Broken Frontier

The winners of the 2008 Glyph Comics Awards were announced in a ceremony at the East Coast Black Age of Comics Convention on Friday, May 16. The winners are:

Story of the Year
Sentences: The Life of MF Grimm; Percy Carey, writer, Ronald Wimberly, artist

Best Writer
James Sturm, Satchel Paige: Striking Out Jim Crow

Best Artist
Kyle Baker, Nat Turner: Revolution

Best Male Character
Emmet Wilson, Satchel Paige: Striking Out Jim Crow; co-created by James Sturm, writer, and Rich Tommaso, artist

Best Female Character
Amanda Waller, Checkmate; Greg Rucka, writer, Joe Bennett & Jack Jadson, artists

Rising Star Award
Marguerite Abouet, Aya

Best Reprint Publication
Aya, Drawn & Quarterly; Chris Oliveros, publisher, Helge Dascher, translator

Best Cover
Sentences: The Life of MF Grimm; Ronald Wimberly, illustrator

Best Comic Strip
The K Chronicles; Keith Knight, story and art

Fan Award for Best Comic
Fantastic Four: The New Fantastic Four; Dwayne McDuffie, writer, Paul Pelletier & Rick Magyar, artists

Sentences is the first DC comic to win Story of the Year out of four nominations, including Welcome to Tranquility (2008), The American Way (2007), and Seven Soldiers: Guardian (2006). This is the third consecutive year that the Story of the Year winner also won Best Cover. Baker and Knight have won for the third year in a row in their respective categories. Baker's win is his fifth overall, the most by any individual. Baker has eleven total nominations, also the most by any individual. A Marvel comic has won the Fan Award three straight times. The previous wins were for Storm (2007) and Black Panther: Who is the Black Panther? (2006).

About the Glyph Comics Awards:
The Glyph Comics Awards recognize the best in comics made by, for, and about people of color from the preceding calendar year. While it is not exclusive to black creators, it does strive to honor those who have made the greatest contributions to the comics medium in terms of both critical and commercial impact. By doing so, the goal is to encourage more diverse and high quality work across the board and to inspire new creators to add their voices to the field.

The awards are named for the blog Glyphs: The Language of the Black Comics Community at Pop Culture Shock (http://glyphs.popcultureshock.com), started in 2005 by comics journalist Rich Watson as a means to provide news and commentary of comics with black themes, as well as tangential topics in the fields of black science-fiction/fantasy and animation.