THE JOE SHUSTER AWARDS

Established in 2004, The Joe Shuster Awards are Canada’s national award recognizing outstanding achievement in the creation of comic books, graphic novels, webcomics and digital comics. The awards are named after pioneering Toronto-born artist Joe Shuster who, along with writer Jerry Siegel, created the iconic super-powered hero, Superman. 2020 Sponsors include Gotham Central, The Dragon, All New Comics, and the Comic Legends Legal Defense Fund (CLLDF).

We would like to start by expressing our condolences to the family and friends of Jason Conway, owner of Downtown Comics in St. John’s, Newfoundland, who passed away earlier this week.

For each award category we included the full list of nominees, the finalist is highlighted in red. For work published in 2019, your award finalists are:

ARTIST (TIE)

Jamal Campbell – Naomi, Far Sector

François Miville-Deschênes – Zaroff

• Yana Bogatch – Grimoire Noir (First Second)
• Jamal Campbell – Far Sector #1-2, Naomi #1-6 (DC Comics)
• Mike Del Mundo – Thor #9-10, 12-13, 15-16 (Marvel Comics)
• Dale Eaglesham – Shazam #3-8 (DC Comics)
• Faith Erin Hicks – Pumpkinheads (First Second)
• Karl Kerschl – Isola #6-9 (Image Comics)
• Ken Lashley – Amazing Spider-Man Vol. 5 #18.HU, Friendly Neighborhood Spider-Man #7-10, 13-14 (Marvel Comics), Bloodshot: Rising Spirit #3 (Valiant Comics)
• Simon Leclerc – Jours D’attente (La Pastèque)
• François Miville-Deschênes – Zaroff (Lombard)

WRITER

Mariko Tamaki – Laura Dean Keeps Breaking Up With Me, Harley Quinn: Breaking Glass, et al

• Ed Brisson – Contagion #1-5, Dead Man Logan #3-12, Ghost Rider Vol. 9 #1-3, Ghost Rider 2099 Vol. 2 #1, New Mutants Vol. 4 #1-4, Absolute Carnage: Symbiote of Vengeance #1, X-Force Vol. 5 #2-10, Age of X-Men: Nextgen #1-5,  Uncanny X-Men Vol. 5 Annual #1, plus contributions to Alpha Flight: True North #1, Marvel Comics #1000, Incoming #1, Uncanny X-Men Vol. 5 #8-10  (Marvel Comics)
• Cecil Castellucci – Batgirl #37-42, Female Furies #1-6, Mysteries of Love in Space #1 (DC Comics)
• Thomas Desaulnier-Brousseau – Jours D’attente (La Pastèque)
• Brendan Fletcher – Isola #6-9 (Image Comics), Robotech: Remix #1-3 (Titan)
• Jeff Lemire – Berserker Unbound #1-4, Black Hammer/Justice League #1-5, Black Hammer ’45 (with Ray Fawkes) #1-4 , Black Hammer: Age of Doom #9-12, Skulldigger + Skeleton Boy #1, The Quantum Age: From the World of Black Hammer #6 (Dark Horse Comics), The Question: The Deaths of Vic Sage #1 (DC Comics), Ascender #1-8, Gideon Falls #10-19 (Image Comics), plus contributions to Marvel Comics #1000 (Marvel Comics)
• Jed Mackay – Black Cat #1-7, Annual #1, Absolute Carnage: Weapons Plus #1, Man Without Fear #1-5, plus contributions to Bizarre Adventures #1, Spider-Verse Vol. 3 #1, 3 (Marvel Comics)
• Mariko Tamaki – Laura Dean Keeps Breaking Up With Me (First Second), Harley Quinn: Breaking Glass (DC Comics), Spider-Man and Venom: Double Trouble (Marvel Comics), Archie #706-709 (Archie Comics)
• Darcy Van Poelgeest – Little Bird #1-5 (Image Comics)
• Chip Zdarsky – The White Trees #1-2 (Image Comics), Daredevil Vol. 6 #1-15, Spider-Man: Life Story 1-6, Invaders Vol. 3 #1-12,  Doom 2099 Vol. 2 #1, as well as contributions to Amazing Spider-Man: Full Circle #1,, Incoming #1, Marvel Comics #1000, War of the Realms: War Scrolls #1 (Marvel Comics)

