu (Une Annee en Quarantine), Jimmy Beaulieu (Comedie Sentimentale Pornagraphique), Chester Brown (Paying for It), Scott Chantler (Three Thieves Book 2), Darwyn Cooke (“The Seventh” from Parker: The Martini Edition), Guy Delisle (Chroniques de Jerusalem), Jean-Paul Eid (Le Fond de Trou), Ray Fawkes (One Soul), Jesse Jacobs (Even the Giants), Karl Kerschl/Cameron Stewart (count as 1 – Assassin’s Creed: The Fall), Francois Lapierre (Chroniques Sauvages), Jeff Lemire (Sweet Tooth), Francis Manapul (The Flash), Pat McKeown (Hair Shirt), Kagan McLeod (Infinite Kung Fu), Joe Ollmann (Mid-Life), Ramon Perez (Tale of Sand), Michel Rabagliati (Paul au Parc), Seth (Great Northern Brotherhood of Canadian Cartoonists).

COVER ARTIST
21 seconded, 13 received 3 or more nominations
3 creators received over 50% support and advance to the Final Ballot – 4 spots open

Kalman Andrasofszky (Various), Kaare Andrews (Various), Chris Bachalo (Various), Kate Beaton (Hark! A Vagrant), Nick Bradshaw (Various), Travis Charest (Captain America 616, Mighty Thor 1), Darwyn Cooke (Various), Michael Del Mundo (Various), Jean-Paul Eid (Le Fond de Trou), David Finch (Various), W. Scott Forbes (Twenty-Seven, Twenty-Seven Second Set), Fred Jourdain (Le Dragon Bleu/The Blue Dragon), Dale Keown (Various), Francois Lapierre (Chroniques Sauvages), Jeff Lemire (Sweet Tooth, Jonah Hex), Francis Manapul (Various), Yanick Paquette (Various), Alexander Perkins (Kill Shakespeare 11), Fiona Staples (Various), Doug Wheatley (Various), Chrissie Zullo (Cinderella: Fables are Forever).

WRITER
13 seconded, 8 received 3 or more nominations
8 creators received over 50% support and advance to the Final Ballot – CLOSED

Ian Boothby (Simpsons Comics), Anthony Del Col/Connor McCreery (count as 1 – Kill Shakespeare), Francis Desharnais (Motel Galactic), Maryse Dubuc (Les Nombrils T.5), Ray Fawkes (Skullkickers), Kathryn Immonen (Wolverine and Jubilee), Francois Lapierre (La Bete du Lac: Le Gardiaen), Jeff Lemire (Animal Man), John Rogers (Dungeons and Dragons), Tristan Roulot (Le Testament de Capitaine Crown T.1), J. Torres (Archie), Kurtis Wiebe (Green Wake), Jim Zubkavich (Skullkickers).

*************

Congratulations to all who were seconded!

I’ll get into discussing Round Two in the next update.

So our nominating committees have been hard at work determining who will be selected for the 2012 Joe Shuster Awards ballot, so presented here – for transparency’s sake, are a list of creators who were nominated in four specific categories from hundreds of possible works. In order to be nominated, at least one member of the 17 member nominating committee has to select the creator as one of their “final five” ranked selections. Nominees must have created an original printed comic book or graphic album in either English or French that was professionally distributed to specialty shops and/or bookstores between 1/1/2012 and 12/31/2012.

Presented below are those creators that were nominated at least once for the process:

ARTIST (36 nominated)

Chris Bachalo, Andy Belanger, Patrick Boutin-Gagne, Nick Bradshaw, Caro Caron, Bernard Chang, Svetlana Chmakova, Marian Churchland, Darwyn Cooke, Dave Cooper, Wes Craig, Marc Delafontaine, Ghyslaine Duguay, Dale Eaglesham, Tom Fowler, Tom Grummett, Patrick Henaff, Stuart Immonen, Fred Jourdain, Karl Kerschl, Jacques Lamontagne, Jeff Lemire, James Lloyd, Steve Molnar, Yanick Paquette, Stephanie Poulin, Ramon Perez, Riley Rossmo, Claude St. Aubin, Dan Schoenning, Fiona Staples, Jay Stephens, Cameron Stewart, Doug Wheatley, Craig Yeung, Jim Zubkavich.

CARTOONIST (31 nominated)

Alex A., Von Allen, Claude Auchu, Jimmy Beaulieu, Marc Bell, Chester Brown, Scott Chantler, Darwyn Cooke, Willow Dawson, Guy Delisle, Jean-Paul Eid, Ray Fawkes, Pascal Girard, Michel Hellman, Jesse Jacobs, Karl Kerschl & Cameron Stewart (count as 1), Jeff Lemire, Francois Lapierre, Francis Manapul, Pat McKeown, Kagan McLeod, Joe Ollmann, Ramon Perez, Michel Rabagliati, Seth, Dave Sim, Fiona Smyth, Ashley Spires, James Stokoe, Melanie Watt, Zach Worton.

COVER ARTIST (43 nominated)

Kalman Andrasofszky, Kaare Andrews, Chris Bachalo, Jimmy Beaulieu, Kate Beaton, Andy Belanger, Patrick Boutin-Gagne, Nick Bradshaw, Chester Brown, Scott Chantler, Travis Charest, Darwyn Cooke, Willow Dawson, Mike Del Mundo, Marc Delafontaine, Cyril Doisneau, Jean-Paul Eid, David Finch, W. Scott Forbes, Pascal Girard, Michel Hellman, Patrick Henaff, Fred Jourdain, Karl Kerschl, Dale Keown, Scott Kowalchuk, Jacques Lamontagne, John Lang, Francois Lapierre, Jeff Lemire, Francis Manapul, Pat McKeown, Cary Nord, Yanick Paquette, Alexander Perkins, Ethan Rilly, Yves Rodier, Riley Rossmo, Ashley Spires, Fiona Staples, Richard Suicide, Doug Wheatley, Chrissie Zullo.

WRITER (23 nominated)

Frederic Antoine, Ian Boothby, Luc Bosse, Anthony Del Col & Connor McCreery (count as 1), Francis Desharnais, Maryse Dubuc, Ray Fawkes, David Finch, Kathryn Immonen, Lovern Kindzierski, Francois Lapierre, Jeff Lemire, Denis Lord, Todd McFarlane, Marie Michaud and Robert LePage (count as 1), John Rogers, Tristan Roulot, Remy Simard and Sylvie Desrosiers (count as 1), Ty Templeton, J. Torres, Kurtis Wiebe, Howard Wong, Jim Zubkavich.

Going into Round Two – Selecting your 2012 Ballot

With the initial list of creators nominated, the next step is to see how many creators have been SECONDED, that is at least one other person on the 17 member nominating committee also selected that person in their top 5 selections.

Then we do a sort based on (1) number of votes and (2) the rank in the nominator’s top five (which is weighted – first choice = 5 points, last choice = 4 points).

Creators that are not seconded do not proceed to the second round of consideration. 7, or in some cases 8, creators will make the final ballot in these four categories.

I’ll be back in a week or less with an update on who was seconded from the lists above.