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7th Annual Dwayne McDuffie Award for Diversity in Comics nominees announced

Posted on October 12, 2022 by Graphic Policy Team

The Dwayne McDuffie Award for Diversity in Comics has revealed the highly-anticipated finalists for the prestigious 7th annual prize.

The Selection Committee included new judge, David F. Walker, co-creator (with Brian Michael Bendis) of DC Comics’ and The CW’s Naomi McDuffie, so named in honor of Mr. McDuffie.

The NOMINEES for the 7th Dwayne McDuffie Award for Diversity in Comics are:

Adora and the Distance
Writer: Marc Bernadin, Artist: Ariela Kristantina

Himawari House
Writer & Artist: Harmony Becker

Swim Team
Writer & Artist: Johnnie Christmas

Nuclear Power
Writers: Desirée Proctor & Erica Harrell, Artist: Lynne Yoshii

Girl Haven
Writer: Lilah Sturges, Artist: Meaghan Carter

The winner will be announced, in a virtual ceremony, by returning MC, actor Phil LaMarr, who voiced both heroes Static/Virgil and John Stewart/Green Lantern in the animated Warner Bros.’ series Static Shock and Justice League Unlimited, written and produced by Mr. McDuffie.

Past Winners:

2020 – They Called Us Enemy, by George Takei, Justin Eisinger, Steven Scott and
Harmony Becker.
2019 – Archival Quality, written by Ivy Noelle Weir & illustrated by Christian “Steenz”
Stewart (Oni Press)
2018 – Leon: Protector of the Playground, written & illustrated by Jamar Nicholas
(Kids Love Comics)
2017 – Upgrade Soul, written & illustrated by Ezra Claytan Daniels
2016 – Ms. Marvel, written by G. Willow Wilson & illustrated by Adrian Alphona (Marvel
Entertainment)
2015 – M.F.K. written & illustrated by Nilah Magruder (www.mfkcomic.com)

2021 Selection Committee

The 2021 Dwayne McDuffie Award for Diversity in Comics’ selection committee, led by industry legend, Marv Wolfman, consists of 10 prominent comics and animation professionals who personally knew and worked with Mr. McDuffie and/or have demonstrated a serious commitment to his vision of excellence and inclusiveness on the page and behind the scenes.

Colleen Doran is a cartoonist, writer/artist whose works include writing/drawing Sensational Wonder Woman, the multi-award winning adaptation Neil Gaimain’s Snow, Glass, Apples, and art for The Sandman, The Vampire Diaries, The Clock, Star Wars: Doctor Aphra, The Walking Dead, and hundreds of other comics. She also illustrated Stan Lee’s New York Times best-selling autobiography Amazing, Fantastic, Incredible Stan Lee. Among her numerous awards and nominations are Eisner awards, the Harvey Award, The International Horror Guild Award, the Ringo and the Bram Stoker Award.

Heidi MacDonald is the editor-in-chief of Comicsbeat.com and has edited comics for Disney, DC Comics, Vertigo, HarperCollins and Z2. She can be heard on Publishers Weekly’s weekly podcast More To Come and found regularly on the Beat’s YouTube channel.

Jamal Igle is the writer/artist/creator of Molly Danger for Action Lab Entertainment, the co-creator/artist of The Wrong Earth for Ahoy Comics, co-creator of Dudley Datson and the Forever Machine for Comixology, and the penciller of the critically acclaimed series, BLACK from Black Mask Studios, as well as many titles for DC, Marvel and Dark Horse. He’s been a storyboard artist for Sony Animation and is also a popular guest lecturer on the subjects of comics and animation.

Joseph Illidge is the Executive Editor for Heavy Metal, the leading illustrated magazine and company for science fiction, fantasy, and horror. Joseph’s first job in the comic book industry was at Milestone Media, the groundbreaking publisher responsible for the popular teen hero “Static”. The first editor of color for DC Comics’ Batman franchise, Joseph is the founder of Illuminous, LLC and is co-producing the film Xero with 50 Cent’s G-Unit Film and Television, writer Christopher Priest, and Color Farm Media.

