British Comic Awards: The Winners

(Updated 19/11/12): The winners of the first British Comic Awards were announced at Thought Bubble last night. If you were at the Awards Ceremony, I hope you were pleased by the results.

This was the first year of the BCAs and I was honoured to be asked to be a judge and I'm delighted by the quality of the nominees and the winners, especially Luke Pearson's Hilda and the Midnight Giant, which I was genuinely moved by when I read it.

It was hard to 'grade' such distinctive work from all those nominated, all of it terrific in its own right but for very different reasons.

The winners were as follows:


  Best Book: Nelson edited by Rob Davis and Woodrow Phoenix (Blank Slate Books)

The other nominees were:

• Science Tales by Darryl Cunningham (Myriad Editions)

• Don Quixote Volume 1 by Rob Davis (SelfMadeHero)

• Goliath by Tom Gauld (Drawn & Quarterly)

• Hilda and the Midnight Giant by Luke Pearson (Nobrow)

In a post on their Facebook page, Blank Slate commented: "We're so proud to have taken home the first Best Book award at the British Comic Awards. Huge congratulations go out to everyone involved with the book, especially the readers and retailers who helped make Rob Davis and Woodrow Phoenix's experiment such a success."

Best Comic - Bad Machinery: The Case Of The Fire Inside by John Allison
Published online at scarygoround.com, January 9th – June 28th 2012

The other nominees were:

• Accidental Salad by Joe Decie (Blank Slate Books)

• Girl & Boy by Andrew Tunney - www.andrewtunney.com/comics/girlandboy/

• Hemlock Issue 3 by Josceline Fenton

• Tuk Tuk Issue 1 by Will Kirkby

Emerging Talent - Josceline Fenton

The other nominees were:

• Kristyna Baczynski – www.kristyna.co.uk

• Will Kirkby – http://chamonkee.livejournal.com

• Louis Roskosch – www.louisroskosch.com

• Jack Teagle - http://jackteagle.co.uk

Young People's Comic Award - Hilda and the Midnight Giant by Luke Pearson

The other nominees were:

• Bad Machinery: The Case of The Fire Inside by John Allison

• The Lost Boy by Kate BrownPublished in The Phoenix by David Fickling Books, January 7th – 1st September 2012

• Dinopopolous by Nick Edwards
Published by Blank Slate Publishing (Chalk Marks), October 2011

• Gum Girl 1: Catastrophe Calling by Andi Watson
Published by Walker Books

The first member of the BCA's Hall of Fame is Fungus the Bogeyman and The Snowman creator Raymond Briggs.

The judges this year were comic creator Hunt Emerson, Page 45 comic shop owner Steve L. Holland, academics Dr. Mel Gibson and Roger Sabin, and Stacey Whittle, writer at SFX Magazine website, long-running indie/small press comics podcaster; and myself, comics editor and writer John Freeman.

One thing that I will publicly say as one of the judges is that several comic creators contacted me when the nominees were first announced and questioned the choices. It was noted in particular that (aside from one strip that ran in The Phoenix) there were no nominations for strips that feature in any of the remaining originated mainstream British comics such as The Dandy or 2000AD.

As someone who has promoted both "mainstream" and "independent" comics on downthetubes and elsewhere (and given the quality of work that was nominated, not only in terms of content but production values, such distinctions are by no means easy to define), I did ask about this at an early stage of the judging process.

I was told the philosophy of the Awards is to include any and all work being made by British creators, to commend the best and highlight them for a wider audience. There was no attempt to promote only "independent" comics or creators.

Suggestions for nomination was open to anyone who submitted their views on the BCA web site. The BCA Committee, comprising lecturer and artist Dan Berry, columnist and comics retailer Richard Bruton, Clark Burscough, BCA Founder Adam Cadwell, comics writer Matthew Sheret, artist and illustrator Vicky Stonebridge and ThoughtBubble founder Lisa Wood, looked at strips running in The Beano, The Dandy and 2000AD and looked for comics that stood as being some of the best work being produced in the last year.

"Jaime Smart's Desperate Dan was mentioned, as was the Judge Dredd: Day of Chaos story which got some votes from committee members," Adam Cadwell told me, "but in the end we decided that work being done in The Phoenix, online comics and some self published work stood out more and were the type of stories that could be enjoyed by anyone."

Opinions on creative work are by their very nature subjective but in my personal view, I hope that next year, British publishers large and small will again have (and take) the opportunity to send the committee their qualifying titles for consideration, as well as the BCA allowing for online nomination from visitors to the BCA web site.

• More info: http://britishcomicawards.com

Leeds Alternative Comics Fair back in April

The Leeds Alternative Comics Fair is back once more on Saturday 28th April, and the fourth fair is once again going to be held at A Nation of Shopkeepers, which has proved itself an ideal venue with its great atmosphere, interesting food menu and a well-stocked bar. 

The organisers are sticking with the same formula as the previous fairs, with a diverse selection of creators from the North of England, keeping it intimate in scale so that attendees can have a good look at everything on offer, get to have a chat to the exhibitors and choose from a wide range of comics along with badges, posters, cards and other handmade items direct from their makers.

Exhibitors at the fair this time include John Allison, Oliver East, James Downing, Kristyna Baczynski, Dan Berry, Adam Cadwell, Gary Bainbridge and Andy ‘Hexjibber’ Sykes, organisers Steve Tillotson and Hugh Raine plus more yet to be confirmed. 

The Fair opens at 12 noon and runs until 5.00pm and as usual the event is completely free to enter, so get along, have a browse, a chat, a drink and a fish finger sarnie. 

