What: The 2012 Doug Wright Awards
Where: Art Gallery of Ontario’s Jackman Hall, 317 Dundas Street West, Toronto, Ontario
When: Saturday, May 5, 2012 at 7:00 p.m. (doors open at 6:30)
Admission: FREE!
The Poster: Poster Design for the Awards was done by previous Doug Wright Award winner Michael DeForge. Copies of the poster will be available for sale at the ceremony for the low, low price of $20.00 each.
The Details
Come on out and help celebrate this once-a-year extravaganza of the best in Canadian comics and graphic novels.
And as a reminder of who is up for Wright Awards this year: The nominees for the 2012 Doug Wright Award for Best Book are:
Hark! A Vagrant by Kate Beaton (Drawn and Quarterly)
Lose #3 by Michael Deforge (Koyama Press)
Mid-Life by Joe Ollmann (Drawn and Quarterly)
Paying for It by Chester Brown (Drawn and Quarterly)
Reunion by Pascal Girard (Drawn and Quarterly)
The Great Northern Brotherhood of Canadian Cartoonists by Seth (Drawn and Quarterly)
The nominees for the 2012 Doug Wright Spotlight Award (a.k.a. “The Nipper”) which recognizes talent deserving of wider recognition, are:
Emily Carroll for “The Seven Windows” (from The Anthology Project vol. 2), “Margot’s Room” and “The Prince & the Sea” (and other comics at emcarroll.com/comic).
Patrick Kyle for Black Mass # 5 – 6
Betty Liang for Wet T-Shirt #1, “It’s Only a Secret if You Don’t Tell Anyone” (in š! #9), “Anna Freud’s Recurring Dream” (and other comics at bettyliang.tumblr.com)
Ethan Rilly for Pope Hats #2 (AdHouse Books)
Zach Worton for The Klondike (Drawn and Quarterly)
And the nominees for the 2012 Pigskin Peters Award, which recognizes the best in avant-garde or experimental comics, are:
Hermoddities by Temple Bates (Conundrum Press)
Pure Pajamas Marc Bell (Drawn and Quarterly)
Hellberta by Michael Comeau (Koyama Press)
‘Untitled’ by Mum Pittsburg, Jupiter Leucetius! Send Us a King. We Are So Bored (and other comics at connorwillumsen.com) by Connor Willumsen
Founded in 2004, The Doug Wright Awards recognize the best in English-language comics (or translations of French comics) by Canadians living in the country and abroad. Now in their eighth year, the awards will take place on May 5, 2012 in Toronto at the Art Gallery of Ontario’s Jackman Hall as a feature event of the Toronto Comic Arts Festival (TCAF.)
The Doug Wright Awards and TCAF are also pleased to announce that legendary political cartoonist Terry Mosher (who works under the pen name “Aislin”) will be on hand at this year’s ceremony to be inducted into The Giants of the North: The Canadian Cartoonists Hall of Fame.
This year marks Mosher’s 40th anniversary of publishing his acerbic and often hilarious cartoons in The Montreal Gazette. The Doug Wright Awards, along with its partner TCAF, are proud to have him in-the-flesh for an on-stage discussion about his colourful career and life with writer and Toronto Star columnist Rick Salutin.
The nominees for the 2012 Doug Wright Awards were chosen by a committee from a long list of nearly 100 works and submissions published during the 2011 calendar year. This year’s nominating committee included Jerry Ciccoritti, Jeet Heer, Bryan Munn, Chris Randle and Sean Rogers.
The 2012 winners will be decided by a jury that will include: visual artist Shary Boyle, cartoonist John Martz (A Doug Wright Award Best Emerging Talent nominee in 2010 and Pigskin Peters Award nominee in 2008), book artist and professor George Walker and Julie Traves, deputy arts editor for The Globe and Mail.
THE JOE SHUSTER AWARDS 
If I were a betting man, I would say that the winners are Chester Brown, Ethan Rilly and Marc Bell.
Interestingly enough, there is very little overlap this year between Joe Shuster Award nominees and Doug Wright Award nominees. Watch this site for the Joe Shuster Award nominees next week!