As you may have heard, there’s a new award in town. A comic award, and it’s fascinating. Called the Excellence in Graphic Literature Awards, a wide range of different types of judges working, in some fashion, with comics came together to decide on the 2018 winners. You can see the final results here, but let’s linger on some of the lovely elements to this award. First off, check out this video on the creation of the award statue:

And next, here’s some background information the awards that won just two days ago. Betcha bottom dollar you’ll love these nominees:

ANTICIPATION BUILDS FOR THE DEBUT OF THE  2018 EXCELLENCE IN GRAPHIC LITERATURE AWARDS

Pop Culture Classroom Sets the Awards Ceremony for Prime Time during Denver Comic Con 2018

DENVER — June 11, 2018 — Pop Culture Classroom (PCC), the educational non-profit behind Denver Comic Con (DCC), today announced that preparations are complete for the 2018 Excellence in Graphic Literature Awards ceremony. The event will take place the evening of Saturday, June 16, during Denver Comic Con at the Colorado Convention Center.

“The build up to this moment has been incredible,” said Bruce MacIntosh, director of programming for PCC and DCC. “Our efforts to create an exciting graphic literature award for the publishing industry are now taking root. The response from publishers, authors, editors and artists has been fantastic.”

Submissions for the award program opened in December of 2017 and closed in January of this year. Over 240 titles were submitted for jury consideration.

Announcement of the nominees for the six award categories was streamed exclusively via KidLit TV in March. The event is available for re-streaming on-demand now from the KidLit TV website at the following URL: https://kidlit.tv/ExcellenceInGraphicLiteratureAwards2018.

Illya Kowalchuk, director of education for PCC and DCC, added, “This year’s awards highlight the best in publishing for the following categories: Children, Middle Grade, Young Adult, and Adult. The two additional categories are the Mosaic award, which celebrates diversity in books, and Book of the Year. It is entirely possible for a title to win its original category, as well as the Mosaic and Book of the Year awards.”

“Saga” Award Statue and Medallion

Each category winner will receive the iconic “Saga” award statue and/or medallion, designed and hand-crafted in bronze by renowned sculptors Colin Poole and Kristine Poole exclusively for the Excellence in Graphic Literature Awards.

The Saga statue will be presented to the winners of the Mosaic and Book of the Year categories. The winner for the Children, Middle Grade, Young Adult, and Adult categories will each receive a Saga medallion, in a specially crafted display case.

2018 Jury Chairs

The juries for the awards are chaired by the following:

• Best in Children’s Books — Committee Chair: Betsy Bird
• Best in Middle Grade Books — Committee Chair: Dr. Katie Monnin
• Best in Young Adult Books — Committee Chair: Mike Pawuk
• Best in Adult Books — Committee Chair: Alicia Holston
• Mosaic Award — Committee Chair: Alicia Holston
• Book of the Year — Committee Chair: Betsy Bird

2018 Nominees: Best in Children’s Books

Fiction

• Bolivar by Sean Rubin (BOOM! Studios)
• Good Night, Planet by Liniers (TOON Books)
• Real Friends by Shannon Hale and LeUyen Pham (First Second)
• The Big Bad Fox by Benjamin Renner (Macmillan)
• Where’s Halmoni? By Julie Kim (Little Bigfoot)

Nonfiction

• Bats: Learning to Fly by Falynn Koch (First Second)

2018 Nominees: Best in Middle-Grade Books

Fiction

• As the Crow Flies by Melanie Gillman (Iron Circus Comics)
• Cici’s Journal by Joris Chamblain and Aurelie Neyret (First Second)
• Dawn and the Impossible Three by Ann M. Martin and Gale Galligan (Scholastic Graphix)
• Solution Squad by Jim McClain (Solution Squad Publishing)
• Soupy Leaves Home by Cecil Castellucci and Jose Pimienta (Dark Horse Comics)
• The Witch Boy by Molly Ostertag (Scholastic Graphix)
• Brave by Svetlana Chmakova (YEN Press)**

