Broken Frontier proudly presents the shortlists for our 16th annual Broken Frontier Awards. Our team has selected five nominees for each of the 15 main categories that comprise the BF Awards, honouring some of the creators and publications of the past year whose work has particularly spoken to us in 2019.
As always, you will have a big say in who gets to take home an award!
Our team at Broken Frontier have completed their role in the nominations process and now it’s up to you to do your bit in deciding our winners in the public ballot. As ever, the final decision will come from an equal 50-50 consideration of the votes of the comics community and the Broken Frontier staff. Voting will run until December 26th, with the results to be announced on January 2nd, 2020.
We always see this annual exercise as a chance for one last end-of-year blow-out to not just celebrate, promote and champion the diversity of the form but also, crucially, to underline that it really doesn’t matter if you’re producing work for a major serial comics publisher with a six-figure print run or you’re literally hand-folding, stapling and self-publishing 20 copies, your practice is of as much inherent aesthetic value. So, once again, this year’s BF Awards nominations see tiny print run zines sitting side by side with corporate super-hero comics. Because we want to underline here on the site that the DIY practice of the small presser does as much, if not more, in pushing the medium ever onwards as the work of the literary supplement-lauded graphic novelist.
As ever, there are books you will expect to see on end-of-year lists included, there may be self-published work you’re unfamiliar with, and there may be major omissions that will surprise you (and we’ve certainly had some fun defining what constitutes selection for those ongoing, new and limited series serial comics categories!). But, as ever, the BF Awards are a reflection of the site’s ethos and the practice that excited our hard-working team in 2019.
Your input will play a vital role in the final results. As we’re fond of saying here at BF “Comics can be whatever we want them to be.” From small press to ‘Big Two’ players the Broken Frontier Awards exist to embrace all aspects of this wonderfully diverse medium and its boundless possibilities. Join us in celebrating that by clicking on the blue ‘Vote now!’ button and casting your votes from the choices below! (Don’t forget to click ‘Finish’ at the end of the poll to submit your choices)
Broken Frontier Awards 2019: The Nominations
Best Writer
- Al Ewing (The Immortal Hulk)
- Jeff Lemire (Frogcatchers, Black Hammer, Gideon Falls)
- Marjorie Liu (Monstress)
- Mark Russell (Second Coming)
- Ram V (These Savage Shores, Catwoman)
Best Artist
- Aimée de Jongh (Blossoms in Autumn, Taxi: Stories from the Back Seat)
- Lorena Alvarez (Hicotea: A Nightlights Story)
- Luke Pearson (Hilda and the Mountain King)
- Molly Mendoza (Skip)
- Tillie Walden (Are You Listening?)
Best Colorist
- Ben Passmore (BTTM FDRS)
- Chris O’Halloran (Ice Cream Man, Folklords)
- Dave Stewart (Black Hammer: Age of Doom, Hellboy and the B.P.R.D.)
- Tamra Bonvillain (Once & Future, Doom Patrol: Weight of the Worlds)
- Tillie Walden (Are You Listening?)