• More info:  http://leedsalternativecomics.wordpress.com, Facebook search “Leeds Alternative Comics” or tweet them @leedsaltcomics

Tube Surfing: Web-comics special!

Righty-ho, what's happening (in web-comics terms) out there...

Talented cartoonist Tom Humberstone took a break from his Hundred Days project (hundred cartoons in hundred days). He's back now, so go check out his stuff, which is rather cool...

Have you seen My Cardboard Life? It's kind of... defies description, really. Go look...

Adam Cadwell only has five more strips to go before he finishes The Everyday, his web-strip about, well, stuff that he notices in his everyday life. If you haven't caught it yet, it's worth a gander.

Are you reading Phil Spence's Ninja Bunny? Well worth your time... as is Marc Ellerby's diary comic, Ellerbisms.

Oh, and according to John Allison, the 't-shirt as vital part of the web-comic money-making ecosysytem' bubble has burst. You can console him by reading his excellent Bad Machinary and then help him by buying his stuff.

Tube Surfing: 4 May 2009

• Over on Comic Book Resources, Brian Cronin has just completed a month of posting reviews of a different self-published comic book each day. Check out the archive of reviews here

• Meanwhile, Matthew Badham has perhaps taken a leaf from Brian and has started his own recommendation challenge for self-published work etc., entitled 100 Days, 100 Cartoonists, so far plugging the likes of British talents such as Francesca Cassavetti, Steve Larder, Eleanor Davis, John Allison and others. Follow Matt's blog here

• Talking of self publishing, over on Bear Alley, Steve Holland has announced he's risking his bank balance with his first Bear Alley book, reprinting an as-yet un-named collection of an old British comic. We have no idea what the comic is, but we're rooting for a collection of Come on Steve by Roland Davies, which we know one of Britain's top comic experts has a fondness for, as do we.

Seriously - given the work Steve has done bringing the work of talents such as Don Lawrence to the attention of today's modern comic fans, he deserves support. "The artwork is scanned, the introduction written in rough, a cover is being prepared and I have some quotes in from printers," Steve says.

"At the moment it looks like it will be a 300-copy limited edition hardcover which means the unit cost is huge so the eventual selling price will be £15. Which isn't unreasonable for a hardcover...

"The title... well, I'll be announcing that shortly. I'm still trying to figure out how the hell I'm going to sell 300 copies and what I'm going to be living on while all my savings are tied up in piles of books. Roast book... fried book... raw book..." Check Bear Alley for updates

• Web site 2000AD Review has posted a round table feature with creators Alan Grant, Al Ewing and Rob Williams, talking about writing the comic's most famous strip. "Mega-City One is one of the most prescient SF worlds ever created," argues Ewing along the way. "After all, we're more than halfway there - MPs, making full use of the 'Big Lie' technique and our own increasing hysteria, are now legislating everything they can imagine and a few things nobody else dared to. Did you know that there's an upcoming law that could technically make owning a copy of Watchmen a sexual offence? And if you don't agree that that's necessary, you support paedophilia. Maybe the Judges will be knocking on your door one of these nights..."

• Talking of writing comics, Jim Medway offers some thoughts on that process - in particular, speech and thought - on his blog, part of his ongoing publication of his work as a Comic Workshop tutor. Well worth checking out if you're interested in writing comics.

• And since we seem to be plugging writers in this round up, Alan Moore has just been interviewed over on Newsarama about the just release League of Extraordinary Gentlemen volume, Century: 1910. Moore expresses high regard for publishers Top Shelf in the piece and a shift in his way of working for this project as a result. "It’s been something of a revelation. Not because I’m surprised at the production job Top Shelf is doing, or how pleasant they are to work for, because those are things I decided when they published Lost Girls by me and Melinda. But what has been a bit of a revelation is the effect working at Top Shelf has had on me, and I think Kevin [O'Neill] as well.
"I think we both decided that because we were not working for anything we recognized as a mainstream comics publisher, we have changed the way we think about the work. It’s a subtle thing, but if you’re working in mainstream comics, as both of us have been doing for getting on 25 years or more, then really, it’s a thing that you kind of take in by osmosis. You absorb the values of the field in which you’re working." Read the full interview here

• Hunt Emerson has a new strip in the Beano, a revamp of the classic Fred’s Bed which many of you reading this may be suddenly remembering very fondly right now. "Reprints of the Tom Paterson Beezer strip Fred's Bed had been running for a couple of years," notes fellow Beano artist Lew Stringer, "but now the strip has been given a makeover with an all new series illustrated by Hunt Emerson. The reprint had always proven popular with Beano readers but the source was finite, so commissioning new strips was always likely... The new version of Fred's Bed has a few changes to the original; Fred himself has been redesigned and he now sets his alarm clock to control where he travels in time instead of the random occurrence in the original strip."

• (via Forbidden Planet International): Paul B Rainey has just published the ninth part of his There’s No Time Like Present series (available from his web site). Paul says he’s been pondering endings and now thinks that the whole TNTLP series will wrap up with part twelve - although he adds that “I have been warned by people more intelligent than me that endings can often take longer than anticipated"...

• Quick Surfs: Declan Shalvey has just posted preview covers for Boom! Studios 28 Days Later book, which he's drawing; to celebrate The Specials reforming (yay!), Brendan Mccarthy has published some vintage artwork of the band from 1979, and some Johnny Rotten artwork done around the same time; and Dave Morris pays tribute to the legendary comic store Dark They Were and Golden Eyed here.

• Compiled with thanks to Matthew Badham