The Mike Wieringo Comic Book Industry Awards is an annual celebration of the creativity, skill, and fun of comics. The awards will be presented on Saturday, October 18, 2025 as part of the fan- and pro-favorite convention, The Baltimore Comic-Con. The Ringo Awards is currently in the midst of the 2025 nomination process, which is inclusive of fans and comic book professionals alike. Submit your nominations before voting closes at midnight on June 19, 2025.

An esteemed jury of comics professionals will participate in the nomination process, selecting favorite works in over 20 categories. The 2025 jury was chosen as a representative cross-section of the comic book industry, with members representing seasoned and venerated retailers, educators, and creators across numerous genres.

Becky Cloonan began her career making minicomics as part of the Meathaus collective. Since then, she’s gone on to write and draw on titles like Dark Agnes, Conan the Barbarian, The Punisher, True Lives of the Fabulous Killjoys, Gotham Academy, Detective Comics, and Batman, and working on creator-owned books like Southern Cross and the critically acclaimed collection of short stories, By Chance or Providence. When she’s not making comics, she illustrates album art, and gig and movie posters for My Chemical Romance, Black Sabbath, Adult Swim, and Mondo. She enjoys old movies, true crime podcasts, and still tries to self-publish new minicomics when she can. Becky currently lives in Portland with her partner Michael, two weird cats, and a couple dozen plants.

Steve Leaf started reading comics in 1959 with his first comic book, Adventure Comics #264, along with his first movie, Hercules Unchained.

Influenced by Jack Davis having attended the University of Georgia and being a Dawgs fan, he attended the school for an art degree, eventually getting a Bachelor of Visual Art from Georgia State University. While he never had the opportunity to attend, he did get to interview and was accepted for the inaugural class of the Joe Kubert School.

Steve was part of the local Atlanta comics club that put together the first Atlanta Comics and Fantasy Fair, bringing in Stan Lee as a guest for their first convention in 1974, which had dealers like Steve Geppi and Chuck Rozanski among the local comic collection dealers. In those early days, he helped bring the direct market to the area, selling new comics from Phil Seuling’s Seagate Distribution at The Book Nook in Atlanta. He continued working on conventions with The Atlanta Mini Comic Con in 1977 and then expanded shows, including creators during the run of the show like Mike Grell, Bill Sienkiewicz, Mike Kaluta, Paul Gulacy, Bob McCloud, John Beatty, Steve Oliff, Dave Sim, and George Perez (who became a good friend and attended his son Scott’s bar mitzvah and did drawings for everyone).

After years at the Book Nook, Steve became the buyer for comics and pop culture product for a regional distributor, Southern Fantasies, that became CIB and Associates and, in 1995, was purchased by Diamond Comic Distributors. As an opening in their purchasing department was not available, Steve was in the customer service department in those days, which included the Heroes World purchase by Marvel and the subsequent exclusive arrangements between distributors and publishers. This led to warehouse consolidation and moved CS to the home office where he ran the southeastern CS team as he moved to Baltimore. When the opportunity arose, he became part of the purchasing team and eventually the assistant manager working with publishers like Dark Horse, IDW (their first brand manager), Wizard Magazine, Archie Comics, Crossgen, Slave Labor Graphics, AC Comics, Abstract Studios, Zenescope Entertainment, and numerous publishers from small indie to Premiere over his 30+ years with Diamond.

Having been an Eisner judge, he is looking forward to seeing all the items up for consideration this year.

A longtime comics pro, Mark Morales has worked for many companies, including Image, Dark Horse, Chaos, DC Comics, and Marvel Comics, mostly as an inker. Past projects from Mark include Thor, Daredevil, Batman, X-Men, Avengers vs. X-Men, Spider-Man/Deadpool, and Astonishing X-Men. Currently, he is working on Weapon X-Men from Marvel Comics.

Whether it’s creating new characters or reinventing older ones, Amy Reeder is here to remind us that great characters are what keep us hooked on comics. Her cover work spans many of the DC and Marvel characters we all love, but she’s especially known for her interior work on titles like Madame Xanadu, Batwoman, Amethyst, and Wonder Woman. Amy co-created Rocket Girl through Image Comics, as well as Moon Girl from Marvel’s Moon Girl and Devil Dinosaur–who now stars in her own cartoon on Disney! These days, Amy tends to write what she draws, which includes her recent work on DC’s Amethyst. Currently, she’s working on an unannounced romance graphic novel, while balancing cover gigs for the Big Two.