CARTOONIST

Nina Bunjevac – Bezimena

• Brigitte Archambault – Le projet shiatsung (Mecanique Generale)
• Sophie Bedard – Les petits garcons (Pow Pow)
• Nina Bunjevac – Bezimena (Fantagraphics)
• Emily Carroll – When I Arrived at the Castle (Koyama Press)
• Michael Deforge – Stunt (Koyama Press)
• Sarah Leavitt – Agnes, Murderess (Freehand Books)
• Jeff Lemire – Frogcatchers (Simon and Schuster)
• Renee Nault – The Handmaid’s Tale: The Graphic Novel (McClelland & Stewart) adapted from the novel by Margaret Atwood
• Jay Stephens – Dejects (Black Eye Books)

COVER ARTIST

Nick Bradshaw – Marvel Comics, DC Comics

For the sake of brevity, we have not listed every cover attributed to every nominated creator. All are nominated for their cumulative covers (including variants) published on periodical comic books in 2019.

• Kaare Andrews
• Sweeney Boo
• Nick Bradshaw
• Michael Cho
• Mike Del Mundo
• Dale Eaglesham
• David Finch
• Dale Keown
• Francis Manapul

WEBCOMICS/DIGITAL COMICS

Chip Zdarsky, Jason Loo, et al – Afterlift

• S.M. Beiko – Krampus is My Boyfriend
• Boum – Boumeries
• Tony Esteves – Cigarro & Cerveja
• Karl Kerschl – The Abominable Charles Christopher
• Isabelle Melançon (with Megan Lavey-Heaton – USA) – Namesake
• Ronn Sutton (with Martin Powell – USA) – Edgar Rice Burroughs’ The Man-Eater
• Chip Zdarsky, Jason Loo, et al. – Afterlift

THE GENE DAY AWARDS

Named after the late Howard Eugene Day (1951-1982), a Canadian comics artist best known for his work on Marvel Comics’ Star Wars comics and Master of Kung Fu who began his career publishing his own independent comics such as Out of the Depths, Oktoberfest Comics and the graphic novel Future Day. He also contributed short stories to horror comics magazines Psycho and Nightmare and to the Star*Reach, Imagine and Quack Anthologies as well as Orb Magazine.  Many of his short stories were published posthumously in the anthologies Black Zeppelin and in Day Brothers Presents. The name is used with the approval of the Day family.

Two Gene Day Awards honour the creative spirit of independent comics in Canada. The nominees were selected from individual publications submitted for review or acquired by the committee before the deadline of June 1, 2020.

GENE DAY AWARD FOR SELF-PUBLISHED COMICS / GRAPHIC NOVELS

Becka Kinzie – Gehenna: Death Valley

• Daniel Brodie, Robert Jennex – Morgan’s Organs #3
• Naomi Cui, Janice Liu – Chicken Soup & Goji Berries
• A. Shay Hahn – Beaver Damn #3, Our Hearts Are Full, Vladiasaurs
• Becka Kinzie – Gehenna: Death Valley
• Jonathan Kociuba – Lover Man Vol. 1
• Minikim – Maman, Papa… et moi! et moi! et moi!
• Chris Sanagan, Jason Lapidus – Group of 7 #4-6

GENE DAY AWARD FOR ANTHOLOGY COLLECTIONS

This Place: 150 Years Retold – Highwater Press

• Cauldron Magazine #2 (Ricky Lima, Sam Noir, Shane Heron Publishers)
• Life Finds a Way (Cloudscape Comics Collective)
• RAID Two (RAID Studio)
• Shout Out (TO Comix)
• This Place: 150 Years Retold (Highwater Press)
• The Witching Hours (Cloudscape Comics Collective)

THE DRAGON AWARD (COMICS FOR YOUNGER READERS)

Operatic / Opératique – Kyo Maclear, Byron Eggenschwiler

This award recognizes the works which capture the attention and fascination of young readers, and help to create a passion for life-long reading. Works considered for this award are comic books and graphic novels by Canadian creators that are targeted at readers 14 and under. Nominees for this award are selected by a team of educators led by Jennifer Haines, MA, B.Ed., who is the proprietor of The Dragon comic book shop locations in Guelph and Milton, Ontario.

