Awards for Graphic Novels

Definition

The Eisner, Harvey, Ignatz, Hugo, and Ringo awards, as well as various manga awards, are among the major awards given to graphic novels. The Eagle Awards were once a popular graphic novel award, although they ceased in 2014. Similarly, the Kirby Awards were previously given to graphic novels but stopped in 1987. Graphic novels have also won other prestigious literary awards, including the National Book Award, the Pulitzer Prize, the Michael L. Printz Award, the Newbery Medal, and the Coretta Scott King Book Award. 

Introduction

For most media, various awards are created to recognize excellence. Comic arts are no exception, and graphic novels have typically been included to some extent from the beginning of most comics awards. In several cases, graphic novels and anthologies were initially combined into a single prize. As they become more prominent, graphic novels have been awarded their own prizes; in fact, for some awards, there is more than one category for graphic novels.

Eagle and National Comics Awards

The Eagle Awards were first given in 1977, created and funded by a group of comic book dealers and fanzine editors in the United Kingdom (UK). Beginning with the 1979 awards, separate awards were given in some categories for works from the UK and the United States (US). The awards were on hiatus from 1981 to 1983. In 1986, the first Eagle Award for Favorite Graphic Novel was given to Howard Chaykin’s American Flagg!: Hard Times (1985). During another hiatus, the National Comics Award replaced the Eagle Awards in the UK but had a graphic novel-related category only once, in 1999. That award was for Best Collected Series or Graphic Novel and was given to Superman: For All Seasons (1988), a series of comic books. The Eagle Awards returned in 2000 as a component of England’s annual comics convention. Volumes from Alan Moore’s The League of Extraordinary Gentlemen (1999- ) won the Favorite Original Graphic Novel award in 2008 and 2009. Moore also won with Gene Ha for Top 10: The Forty-Niners (2005), and other winners include Brian K. Vaughn’s Pride of Baghdad (2006) and Brian Azzarello and Joe Kubert’sSgt. Rock: Between Hell and a Hard Place (2003). In 2014, the Eagle Awards were renamed the True Believer Comic Awards but did not continue after that year. 

Kirby, Eisner, and Harvey Awards

The first major award for graphic novels in the US was named for Jack Kirby and was initially awarded in 1985. The Kirby Award existed for only a brief time, though. The award was created by Amazing Heroes magazine, which Fantagraphics Books published, and the program was run by Dave Olbrich, a Fantagraphics employee, when the award began. Because of a dispute between Olbrich and Fantagraphics over the ownership of the award, the Kirby was discontinued after 1987, and two new awards emerged. Fantagraphics created and administers the Harvey Award, named for Harvey Kurtzman, and Olbrich began the Eisner Award, named for Will Eisner.

The Kirby Award was given for several specific genres or publications, including Best Single Issue, Best Continuing Series, Best Black and White Series, Best Finite Series, Best New Series, Best Graphic Album, Best Artist, Best Writer, Best Writer/Artist, Best Art Team, Best Cover, and Best Comics Publication. Moore dominated the awards for the three years of their existence. He, Stephen R. Bissette, and John Totleben won Best Continuing Series for all three years of the Kirby Awards for their work with Swamp Thing (1984-1987), and Moore won Best Writer all three years, twice for Swamp Thing and once for Watchmen (1986-1987). Moore’s work was also recognized in other categories, including a Best Single Issue for Swamp Thing in 1985 and Best New Series in both 1986 and 1987 for Miracleman (1985-1989) and Watchmen, respectively. Moore and Dave Gibbons won the 1987 award for Best Writer/Artist Team for Watchmen.

