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2021 Ignatz Awards Winners Announced

By | September 19th, 2021
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The winners of the 2021 Ignatz Awards, honoring the year’s best independent and small press comics, were announced during last night’s virtual Small Press Expo. So without further ado, here are the recipients of this year’s prizes:

'Stone Fruit'

Outstanding Graphic Novel:Stone Fruit” by Lee Lai (published by Fantagraphics). Lai’s 236-page debut follows Bron and Ray, “a queer couple who enjoy their role as the fun weirdo aunties to Ray’s niece, six-year-old Nessie.”

Outstanding Artist: Lee Lai for “Stone Fruit.” Lai is an Australian artist based in Montreal, whose work has also been featured in The New Yorker. She is currently working on her next graphic novel, “Cannon.”

Outstanding Comic:Leaf Lace” by Ashanti Fortson (Hiveworks). The book follows Ananke, the Greek personification of inevitability, whose life has become entwined with the mortal Mnimi. “As Mnimi’s life approaches its end, Ananke’s grief threatens to unravel the land around them, the sky above them, and her own understanding of life itself.”

Outstanding Series: “Ex.Mag” (published by Peow Studio), a limited run sci-fi/fantasy anthology series. Three volumes have been published so far, and each respectively emphasized cyberpunk, paranormal romance, and dark fantasy stories.

Outstanding Story: ‘Personal Companion’ from “Ex.Mag” #1, by Freddy Carrasco (Peow Studio). Carrasco previously won an award last year for his short story collection “GLEEM,” which also earned him the Pigskin Peters Award for non-narrative/experimental comics.

Outstanding Minicomic: “Bodyseed Prologue” by Casey Nowak (Diskette Press). The 35-page start of Nowak’s work-in-progress story follows “two fellow soldiers [who] have a late-night adventure.”

Outstanding Collection:The Crossroads at Midnight” by Abby Howard (Iron Circus Comics). The 352-page book collects five horror comics, which “explore the consequences of what happens when one is desperate enough to seek solace in the unnatural.”

Outstanding Anthology:Glaeolia 2” (Glacier Bay Books). The 330-page book features stories from 12 Japanese comic artists, many of which had never been published in English before.

Outstanding Online Comic:Birds of Maine” by Michael DeForge. DeForge’s daily Instagram comic imagines the society birds would create after humans have gone extinct. It will be collected in print by Drawn & Quarterly in Spring 2022.

Promising New Talent: Pa-Luis, a Spanish, trans and non-binary artist who specializes in chibi-esque fantasy illustrations. As winner of the award, Pa-Luis will have the privilege of creating next year’s Ignatz logo.

You can check out the year’s full list of nominees at the SPX’s website, and watch this year’s ceremony in the video below. Congratulations to all the winners!


Christopher Chiu-Tabet

Chris is the news manager of Multiversity Comics. A writer from London on the autistic spectrum, he enjoys tweeting and blogging on Medium about his favourite films, TV shows, books, music, and games, plus history and religion. He is Lebanese/Chinese, although he can't speak Cantonese or Arabic.

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