• Marvel Action: Captain Marvel – Sam Maggs, Sweeney Boo (IDW Publishing/Marvel Comics)
• Mort et Déterré T.1: Un cadavre en caval – Jocelyn Boivert, Pascal Colpron (Dupuis)
• Operatic / Opératique – Kyo Maclear, Byron Eggenschwiler (Groundwood Books/la Pastèque)  
• Peter and Ernesto: The Lost Sloths – Graham Annable (First Second Books)  
• Surviving the City Vol. 1 – Tasha Spillett-Sumner, Natasha Donovan (Highwater Press)
• Si on Était T.1 – Axelle Lenoir (Front Froid)

HARRY KREMER RETAILER RECOGNITION AWARD

Comic Book Addiction (Whitby, ON) – Steve Quinnell and Nick Catros, Owners

www.comicbookaddiction.com

Named after Harry Kremer, the original owner of Now & Then Books (in Kitchener, Ontario). The CCBCAA maintains a list of active comic book stores across the country and a database of recommendations, referrals and secret shopper reports.

Once a store wins the award they join an existing network of stores from across the nation that have been recognized for their outstanding service to the comics community.

• Alpha Comics (Calgary, AB)
• Comic Book Addiction (Whitby, ON)
• Comic Hunter (Moncton, NB)
• Cyber City Comix (Toronto, ON)
• Golden Age Collectables (Vancouver, BC)
• Heroes World (Markham, ON)
• Librarie Z (Montreal, QC)

CANADIAN COMIC CREATOR HALL OF FAME

Two creators will be inducted into the Canadian Comic Book Creator Hall of Fame in 2020:

Gregory Gallant, pen name Seth (1962-)

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Gregory Gallant (born September 16, 1962), better known by his pen name Seth, is a Canadian cartoonist. He was born in Clinton, Ontario, Canada, the youngest of five children. His family moved frequently, but he grew up mostly in Tilbury, Ontario.

Seth attended the Ontario College of Art in Toronto from 1980 to 1983. While there he became involved with the punk subculture and began wearing outlandish clothing, bleaching his hair, wearing makeup, and frequenting nightclubs, it was during this time he took on the pen name Seth in 1982. After graduating he continued to reside in Toronto.

In 1985 he was brought on as the series artist for Dean Motter’s Mister X,  published by Toronto-based Vortex Comics. His run covered issues #6–13 (1985–88), after which he did commercial artwork for publications including Saturday Night and Fashion. In 1986 he met fellow Toronto-based Vortex artist Chester Brown, and in 1991 Toronto-based American cartoonist Joe Matt. The three became noted for doing confessional autobiographical comics in the early 1990s, and for depicting each other in their works, and they became known as “The Toronto Three”.

In April 1991 he launched his own comic book, Palookaville, with Montreal publisher Drawn & Quarterly. Seth’s artwork had evolved to a strong, nostalgic style, with thick bold lines. Palookaville is still published by D+Q on an semi-annual basis.

He has been a strong pioneer of the graphic novel format with It’s A Good Life, If You Don’t Weaken (1996) (serialized in Palookaville 4-9), Clyde Fans: Part One (2000) (serialized in Palookaville 10-12), Clyde Fans: Part Two (2003) (serialized in Palookaville 13-15), Wimbledon Green (2005), George Sprott (2009) (serialized in the New York Times Magazine in 2006), The Great Northern Brotherhood of Canadian Cartoonists (2011) . Between 2012 and 2015 he collaborated on a series of four books with author Lemony Snicket under the banner All the Wrong Questions –  Who Could That Be at This Hour?, When Did You See Her Last?,  Shouldn’t You Be In School? and Why is This Night Different From All Other Nights? In 2019 Drawn and Quarterly published the complete Clyde Fans, which was nominated for the prestigious Giller Prize.

An art book, Vernacular Drawings, was published in 2001.

He is also a magazine illustrator and book designer, perhaps best known for his work designing the complete collection of Charles M. Schulz’s classic comic strip Peanuts, released by Fantagraphics Books in over two dozen volumes. Similarly, he assembled the Collected Doug Wright, and the John Stanley Library, and most recently, John Stanley’s Nancy for D+Q.

Seth’s artwork has landed on the cover of The New Yorker three times, and he has illustrated covers for prose novels as well as record albums and covers for the prestigious Criterion Collection.

Seth’s highly detailed building models for the fictional Canadian town of Dominion have been on display in numerous art galleries across North America. In 2008, Seth collaborated with the Kitchener-Waterloo Art Gallery and RENDER (now the University of Waterloo Art Gallery), on an exhibition titled “The North Star Talking Picture House”. For this exhibition one of the buildings from Seth’s Dominion City project was re-built at the Kitchener-Waterloo Art Gallery as a walk-in theatre wherein visitors could sit and watch a program of black and white documentary shorts that had been produced by the National Film Board of Canada.

