First Set of Ringo Award Nominees Announced; Fewer Than 20% Women

Mike Wieringo Comic Book Industry Awards logo

The Ringo Awards, Baltimore Comic-Con’s award program established earlier this year, have now announced their first set of nominees, assembled through a combination of jury selection and fan voting (which may account for some of the lesser-known nominees).

Out of the sixteen categories, seven are creator-based. (See below; the publisher-based awards follow this section.) Those categories have from five to nine people (or teams, in a few cases) listed. They total 52 creators nominated. Of those, ten are women, or 19% of the nominees. Two categories, Best Inker and Best Letterer, have no women nominated. Best Colorist, on the other hand, appears to be the female ghetto, with five out of seven nominees women. That’s traditional for the old-school corporate comic industry, giving the girls the crayons.

Best Cartoonist (Writer/Artist)

Daniel Clowes
Steve Conley
Hernandez Brothers
Aydin Anh Huynh (Snailords)
Kaitlyn Narvaza (instantmiso)
Skottie Young

Best Writer

PJ Haarsma & Alan Tudyk
Jody Houser
Tom King
Robert Kirkman
Jeff Lemire
Alan Moore
Mark Waid
David Walker
Gerard Way

Best Artist or Penciller

Kaare Andrews
Cliff Chiang
Rafael de Latorre
Mitch Gerards
Jason Johnson
Jason Latour
Dustin Nguyen
Fiona Staples

Best Inker

Mark Brooks
Jeremy Freeman
Jonathan Glapion
Jason Latour
Jae Lee
Danny Miki
Sean Murphy
Victor Olazaba

Best Letterer

Clayton Cowles
Taylor Esposito
Todd Klein
Troy Peteri
John Workman

Best Colorist

Jordie Bellaire
Tamra Bonvillain
Elizabeth Breitweiser
Laura Martin
Rico Renzi
Sarah Stone
Matt Wilson

Best Cover Artist

Frank Cho
Mike Del Mundo
JG Jones
Phil Noto
Ryan Sook
Fiona Staples
Sana Takeda

Oddly, all of the remaining awards for Best Series, Best Story, Best Design etc. are credited to publishers, as though they didn’t need writers or artists, so I can’t as easily analyze those. The exceptions are Comic Strips and Webcomics.

Two out of five of the Best Original Graphic Novel nominees are created by women, though, so that’s a little more encouraging.

Best Series

Faith, Valiant Entertainment
Paper Girls, Image Comics
Saga, Image Comics
Spectrum, Automatic Pictures
Vision, Marvel Comics

Best Single Issue or Story

Deadly Hands of Criminal, Image Comics
DC Universe Rebirth #1, DC Comics
Emancipation Day, www.redistrictedcomics.com
Faith #1, Valiant Entertainment
Locke & Key: Small World, IDW Publishing

Best Original Graphic Novel

Ghosts, Scholastic/Graphix
March: Book Three, Top Shelf Productions
Patience, Daniel Clowes, Fantagraphics
Tetris: The Games People Play, First Second
Wonder Woman: The True Amazon, DC Comics

Best Anthology

Dark Horse Presents, Dark Horse Comics
Island, Image Comics
Love is Love, DC Comics/IDW Publishing
ReDistrictedComics.com (www.redistrictedcomics.com)
Wonder Woman 75th Anniversary Special, DC Comics

Best Humor Comic

Adventures of God, Line Webtoons
Blue Chair, Line Webtoons
Giant Days, BOOM! Studios
I Hate Fairyland, Image Comics
Jughead, Archie Comics
Unbeatable Squirrel Girl, Marvel Comics

Best Comic Strip or Panel

Bloom County, Berkeley Breathed, Universal Uclick
Dick Tracy, Joe Staton & Mike Curtis, Tribune Media Services
Foxtrot, Bill Amend, Universal Press Syndicate
Mutts, Patrick McDonnell, King Features Syndicate
Pearls Before Swine, Stephan Pastis, Universal Uclick

Best Webcomic

Girl Genius, Phil Foglio (www.girlgeniusonline.com)
Siren’s Lament, Kaitlyn Narvaza (instantmiso)(www.webtoons.com/en/romance/sirens-lament/list?title_no=632)
The Middle Age, Steve Conley (www.middleagecomic.com/)
The Red Hook, Dean Haspiel (www.webtoons.com/en/super-hero/the-red-hook/list?title_no=643)
unOrdinary, uru-chan (www.webtoons.com/en/fantasy/unordinary/list?title_no=679)

Best Non-Fiction Comic Work

Cooking Comically (www.cookingcomically.com)
Dark Night, A True Batman Story, DC Comics
March: Book Three, Top Shelf Productions
ReDistrictedComics.com (www.redistrictedcomics.com)
Rolling Blackouts, Drawn and Quarterly
Tetris: The Games People Play, First Second

Best Presentation in Design

Aliens 30th Anniversary: The Original Comic Series, Dark Horse Comics
Al Williamson’s Star Wars: The Empire Strikes Back Artist Edition, IDW Publishing
Britannia, Valiant Entertainment
Legacy of Luther Strode, Image Comics
Mike Mignola’s Screw-On Head and Other Curious Objects: Artist’s Edition Hardcover, IDW Publishing
Moebius Library: The World of Edena, Dark Horse Books
The ODY-C: Cycle One Hardcover, Image Comics
Spectrum, Automatic Pictures

If you are “anyone involved in and credited with creating comics professionally”, then you can now vote at the award website. You’ll have to get through a captcha and an email address validation first, though.



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