Best Letterer
- Aditya Bidikar (These Savage Shores, Coffin Bound)
- Clayton Cowles (Die)
- Clem Robins (The Girl in the Bay, Our Encounters with Evil)
- Jim Campbell (Giant Days, Folklords)
- Steve Wands (Family Tree, Gideon Falls)
Breakout Talent
- Alabaster Pizzo (Mimi and the Wolves, Avery Hill Publishing)
- Lucy Sullivan (Barking, Unbound Books)
- Molly Mendoza (Skip, Nobrow Press)
- Peony Gent (Park Bench Kensington, House of Illustration ‘Illustrator in Residence’)
- Scott Jason Smith (Marble Cake, Avery Hill Publishing)
Best New Series
- Conan the Barbarian (Jason Aaron, Mahmud Asrar, Matthew Wilson, Travis Lanham et al, Marvel Comics)
- Folklords (Matt Kindt, Matt Smith, Chris O’Halloran, Jim Campbell, BOOM! Studios)
- Gogor (Ken Garing, Image Comics)
- Lettuce Bee (Anthology – various creators, edited by Simon Moreton and Ali Bamford, Lydstep Lettuce)
- Once & Future (Kieron Gillen, Dan Mora, Tamra Bonvillain, Ed Dukeshire, BOOM! Studios)
Best Ongoing Series
- Immortal Hulk (Al Ewing, Joe Bennett, Ruy José, Paul Mounts et al, Marvel Comics)
- Minor Leagues (Simon Moreton, Lydstep Lettuce)
- Now (Anthology – various creators, edited by Eric Reynolds, Fantagraphics Books)
- š! (Anthology – various creators, edited by David Schilter and Sanita Muižniece, kuš! comics)
- Seven Stories (Anthology – various creators, edited by João Sobral, O Panda Gordo)
Best Limited Series
- History of the Marvel Universe (Mark Waid, Javier Rodríguez & Álvaro López, Marvel Comics)
- Little Bird (Darcy Van Poelgeest, Ian Bertram, Matt Hollingsworth & Aditya Bidikar, Image Comics)
- Second Coming (Mark Russell, Richard Pace, Leonard Kirk, Andy Troy, Rob Steen et al, Ahoy Comics)
- The Girl in the Bay (J.M. DeMatteis, Corin Howell, James Devlin & Clem Robins, Dark Horse Comics)
- These Savage Shores (Ram V, Sumit Kumar, Vitorio Astone & Aditya Bidikar, Vault Comics)
Best One-Shot
- Class of 1922 (Douglas Noble, Strip for Me)
- Coin-Op #8: Infatuation (Peter and Maria Hoey, Coin-Op)
- For Real #1 (James Romberger, Uncivilized Books)
- Sobek (James Stokoe, Shortbox)
- When I Arrived at the Castle (Emily Carroll, Koyama Press)
Best Webcomic
- Buuza!! (Shazleen Khan)
- Disorder (Erika Price)
- HeLL(P) (Oliver Levang & C. Vinter)
- Something in the Water (Till Lukat, Juan Manuel García-Ruiz with Josh Hicks)
- Webcomic Name (Alex Norris)
Best Graphic Novel
- Are You Listening? (Tillie Walden, First Second)
- Internet Crusader (George Wylesol, Avery Hill Publishing)
- Laura Dean Keeps Breaking Up With Me (Mariko Tamaki & Rosemary Valero-O’Connell, First Second)
- The Book of Forks (Rob Davis, SelfMadeHero)
- The House (Paco Roca, Fantagraphics Books)
Best Graphic Non-Fiction
- Billionaires: The Lives of the Rich and Powerful (Darryl Cunningham, Myriad Editions)
- I’m Not Ready (Jayde Perkin, ELCAF x WeTransfer winner)
- In Waves (AJ Dungo, Nobrow Press)
- Rat Time (Keiler Roberts, Koyama Press)
- Sensible Footwear: A Girl’s Guide (Kate Charlesworth, Myriad Editions)
Best Collection of Classic Material
- Alay-Oop (William Gropper, New York Review Comics)
- Conan the Barbarian Omnibus Vol. 1 (Roy Thomas, Barry Windsor-Smith et al, Marvel Comics)
- Ken Reid’s World-Wide Weirdies (Ken Reid, Rebellion/Treasury of British Comics)
- Moonshadow: The Definitive Edition (J.M. DeMatteis & Jon J Muth, Dark Horse Comics)
- The Pits of Hell (Ebisu Yoshikazu, translated by Ryan Holmberg, Breakdown Press)
Best Book on Comics
- American Comic Book Chronicles 1940-1944 (Kurt F. Mitchell with Roy Thomas, TwoMorrows)
- Breaking the Frames: Populism and Prestige in Comics Studies (Marc Singer, University of Texas Press)
- Gothic for Girls: Misty and British Comics (Julia Round, University Press of Mississippi)
- Posy Simmonds: The Illustrators (Paul Gravett, Thames & Hudson)
- Steve Gerber: Conversations (Edited by Jason Sacks, Eric Hoffman & Dominick Grace, University Press of Mississippi)
Best Publisher
- Avery Hill Publishing
- Drawn & Quarterly
- Fantagraphics Books
- Koyama Press
- Nobrow Press/Flying Eye Books
Broken Frontier Hall of Fame
- 2017 – Annie Koyama (Koyama Press)
- 2018 – Corinne Pearlman (Myriad Editions)
- 2019 – ???
