Representing everything from the funny and the forthright to the traditional and the avant-garde, the finalists for the 2009 Doug Wright Awards were released earlier today in Toronto. Founded in 2005 to recognize the best English-language graphic novels and comics, The Doug Wright Awards have grown into one of Canada’s premier cartooning events.
This year’s eclectic batch of 13 nominees range from first-person travelogues and heart-felt autobiography, to brainy historical comedy and post-modern gag cartoons.
The 2009 finalists for Best Book are:
Burma Chronicles by Guy Delisle (Drawn & Quarterly)
Drop-in by Dave Lapp (Conundrum Press)
Paul Goes Fishing by Michel Rabagliati (Drawn & Quarterly)
Skim by Jillian & Mariko Tamaki (Groundwood Books)
The 2009 finalists for Best Emerging Talent are:
Kate Beaton (History Comics)
Caitlin Black (Maids in the Mist)
Jesse Jacobs (Blue Winter, Shapes in the Snow)
Jason Kieffer (Kieffer #2)
Nick Maandag (Jack & Mandy)
The 2009 finalists for the Pigskin Peters Award, which recognizes avant-garde comics and other non-traditional works, are:
Hall of Best Knowledge by Ray Fenwick (Fantagraphics)
Ojingogoby Matthew Forsythe (Drawn & Quarterly)
All We Ever Do is Talk About Wood by Tom Horacek (Drawn & Quarterly)
Small Victories by Jesse Jacobs (self-published)
Established in 2008, the Pigskin Peters Award is named after a popular character in the classic Canadian comic strip Birdseye Center by cartoonist Jimmy Frise. In 1948, Doug Wright inherited Frise’s strip and would continue to draw it for the next two decades.
This year, the Wright Awards will induct Jimmy Frise (who died in 1948) into The Giants of the North Hall of Fame for Canadian cartooning.
The DWAs are also pleased to announce that filmmaker Don McKellar will host this year’s awards ceremony, which will be held at the Art Gallery of Ontario’s (AGO) Jackman Hall. A Gemini and Tony Award–winning actor, writer, and director, McKellar is a long-time comics’ fan and served as a jury member for the inaugural Wright Awards in 2005.
The winners of the Best Emerging Talent and Best Book trophies will be decided by the 2009 DWA jury which includes; Bob Rae (the Member of Parliament for Toronto Centre and 21st premier of Ontario), Andrew Coyne (national editor for Maclean’s and political panelist on CBC Television’s The National), Martin Levin (books editor for The Globe and Mail and contributor to What I Meant to Say), cartoonist Joe Ollmann (author of the 2007 DWA Best Book This Will All End in Tears) and cartoonist Diana Tamblyn, the Ignatz-nominated author of several mini-comics, including The Rosie Stories and There You Were.
A featured event of the Toronto Comics Arts Festival (TCAF), the 2009 Doug Wright Awards will take place on Saturday,. May 9, 2009, at 7 p.m.
About The Doug Wright Awards
The Doug Wright Awards are a non-profit organization formed in 2005 to honour the lasting legacy of the late, great Canadian cartoonist Doug Wright (1917–1983). The annual awards recognize emerging cartooning talent and comics-based works published in English (including first translated editions).
Wright’s strip Nipper/Doug Wright’s Family ran in newspapers in Canada and around the world from the late 1940s to the early 1980s.