The winners of the 2018 Joe Shuster Awards, which recognizes the best Canadian comic books creators and retailers every year, have been announced.
The Best Writer Award went to Jim Zub, whose most recent works include Marvel Comics’ “Thunderbolts,” “Uncanny Avengers” and Image Comics’ “Wayward.” Stuart Immonen was voted the Best Artist for his work on Marvel’s “Amazing Spider-Man,” “Marvel Legacy” and “Empress,” while Djibril Morissette-Phan won Best Cover Artist for his work on “Chapterhouse” at Image Comics. For the Cartoonist category, the awards jury recognized Jeff Lemire for “Roughneck” and “Royal City.” Best Webcomics Creator was awarded to Gisele Lagace and David Lumsden for “Ménage à 3.”
The Gene Day Award, which are given to comic book creators/creative teams who have “self-published their work but did not have the books distributed by a third party,” was split into two categories this year. The first Gene Day Award, for a Single Creator/Creative Team, was awarded to Jen Woodall for “Marie And Worrywart: Comics About Anxiety.” The Gene Day Award’s second category, for the Anthology Format, was given to Hope Nicholson, who edited “Moonshot: The Indigenous Comics Collection Vol. 2.”
The Harry Kramer Award, named after the late owner of Kitchener, Ontario’s Now and Then Books store, is given to an outstanding retailer. This year’s was given to Gotham Central, a comic shop in Mississauga, Ontario.
This year’s Dragon Award was given to Andrew Wheeler and Paulina Ganucheau for “Another Castle.” The Dragon Award is given to creators of a comic book aimed at readers 14 years and under that “capture[s] the attention and fascination of young readers, and help to create a passion for life-long reading.”
The T.M. Maple Award is given to someone, living or deceased, who has made a significant impact on the Canadian comic book community outside of the creative and retail categories. The recipient of the award this year was Mark Askwith, a Canadian producer, writer and interviewer. Askwith is most well known for his TV show, Prisoners of Gravity, which explored comic books, sci-fi and horror from 1989 to 1994.
This year there were four inductees into the Canadian Comic Book Creator Hall Of Fame:
- Sid Barron (1917 – 2006) was an comic book artist on the almost entirely non-fictional “Canadian Heroes Comics” during the Second World War. From the late ’50s, his artwork, which was drawn with black ink and crayon on commercial board, was featured in The Victoria Times, the Toronto Star and The Albertan up until his retirement in 1989.
- Jacques Goldstyn, a graduate of Université de Montréal in geology, started a career in illustration in 1981, often using the pen name, Boris. He regularly contributes to children’s magazine Les Débrouillard with his own books including “Letters to a Prisoner” and “Bertolt.”
- David Boswell (born 1953) is a comic book writer and artist, as well as illustrator and photographer based in Vancouver, British Columbia. He is most well known as the creator of “Reid Fleming, World’s Toughest Milkman.”
- Tom Grummett (born 1959) is a comic book artist most well known for his work at DC Comics on “Superman,” “Superboy” and “Teen Titans” as well as his work at Marvel Comics on “Avengers/Thunderbolts,” “X-Men Unlimited” and “Spider-Man.”
Founded in 2004, the Joe Shuster Canadian Comic Book Creator Awards are a national award aimed at recognizing and raising the awareness of Canadians involved in the comic book industry as creators and retailers. The award is named after the Toronto-born Joe Shuster, who, along with Jerry Siegel, created Superman. For information on how to sponsor next year’s awards, please visit the official website.