** Honorable Mention

2018 Nominees: Best in Young Adult Books

Fiction

• Home Time: Book One by Campbell Whyte (Top Shelf)
• I Am Alfonso Jones by Tony Medina, Stacey Robinson and John Jennings (TU Books/Lee & Low)
• Quince by Sebastian Kadlecik, Kit Steinkellner and Emma Steinkellner (Fanbase Press)
• Spill Zone by Scott Westerfield and Alex Puvilland (First Second)
• The Wendy Project by Melissa Jane Osborne and Veronica Fish (Supergenius/Papercutz)

Nonfiction

• Fire!The Zora Neale Hurston Story by Peter Bagge (Drawn & Quarterly)
• Lighter Than My Shadow by Katie Green (Lion Forge)
• Poppies of Iraq by Brigitte Finakly and Lewis Trondheim (Drawn & Quarterly)
• The Senses by Matteo Farinella (Nobrow Press)
• Spinning by Tillie Walden (First Second)

2018 Nominees: Best in Adult Books

Fiction

• Mis(h)adra by Iasmin Omar Ata (Gallery 13)
• My Favorite Thing is Monsters by Emil Ferris (Fantagraphics)
• Park Bench by Christophe Chaboute (Gallery 13)
• Roughneck by Jeff Lemiere (Gallery 13)
• The Sound of the World by Heart by Giacomo Bevilacqua (Lion Forge)

Nonfiction

• Calamity Jane: The Calamitous Life of Martha Jane Cannary by Christian Perrissin and Mattheiu Blanchin (IDW Publishing)
• Hostage by Guy Delisle (Drawn & Quarterly)
• Taking Turns: Stories from HIV/AIDS Care Unit 371 by MK Czerwiec (Penn State University Press)
• The Best We Could Do by Thi Bui (Abrams Comic Arts)
• The Hunting Accident by David L. Carlson and Landis Blair (First Second)

2018 Nominees: Mosaic Award

• As the Crow Flies by Melanie Gillman (Iron Circus Comics)
• Good Night, Planet by Liniers (TOON-Books) Spanish and English lang. versions
• Monstress Vol. 2 by Marjorie Liu and (Image)
• Mis(h)adra by Iasmin Omar Ata (Gallery 13)
• Quince by Sebastian Kadlecik, Kit Steinkellner and Emma Steinkellner (Fanbase Press)
• Soupy Leaves Home by Cecil Castellucci and Jose Pimienta (Dark Horse Comics)
• The Best We Could Do by Thi Bui (Abrams Comic Arts)
• Where’s Halmoni? By Julie Kim (Little Bigfoot)

2018 Nominees: Book of the Year

• Bats: Learning to Fly by Falynn Koch (First Second)
• Cici’s Journal by Joris Chamblain and Aurelie Neyret (First Second)
• Home Time: Book One by Campbell Whyte (Top Shelf)
• My Favorite Thing is Monsters by Emil Ferris (Fantagraphics)
• Real Friends by Shannon Hale and LeUyen Pham (First Second)
• Soupy Leaves Home by Cecil Castellucci and Jose Pimienta (Dark Horse Comics)
• Spill Zone by Scott Westerfield and Alex Puvilland (First Second)
• The Hunting Accident by David L. Carlson and Landis Blair (First Second)

About Pop Culture Classroom

Pop Culture Classroom is the educational non-profit organization behind Denver Comic Con. Founded in 2011, Pop Culture Classroom is on a mission to ignite a love of learning, increase literacy, celebrate diversity and build community through the tools of popular culture and the power of self-expression. Learn more at www.PopCultureClassroom.org.

About the Excellence in Graphic Literature Awards

The Excellence in Graphic Literature Awards program was begun by Pop Culture Classroom to help define and grow needed awareness for quality graphic literature, grow legitimacy and respect for the format, the comics medium and its creators, and drive growth for the graphic novel publishing category. Learn more at www.popcultureclassroom.org/egl.

Press Contacts

Pop Culture Classroom

Robert Keosheyan

rob@denverbrandworks.com