Seth is the subject of the 2014 documentary film Seth’s Dominion, which received the grand prize for best animated feature at the Ottawa International Animation Film Festival.

He is the co-founder of the Doug Wright Awards for Canadian Cartooning, established in 2004 and has designed the trophies for the annual award, handed out in conjunction with the Toronto Comic Arts Festival.

Bernard Edward “Bernie” Mireault (1961-)

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Bernard Edward “Bernie” Mireault (born 1961) is a Canadian comic book artist and writer. He was born in Marville, France, where his parents were stationed while working for the Canadian Armed Forces. In 1963, the family moved back to Canada and he was raised in Rawdon, Quebec, he has been an active participant in the Montreal underground comix scene, participating in the comix jams since their early inception and contributing to local zines and underground publications. At the same time he has worked in the mainstream comics industry as an artist and colourist, as well as an animator and illustrator.

Among his comics works are Dr. Robot, Mackenzie Queen, Bug-eyed Monster, The Blair Witch Chronicles, and Left Alone: The Rustin Parr Killings, Two Fisted Science: Safecracker, When is a Door? , “The Tragic Though Amusing History of Clay Face II{ from Secret Origins for DC Comics, and the creator-owned comic The Jam, first published as a backup feature in Northguard from Matrix Graphic Series, and then published in its own title from 1985 by various publishers including Matrix Graphics, Comico, Slave Labor Graphics, Tundra Publishing, Dark Horse Comics, and Caliber Press.

Mireault also served as the artist on the story arc The Devil Within for Matt Wagner’s Grendel comics in the late 1980s – notably coloured by Joe Matt. Mireault also coloured several Grendel story arcs: Warchild, Devil’s Hammer, Devil in Our Midst, Devil Tracks, Devil Eyes, Devil by the Deed, The Devil’s Apprentice. Wagner and Mireault also collaborated on a Riddler origin story for Secret Origins, that sparked the appearance of the Riddler in the film Batman Forever, played by fellow Canadian Jim Carrey.As a colourist he had a long-standing collaborative relationship with Salgood Sam a.k.a. Max Douglas, a fellow Canadian artist. Together they worked on Wonder Woman Vs. the Red Menace, Muties #6: The Patriot Game, and Revolution on the Planet of the Apes.

Another long-standing collaborative relationship has been with Mike Allred, with whom he’s produced Madman / Jam: The Fall of the House of Escher, Creatures of the Id, and The Everyman. And Mireault’s character Dr. Robot first appeared as a back-up in the back of Mike Allred’s Madman.

Mireault also has a part-time band called Bug-Eyed Monster, for which he writes the occasional song.

TM MAPLE AWARD

The CCBCAA would acknowledge the many creators, retailers, publishers, fans and others who stepped up to help others during the ongoing COVID-19 Crisis in 2020. 

We wish to express our condolences to the many families and friends who have lost loved ones to COVID-19 and to the Canadian stores that have had to face an uncertain year, with lockdowns and restrictions, some of which are no longer with us.

Special Recognition to the fundraising initiatives in the Spring of 2020:

• Leonard Wong and Jay Bardyla for organizing the Canadian Comic Shop Relief Fund through the Comic Legends Legal Defense Fund (with assistance from this Awards Association).
• The Be Our Heroes, Canada telethon (Heroes World, Gotham Central, The Dragon and Cyber City Comix)
• To the many artists who donated work for auction to the above, as well as other fundraising for those in need like local food banks, and to those that supported these initiatives by purchasing work.

T.M. Maple was the pseudonym of Jim Burke (1956-1994), a fan who wrote more than 3,000 letters to comic book letter columns between 1977 and 1994. Burke’s letters were quite popular among readers as well as editors, and he wrote prolifically to a diverse number of comic publishing companies and titles.

The T.M. Maple Award goes to someone (living or deceased) selected from the Canadian comics community for achievements made outside of the creative and retail categories who have had a positive impact on the community.

ABOUT THE AWARDS ASSOCIATION

The Joe Shuster, Gene Day, Dragon, Harry Kremer, TM Maple and Hall of Fame Awards are organized and presented by the Canadian Comic Book Creator Awards Association (established in 2004).

For more information please contact Awards Director Kevin Boyd at kevin@joeshusterawards.com