Kevin Rubio is a writer/producer who has contributed to Justice League
Action, Avengers Assemble, Thunderbirds Are Go!, Green Lantern: The Animated Series and My Little Pony: Friendship Is Magic. He is also the creator and writer of the Star Wars graphic novel, Tag & Bink Were Here, and Red 5 Publication’s Abyss Vol. I & II. He is an inaugural recipient of the George Lucas Film Award for his Star Wars short film, TROOPS, is a Promax Award winner, and is an Emmy nominee.

Geoffrey Thorne is the writer/creator of Mosaic for Marvel Comics, Prodigal for Genre 19 and writer of Green Lantern for DC Comics. He was also the head writer and showrunner of Marvel’s Avengers: Black Panther’s Quest as well as a writer-producer on such hit series as Leverage, Law & Order: Criminal Intent, Power: Book II: Ghost, co-executive producer on Magnum P.I. and executive producer of the podcast sci-fi anthology series Geoffrey Thorne’s Dreamnasium. He is also writer of the upcoming Blood Syndicate comic book reboot for Milestone Media.

David F. Walker is an award-winning comic book writer, filmmaker, journalist, educator, and creator of the pop culture fanzine BadAzz MoFo. Perhaps best known for his work in comic books, he’s written such titles as Luke Cage and Power Man and Iron Fist for Marvel, Cyborg and Naomi (which he co-created) for DC Comics, the Eisner-winning Bitter Root (which he also co-created) for Image Comics and other titles for Dark Horse Comics, BOOM! Studios, Dynamite, and more.

Will J. Watkins (Director of the Dwayne McDuffie Award for Diversity in Comics) is a freelance TV, film and animation writer who is also comic book story/world-building consultant on The Protectors graphic novel published by Athlita Comics. He had a stint as an assistant editor at DC Comics and, before moving to LA, he co-owned Chicago’s first African-American-owned comic book shop. He’s currently a writer on Freeform’s Motherland: Fort Salem.

Matt Wayne has written for many highly-regarded animation projects, including Samurai Rabbit: The Usagi Chronicles, Cannon Busters, Niko and the Sword of Light, the Emmy- nominated Hellboy Animated: Sword of Storms, and Hello Kitty: Supercute Adventures. His comics work includes Batman: Legends of the Dark Knight, Static/Black Lightning, and writing and editing for the original Milestone Media comics line.

Marv Wolfman is the multi-award-winning writer who created Blade for Marvel Comics, The New Teen Titans for DC Comics, and legions of other iconic characters and stories. In addition to comic books, he’s written for animation, videogames, novels and more. It’s been said that he’s created more characters who’ve made the jump to movies, TV shows, toys, games and animation than any other writer save Stan Lee.

Comics

Review: Girl Haven

Posted on February 24, 2021 by Joe Bones

There’s a good chance you see a title called Girl Haven and assume you’re about to read a story about girl power. In a way, you’d be right, though Girl Haven doesn’t explore this concept in the way many readers would expect. To quote author Lilah Sturges, “Girl Haven is a story about gender. [It’s] mainly about one type of gender experience, [but] it’s central message is true for everyone: Your story is your own.” From the touching preface through an uplifting story, this graphic novel from Oni Press, is as timely as it is entertaining.

Girl Haven is a very cute story with light-hearted humor. The friendship and emotional bond between the characters is obvious and makes the reader love and root for them as the plot moves forward. The story follows four friends who are transported to the magical land of Koretris, a place for girls only, where no boys are allowed. This presents a problem for the graphic novel’s protagonist, Ash, because he’s a boy. Luckily, his friends are all female-identifying and along for the ride through this mystic realm. During their adventure, they see wondrous things, help Ash make a personal discovery, and come together to save Koretris.

