The Joe Shuster Awards

In 2008 and 2009, with the cooperation of many Canadian artists we embarked on an ambitious project called  “Visions of an Icon“. The brainchild of our former Executive Director James Waley, Visions was an art show featuring pieces donated by Canadian artists depicting their interpretation of a single iconic character with ties to Canada and Canadian comics. Visions also doubled as a fund raising program for the Joe Shuster Awards when those pieces were sold on eBay and at public events.

The subject of our first Visions art show and sale was SUPERMAN, the co-creation of our namesake, Joe Shuster. With the recent sale of Todd McFarlane’s Superman piece, the funds raised from the first Visions sale ended up funding the Awards completely in our most expensive year ever (2009), including new initiatives above our standard operating costs such as the Gene Day Award Bursary, buying books for our jury members to review and exhibiting at events such as Fan Expo and Word on the Street.

The subject of our second Visions art show and sale is WOLVERINE, and those pieces are still in the process of being scanned for a series of auctions we have on the schedule for February of this year. Later this month we will begin spotlighting one piece per day leading up to the start of the auctions. The funds raised from the sale of those pieces will go towards our 2010 operational budget, which we are in the current process of streamlining for efficiency.

Unfortunately, there have been many comics-related charitable organizations that have embarked on similar original art-based fund raising initiatives and we have found ourselves in competition with some of these worthy organizations each year with the same subject! For instance, in 2008 international creators contributed to a Superman art auction to raise funds for the preservation of Jerry Siegel’s home in Cleveland, Ohio. This year, international creators contributed pieces to the Hero Initiative’s Wolverine 100 project (which are currently being sold on eBay as well) including many Canadian creators who did not participate in the Visions project.

That last point, in turn, caused us to do some serious organizational “naval-gazing”. How can we realistically return to the same group of Canadian artists and ask them to voluntarily contribute original pieces to our organization year after year while at the same time they are also being asked to contribute to other, similar fund raising efforts? We certainly don’t want to develop bad feelings or make people feel obligated to support us in such a fashion,  and we don’t want to be continually putting creators in the position of making tough choices over who they will do drawings for outside of their work hours. Also, as a non-profit organization that relies on fund raising to cover our operating budget, could and should we be putting all of our eggs into that single basket?

One of my first acts as the new CCBCAA Executive Director was to address the issue of whether or not the Visions of an Icon project should continue into a third year. To that end, after some discussion and debate,the Awards Association Executive have decided that we will NOT run a third Visions of an Icon art show and sale in 2010.

Instead we are going to concentrate on numerous new fundraising initiatives and partnerships, which I hope to share the details with you on in the near future. We may return to the Visions concept, albeit in a revised form, in a future year.

That being said, we certainly don’t want to discourage original art donations as a fund raising option. We welcome any donations that Canadian creators would like to give us  – or alternately it could be a print, copies of autographed books that we can sell at public events, portions of a commission sale, and so forth. We are open and willing to discuss any and all ideas you may have on this subject.

Sincerely,

Kevin Boyd
Executive Director,
The Canadian Comic Book Creator Awards Association

R.I.P. Barry Blair 1959-2010

Canadian comic book writer, artist, editor and publisher Barry Blair, passed away January 3, 2010 from a brain aneurysm. Rich Johnston reports that  “he complained to friends of an ear ache previously and was on medication as a result. However he felt so ill, he was eventually taken to hospital, but it was too late.”

Blair played a very large role in the independent B&W comic scene, running Aircel Comics out of Ottawa, ON, which published many recognizable titles (for comic readers who are now 33 and older) including:

• Adventurers
• Darkewood
• Demon Hunter
• Dragonforce
• Dragonforce Chronicles
• Dragonring
• Elflord
• Leather & Lace
• Pendragon
• Samurai
• Samurai vol. 2
• Samurai vol. 3
• Warlock 5

After some financial troubles, Aircel merged with Eternity Comics, which was eventually folded into Adventure Comics/Malibu Graphics (later known as Malibu Comics), the original publisher of the Image Comics imprint.