The Will Eisner Comic Industry Award was established in 1987 and began conferring its awards at the 1988 Comic-Con International: San Diego. Olbrich continued to manage the awards until 1990, when Jackie Estrada took over. Until his death in 2005, Eisner participated in yearly awards ceremonies. The Eisners, often called the Oscars of comics, are awarded for various categories, including graphic novels. An open call for nominations is sent to publishers each year, and nominating and judging panels are named to work at Comic-Con. The award for Best Graphic Album was given to Moore and Gibbons for Watchmen in 1988 and to Moore and Brian Bolland for Batman: The Killing Joke (1988) in 1989. Since 1991, there have been two awards for graphic novels, one for new material and a second for reprinted items. Award winners include Stuck Rubber Baby (1995), Blankets (2003), Fax from Sarajevo (1996), One Hundred Demons (2000-2001), Safe Area Goražde (2000), and American Born Chinese (2006). In the mid-2020s, the Eisner Awards continue to be handed out to outstanding graphic novels. In 2023, the winners were announced at San Diego Comic-Con, and DC Comics won several, including Best Short Story for Finding Batman by Kevin Conroy and J. Bone, Best Single Issue/One-Shot for Batman: One Bad Day: The Riddler by Tom King and Mitch Gerads, Best Continuing Series for Nightwing by Tom Taylor and Bruno Redondo, and Best Limited Series for The Human Target by Tom King and Greg Smallwood. Mo Willems and Rachel Smythe were also winners.

The Harvey Award is coordinated by Fantagraphics. They began in 1987 after the demise of the Kirby Award. Professionals in the field of comics have an open vote to determine the nominees for each category. The top five in each category are listed on a final ballot. The award has been presented at major fan conventions, including WonderCon, the Dallas Fantasy Fair, and comics conventions in Pittsburgh, Chicago, and Baltimore, as well as at events hosted by the Museum of Comic and Cartoon Art. There are numerous Harvey Awards categories, with two awards given for graphic novels. From 1988 to 1990, there was one award for Best Graphic Album, and since 1991, there have been two awards offered, one for original work and one for previously published material.

The 1988 Harvey Award was bestowed on Moore and Gibbons for Watchmen, and Moore also won in 1989 for Batman: The Killing Joke and again in 2000 for From Hell (1989-1996). Moore has also been awarded the Best Writer prize seven times. Over the years, the winners of the Harvey Award for Best Graphic Album of Original Work have included Our Cancer Year (1994), Stuck Rubber Baby, Blankets, Fax from Sarajevo, The Golem’s Mighty Swing (2001), Last Day in Vietnam (2000), Scott Pilgrim Gets It Together (2007), and Scott McCloud’s Understanding Comics (1993). The 2023 Harvey Award for Best Adaptation from Comic Book or Graphic Novel went to Spider-Man: Across the Spider-Verse, directed by Joaquim Dos Santos, Kemp Powers, and Justin K. Thompson.

Ignatz Awards

The Ignatz Awards began in 1997 and are awarded at the Small Press Expo, held annually in Bethesda, Maryland (except in 2001, when the awards were canceled because of the terrorist attacks of September 11). The prize is named for a character in George Herriman’s Krazy Kat comic strip. A five-member panel selects the nominees, and those attending the expo vote for the winners, who are then announced during the event. Initially, the awards included a single category for graphic novel or collection, but these were split into two distinct awards in 2005.

The Ignatz Award distinguishes graphic novels from comics by page count and type of binding. Other categories for the awards include Outstanding Artist, Outstanding Story, Promising New Talent, Outstanding Series, Outstanding Comic, Outstanding Minicomic, and Outstanding Online Comic. An award for Outstanding Debut was given from 2000 to 2008. Since 2005, the winners of the graphic novel award have included Marjane Satrapi’s Persepolis 2 (2004), Anders Nilsen’s Don’t Go Where I Can’t Follow (2006), Mariko Tamaki and Jillian Tamaki’s Skim (2008), Alex Robinson’s Tricked (2005), Chris Ware’s Acme Novelty Library #19 (2008), and James Sturm’s Market Day (2010). Emily Carrington, graphic artist author of Our Little Secret (2022), and Olivia Stephens’ Ducks (2022) and The Gods of Arepo (2022) received awards in 2023. 

Hugo Awards and Others

The Hugo Awards had recognized graphic novels just once before 2009 when the award for Best Graphic Story was introduced. Moore and Gibbons won a Hugo for Watchmen in 1988 in the Other Forms category. This has caused confusion over the years because the award was created under the “special category” rule. Each WorldCon can create a special award to be given at its event. In 1988, the WorldCon committee decided to have a category for “anything that doesn’t qualify for one of the other categories,” and Watchmen was the winner. This type of award has not been repeated. Kaja and Phil Foglio won the Best Graphic Story in the first three years of the award for volumes from their series about Agatha Heterodyne, Girl Genius. Still, the Hugo Awards does present a Best Graphic Story Award in the mid-2020s. 

