No Harvey Awards for 2017

Last year, news broke that the Harvey Awards, an Eisner competitor first established in 1988, would be leaving their ten-year home at the Baltimore Comic-Con. (That convention has since established their own award program.)

Now comes news that the awards will be hosted at the New York Comic Con — but not until 2018. So sorry, anyone with a great graphic novel out this year, no recognition for you! It’s understandable that it will take time to get the program re-organized, particularly if they want to address some of the problems seen in the past.

Instead, there will be a reception held in October at NYCC, to honor the awards’ namesake, Harvey Kurtzman, with the actual award ceremony returning for the program’s 30th anniversary. This will be the seventh home for the Harvey Awards.

ComicBook.com had the original announcement, which includes this quote from Kurtzman’s daughter Nellie:

NYCC has grown exponentially over the past decade, and ReedPOP brings with them a team that is experienced in running successful events. With my father being a lifelong New Yorker, it is only fitting that the awards return to the city where he worked, and the comic book industry was born. In 2018, we all look forward to the reboot of the awards and having the Harveys in the setting of the largest comic book convention in North America.

I didn’t realize NYCC was trying to claim that size crown from the San Diego Comic-Con, and one wonders if “experienced in running successful events” is a statement about previous versions being considered not as successful. Or perhaps I’m just looking for trouble.

For more information, we’ll have to wait for additional press releases. The former official website at harveyawards.org is gone, with the domain snapped up by someone else.