Every year, the British Comic Awards celebrates finest examples of originality, ingenuity, skill and creativity in sequential storytelling, more commonly known as comics.
Announced at the Thought Bubble Festival in England, winners from five categories include: Tim Bird's "Grey Area: From the City to the Sea" (Best Comic); Rob Davis's "The Motherless Oven" (Best Book); James Turner's "Star Cat" (Young People's Comic Awards); Rachael Stott for her work on "Star Trek/Planet of the Apes: The Primate Directive," "Star Trek #46-47" and "Doctor Who: The Twelfth Doctor" (Emerging Talent); and Dudley Watkins (Hall of Fame).
The Best Comic award is open to all short-form, self-contained stories (like one-offs, graphic novellas, and web comic strips) that saw publication from Sept. 1, 2014 to Aug. 31, 2015, while the Best Book award is given to the best long-form collection or comics (like literary adaptations, collected editions, and original graphic novels with at least 60 pages) published within the same period.
The Young People's Comic Award, on the other hand, is given based on votes from public libraries and schools around the UK, celebrating the best short- and long-form stories for a young audience that saw release from August 1, 2014 to August 31, 2015.
The Emerging Talent award is bestowed upon a new creator each year for having shown great ingenuity, talent and potential while still early on in their career. Lastly, the Hall of Fame award is a distinction given to influential and talented figures that have helped shaped the rich tradition of British comics.
This year's British Comics Awards Committee includes: Adam Cadwell (founder of the British Comic Awards and Committee Chair), Camila Barboza, Clark Burscough, Jamillah Knowles, Maura McHugh, Craig Neilson-Adams, Andy Oliver, Jessica Penfold, and Andy Waterfield. As Committee Chair, Cadwell was responsible for overseeing the Committee while organizing nominations, along with the voting process and the British Comic Awards annual ceremony. He does not, however, have a say over which entries are shortlisted.
Aside from meeting the requirements of a category's form, a nominee must be the work of a creative team based in the UK, with rights to the work belonging either to a UK publisher or the creator. Non-UK citizens may also be nominated for a British Comic Award if they have lived in the UK for more than three years but years spent pursuing education do not count.
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Photo: Kate Hiscock | Flickr
