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.