Mainstream awards have begun to recognize graphic novels in recent years. In the US, the National Book Award had its first graphic novel finalist in 2007, Gene Luen Yang’s American Born Chinese. In the UK in 2001, Chris Ware’s Jimmy Corrigan: The Smartest Kid on Earth (1993-2000) was the first graphic novel to win a major award when it won the Guardian First Book Award. In 2010, Matt Phelan’s The Storm in the Barn (2009) was the first graphic novel to win the Scott O’Dell Award for Historical Fiction for excellence in children’s and young adult literature; Phelan’s award caused some controversy among educators. In 2017, the Ringo Awards were instituted to honor outstanding comics achievements across more than twenty categories, including Best Cartoonist, Best Writer, Best Artist, Best Series, Best Original Graphic Novel, and more. There are also fan-specific categories, such as Favorite Hero and Favorite New Talent.

One major exception to the relatively recent attention from mainstream awards is the Pulitzer Prize Special Citation, which was given to Art Spiegelman for Maus: A Survivor’s Tale (1986, 1991) in 1992. The Pulitzer Prize Special Citation has been given since 1917 and has often honored musicians and composers. A pictorial history of the Civil War won this prize in 1961, but Maus is the only graphic novel or comic book to have been awarded a Pulitzer Prize.

Manga Awards

The Shogakukan Manga Award has been given to manga since 1955. Until 1976, there was a single award given. After creating a general category, other categories have emerged. There are awards for a children’s work, a work for boys (shonen), a work for girls (shojo), and the general award, also referred to as a young-adult award. Occasionally awarded is a special prize for lifetime achievement or other particular honors. Shogakukan is a major manga publisher, and its works have often been awarded the prizes.

The Kodansha Manga Award began in 1977 and is given annually for manga published serially during the previous year. Sponsored by Kodansha, a major manga publisher, they were initially given in two categories, shonen and shojo. In 1982, a general award was added, and in 2003, Kodansha began giving an award for children’s manga.

The Tezuka Osamu Cultural Prize was founded in 1997. It is named in honor of Osamu Tezuka, often heralded as the father of manga and anime. This prize recognizes artists who follow his style, which introduced the prominent eyes considered typical in manga and anime. Awards are given in four categories: a Grand Prize, a Creative Award for a particularly innovative work, a Short Story Award, and a Special Award given to someone who worked to promote the culture of manga.

The Manga Taisho is an award that began in 2008. The nominating committee is composed mostly of people who work in bookstores. The Manga Taisho is given to works with eight or fewer volumes and intends to reward relatively new contributors to the genre; awards are not given to those who have become popular over long careers.

Impact

The range of awards given to graphic novels attests to their power and impact in classrooms and popular culture. The fact that graphic novels are considered for major publishing awards from established institutions signals the genre’s shift from the fringe to mainstream legitimacy.

Bibliography

Conroy, Kevin, and J. Bone. “Congratulations to DC’s 2023 Eisner Award Winners!” DC, 22 July 2023, www.dc.com/blog/2023/07/22/congratulations-to-dc-s-2023-eisner-award-winners. Accessed 2 Aug. 2024.

Gravett, Paul. Graphic Novels: Stories to Change Your Life. London: Aurum, 2005.

"Harvey Awards Reveal 2023 Winners.” The Harvey Awards, 13 Oct. 2023, www.harveyawards.com/en-us/about/news/harvey-awards-reveal-2023-winners.html. Accessed 2 Aug. 2024.

“Here Are the 2023 Ignatz Award Winners.” Comics Beat, 15 Sept. 2023, www.comicsbeat.com/black-josei-press-soars-at-2023-ignatz-awards. Accessed 2 Aug. 2024.

Kannenberg, Gene. Five Hundred Essential Graphic Novels: The Ultimate Guide. New York: Collins Design, 2008.