Aircel helped introduce creators Dale Keown (on Dragon Force, Keown later went on to work on Marvel’s Incredible Hulk and his creator-owned character Pitt for Image Comics) and Denis Beauvais (Warlock 5, went on to fame with Dark Horse Comics Aliens series), and also published the comic series Men In Black, which gained fame as a movie franchise starring Will Smith and Tommy Lee Jones.

Barry went on to work for Wendy and Richard Pini, illustrating a number of Elfquest titles (New Blood, Fire Eye, and Blood of Ten Chiefs ), and helped encourage independent creator/self-publisher Drew Hayes, creator ofPoison Elves.

The second day of the year, and we’re already rolling! Jason has compiled at fairly complete listing of eligible English creators for the 2010 awards.

2009 was a great year for Canadian comic creators and there are so many wonderful books on this list, it’s a great opportunity to go back and revisit what was released; there might be a book or two you’ll want to pick up!

Please have a look at this list of English eligible creators, if you feel there is a comic work that is missing: please send us an e-mail to jason@joeshusterawards.com, so we can correct any oversights.

Mere hours away from the arrival of a new decade, we here at the Awards Association would like to take some time today to wish everyone a safe and happy new year!

As the year is quickly coming to a close we are busy compiling the lists of eligible creators and works for publication on this website in January.

We are also gathering together our Nominating Committee(s) – French and English – for the following categories:
ARTIST
WRITER
CARTOONIST
COVER ART
COLOURIST

In years past we have gone to a small and select number of people associated with the industry per year (5 to 7 member nominating committees)  – be it online reviewers, managers and owners of comic book shops, people that work on conventions and some additional superfans. We balance out the committees by Province.

This year, we are going to invite back nearly everyone who has previously participated in our nominating committee process, but IN ADDITION to this process, we will be opening up the process to include and recruit new people (and thus expand our national network of Associates). We will also be contacting Canadian stores and asking if they would like to have someone on staff or a representative complete a nomination ballot.

As well, we are asking readers of this site who are interested in participating to submit a request in writing. In order to participate in the Nominating Committee process you must meet certain requirements. Please complete and copy/paste the mini-questionnaire below into an email and it to me at kevin@joeshusterawards.com

SUBJECT: 2010 NOMINATING COMMITTEE

I am interested in participating in the 2010 Nominating Process. As part of this process, I understand that I will be given lists of eligible creators and asked to review/consider these works before submitting my nominees list for inclusion.

Please complete this short questionnaire.

I am a Canadian citizen or resident and live in ______________________ (city, province).

I can read French (Y/N)______  I have access to BD by Canadians (Y/N): _______

I am interested in participating in the French language publications nominating committee (Y/N) _______

I:

____ work in, or am affiliated with, a comic book store
store name:______________________________

____ write a comics related blog
site name:_______________________________

____ contribute to a comics related website
site name:_______________________________

____ contribute to journal, magazine, newspaper, fanzine
publication name:_________________________

____ work or have worked on a Canadian comics related event
specify:_________________________________

____ am affiliated with a comics related organization
specify:_________________________________

____ am a comic book creator who did not have any work published (in print or online) in 2009

____ have previously worked for a comic book publisher
specify: _________________________________

____ work in a related field (animation, advertising)
specify: _________________________________

____ other
specify: _________________________________

Once I’ve received your application I’ll send you a quick note if you qualify and let you know the timeline.

Unfortunately there are some people that are disqualified:

1. Comic book and/or graphic novel creators who worked on eligible works published in print or on the internet in 2009

2. Comic book and/or graphic novel publishers and/or their employees who were actively working in the industry in 2009.

3. Current members of the Joe Shuster Awards Executive. Associates and past members may contribute provided that they were not actively creating or publishing comics in 2009.