The story starts off a little slow, but then picks up into a thrilling adventure story. Admittedly, if you’ve read a lot of fantasy, the plot and dialogue are very predictable. However, that doesn’t stop Girl Haven from being a really fun read. This graphic novel is a stellar example of representation in comic books. Within only a few panels of meeting Ash’s friends, we learn that they are all queer but none of them is ever defined by their sexuality. They all have distinct personalities that make them stand out from their counterparts, giving each character their own unique voice. This is the first YA graphic novel I’ve ever read that acknowledges that a person’s perception of their gender is fluid and can change as they learn more about themselves. This is an important message for all readers, and especially young adults.

“Girl Power” is on full display in one aspect of this graphic novel in the form of its all-female creative team. The three ladies work together seamlessly to create the wonderful world and characters of Girl Haven. Meaghan Carter’s artwork reminds me of Henry and June from Nickelodeon’s animated variety show KaBlam! It is the perfect style to capture Girl Haven’s magic and warmth. Even though her style is simple, Carter does a great job rendering the scale of the characters and their surroundings. Often, everyone in a comic book is drawn at more or less the same height. That’s not the case in this graphic novel. The accurate scale to which Carter draws helps make Koretris look real and helps transport the readers there, right alongside Ash and his friends.

Love is stronger than fear. That’s the central theme of Girl Haven and it’s a message from which we can all learn. I didn’t get this written in time to make the pre-order cut-off, but this is a graphic novel you’re going to want to check out when it releases on February 17th. It’s a book with something for almost everyone and is especially appropriate (and important) for young readers. This fantasy adventure story is well written if a bit derivative. The graphic novel is drawn in a fun and coherent style, and the characters are representative of people not featured often enough in comic books. Grab yourself a copy and get ready to journey through Koretris.

Story: Lilah Sturges Art: Meaghan Carter Letterer: Joamette Gil
Story: 9.0 Art: 9.0 Overall: 9.0 Recommendation: Buy

Oni Press provided Graphic Policy with a FREE copy for review

Purchase: comiXology – Amazon – Kindle – Zeus Comics – TFAW

Advance Review: Girl Haven

Posted on February 9, 2021 by Joe Bones

Story: Lilah Sturges Art: Meaghan Carter Letterer: Joamette Gil
Story: 9.0 Art: 9.0 Overall: 9.0 Recommendation: Buy

Oni Press provided Graphic Policy with a FREE copy for review

Pre-Order: comiXology – Amazon – Kindle – Zeus Comics

Girl Haven by Lilah Sturges and Meaghan Carter is out Spring 2021 from Oni and Lion Forge

Posted on September 25, 2020 by Graphic Policy Team

The Oni-Lion Forge Publishing Group has announced an upcoming collaboration with Lilah Sturges, author of the New York Times bestselling series Lumberjanes, and Meaghan Carter, creator of the webcomics Take Off and Godslave, with the release of their middle-grade graphic novel Girl Haven in February 2021.

Three years ago, Ash’s mom left home and never returned, leaving behind a husband and child and a shed full of mystical curiosities related to the all-girl fantasy world she’d created as a child—Koretris. One day, Ash invites a new group of female friends from the school’s Pride Club over, and they try one of the spells to enter Koretris. To their amazement, they’re all transported to a magical realm filled with human-sized talking animals who are fiercely protective of their world and are ready to fight to defend it.

But if Koretris is real, why is Ash there? Everyone has always called Ash a boy—shouldn’t the spell have kept Ash out? And what does it mean if it let Ash in? With a diverse and queer cast of characters, Girl Haven takes place in that strange, special time of life when every young person is on the verge of discovering who they are—and what they want for themselves.

Girl Haven will be available in stores and online February 9, 2021.

Comics

Preview: My Little Pony: Legends of Magic #12

Posted on March 29, 2018 by Graphic Policy Team

My Little Pony: Legends of Magic #12

Story: Jeremy Whitley
Art: Tony Fleecs
Color: Heather Breckel
Letterer: Neil Uyetake
Regular Cover: Tony Fleecs
Subscription: Brenda Hickey
Cover RI: Meaghan Carter
Editor: Bobby Curnow

The most legendary ponies are all gathered, and now they must face the might of the Sirens! The future of Equestria is at stake, and hidden danger looms in the group’s midst!

