The French and English Language Works Nomination Committees are hard at work reviewing comics and graphic novels for the following four awards: WRITER, ARTIST, COLOURIST and CARTOONIST.

Yesterday, Round One of the nominating process for the 7-member English language committee was completed, the results tabulated and divided into three groups for each category:

1. Receiving 4 or more nominations = Automatically on the Ballot.

2 Artists, 3 Cartoonists, 4 Colourists and 4 Writers were decided in Round One with 4-7 Nominations each.

2. Receiving 2-3 nominations = advance to Round Two.

8 Artists, 4 Cartoonists, 4 Colourists and 3 Writers received 2-3 Nominations in Round One and advance to Round Two.

3. Receiving 1 nomination = not included in Round Two.

9 Artists, 12 Cartoonists, 4 Colourists and 4 Writers only recieved one Nomination each and do not advance to Round Two.

The Nominating Committee now has TWO WEEKS to determine their selections for Round Two.

Round Two involves taking the list of 8 Artists, 4 Cartoonists, 4 Colourists and 3 Writers who advanced to Round Two and ranking them by order of preference. Voting order is weighted, with first choices receiving the most points and last choice in each section receiving the least. Points are then calculated and the Top 4 Artists, 3 Cartoonists, 2 Colourists and 2 Writers are added to the 2009 Ballot along with those creators that were already selected by majority vote in Round One.

When this is completed the results from the French Language Works Nominating Committee are then added to the ballot. Two creators per category will be added to the 6 creators selected by the English Language Works Nominating Committee, ensuring that the language representation on the ballot in each category is 25% French, 75% English.

The Executive Commitee will be selecting the Publisher, Webcomics and Cover Art nominees based on recommendations / feedback from the two Nominating Committees.