Born in Rockford, Illinois, raised in Memphis, Tennessee, matriculated in Tacoma, Washington, and broadcasting live from Los Angeles, California, Hannibal Tabu is a writer, a brother, a misanthrope, a son, an emcee, an uncle, a poet, a father, a designer, a nephew, a romantic, a storyteller, and by God, a fan.

He spent more than twenty years doing the journalist thing for Vibe, Slave Trade, MTV Online, The Los Angeles Wave Newspaper, Rap Pages, America Online, the Los Angeles Sentinel, the now-defunct Spinner Rack website, Speak, and The Source.

Hannibal has worked as a web designer/producer and graphic artist for American Honda, eHobbies.com, Quicken.com, L.A. Care Health Plan, the now-defunct DVD Express, the California Association of REALTORS, Disney Channel, NextPlanetOver.com, Toyota Motor Sales, Kaiser Permanente, California Bank & Trust, and many more.

As a poet, Hannibal has been published in The Drumming Between Us, (sic) Vice Verse, Drumvoices Review, Voices From Leimert Park, and other anthologies, as well as being author of the collection Born Beneath an Angry Star and co-author of Flight Manual.

In terms of prose fiction, he’s written short stories for Stranger Comics and The Operative Network and the novels The Crown: Ascension and Faraway (both available on Amazon, Barnes & Noble, & Smashwords), plus the upcoming sci-fi political thriller Rogue Nation.

From 2003 to 2022, Hannibal did comic book reviews under the banner The Buy Pile, which was also syndicated on the iHeartRadio podcast Nerd-O-Rama with Mo and Tawala. Hannibal was also the Head Comics Reviewer at one of the comics’ industries leading online outlets, Bleeding Cool, and is still a regular panelist and moderator at comics conventions, including multiple appearances in multiple years at San Diego’s Comic-Con International.

Hannibal was the winner of the 2012 Top Cow Talent Hunt, writer of New Money for Canon Comics, Waso: Will To Power for Stranger Comics, four issues of Project: Wildfire for Legends Press, three issues of Menthu for Hometown Studios, and co-writer of an issue of Watson & Holmes (alongside 2 Guns writer Steven Grant) for New Paradigm Studios. In 2015, he wrote the Aspen Sourcebooks for the makers of Fathom, Soulfire, and Executive Assistant Iris.

Hannibal was the winner of the 2018-2019 Cultural Trailblazer award from the City of Los Angeles Department of Cultural Affairs.

For six years, he was the editor-in-chief of the Los Angeles Herald-Dispatch group of newspapers, is currently the co-owner and editor-in-chief of the Black geek channel Komplicated at the Good Men Project.

In 2023, Hannibal entered the world of table top role playing games (TTRPG) with The Sundering: The Nation Beneath Our Feet, a book created with actor Damion Poitier that achieved 453% funding on Kickstarter to the tune of over $54,000. He has since been running paid Dungeons & Dragons games set in his fictional world and working on a sequel. With accolades from Eberron creator Keith Baker, legendary actor Phil LaMarr, and Critical Role cast member Taliesin Jaffe, the DND community has embraced Hannibal’s efforts in this regard.

Hannibal uses this website to publish his poetry, market what he’s doing, rant at the world, and emit strangled cries for help.

In addition to all that, Hannibal collects comic books, has scores of action figures, DJs private parties, is a Mac OS zealot, sings and sometimes even hosts karaoke, practices a form of spirituality based on ancient Egyptian belief, and goes to bed every day secretly hoping that half the world will commit suicide in his honor.

Fan and Pro Nomination Categories

• Best Cartoonist (Writer/Artist)
• Best Writer
• Best Artist or Penciller/Inker Team
• Best Letterer
• Best Colorist
• Best Cover Artist
• Best Series
• Best Single Issue or Story
• Best Original Graphic Novel
• Best Anthology
• Best Humor Comic
• Best Webcomic
• Best Humor Webcomic
• Best Non-fiction Comic Work
• Best Kids Comic or Graphic Novel
• Best Presentation in Design

Perennial Jury-Only Nomination

• The Mike Wieringo Spirit Award

Fan-Only Favorite Categories

• Favorite Hero
• Favorite Villain
• Favorite New Series
• Favorite New Talent
• Favorite Publisher

Hero Initiative Award (selected by the Hero Initiative)

• The Hero Initiative Lifetime Achievement Award
• The Dick Giordano Humanitarian Award