FC • 32 pages • $3.99

Under The Fleur De Lys: A Closer Look at Quebec Superheroes

Posted on July 25, 2017 by patricktgoddard

The patriotic superhero has been a staple of comics since Simon & Kirby’s Captain America. Canada has had a few of its own, beginning with the wartime adventurer Johnny Canuck, through Captain Canuck in the 1970’s, Northguard in the 1980’s and their recent reboots from Chapterhouse Comics. But what about superheroes from Quebec?

After all, Quebec is an important part of Canada, going back as far as 1763, when France ceded New France to the British. In 1791, the original Province of Quebec was divided at the Ottawa River into Lower Canada (Quebec) and Upper Canada (Ontario). In 1841, the two were re-combined into the United Province of Canada. Finally, in 1867, Quebec became one of the founding provinces of the Dominion of Canada. In fact, the term “canadien” was originally used to mean francophones.

Knowing this, English-speaking Canadian writers generally feel it’s important to include Québécois characters in any Canadian series. But despite the best intentions of the creators, it is very difficult to write Quebec superheroes with authenticity.

First of all, there are not one, but two language barriers at work. Not only is it a challenge for English-Canadian comics writers to write French fluently, but the French that is spoken and written in Quebec is unique. Joual, as it is known, is a highly-specific dialect, like Yiddish or Creole (some go so far as to call it a language of its own). Because of its historically lower-class status, it was not taught as “correct” French; even my peers who spent years in French immersion schools never learned how people in Quebec actually speak. Writing it is something else entirely: until the Quiet Revolution of the 1960’s, and the work of writers such as Réjean Ducharme and Michel Tremblay, joual rarely, if ever, appeared in print.

Toronto writers such as Kalman Andrasofszky (Captain Canuck, Agents of P.A.C.T.) and Meaghan Carter (La Fantôme) use translators for the dialogue of their Québécois characters. But this practice has its limits: in the case of Carter, her translator and proofreader (Mederic Berton and Xaviere Daumerie) are European and use expressions that, while French, are not Québécois. (“tu nous as fichu une sacrée pagaille,” for instance.) Also, as Andrasofsky pointed out to me (which I can confirm from my own experience), no two translators ever totally agree. To write Kébec’s working-class dialogue, Andrasofsky turns to a number of francophones, including Gabriel Morrissette, co-creator (with Mark Shainblum) of Fleur de Lys. For example, one person may translate “son-of-a-bitch” to Kébec calling an enemy “un câlisse,” but another may have gone another route. In the 1980’s Northguard stories written by Shainblum and drawn by Morrissette, Morrissette provided the Québécois dialogue.

Morrissette acknowledges that American readers simply don’t understand that Quebec French is different from European French. You can see that difference in the first appearance of Northguard, when a security guard calls in for backup when the hero blows past: “J’ai un fou qui se garroche en d’dans!” the guard exclaims in perfect joual. In Northguard, he and Shainblum worked hard to give the book authenticity: “If we were going to show Montreal, we were going to show it as it really was,” he told me.

But to show something as it really is requires research. Morrissette, having grown up with European comics as well as American, was used to artists who were able to do extensive research and use accurate references. But with the tighter production deadlines of American comics, “even three days to do research was a luxury!” Mark Shainblum, in writing Northguard and Fleur de Lys, was able to draw on the fact that he had grown up and lived in Montreal: “I was immersed in all of it. I grew up during the rise of Quebec nationalism and the election of the first PQ government in 1976 [the Parti Québécois’ raison d’être is to make Quebec an independent country] and all the psychological shocks to the system that meant for Quebec, anglophone and francophone alike.”

For La Fantôme, Carter visited Montreal and its Ecomuseum and collected reference photos. But, she adds, “I’ll be perfectly honest and admit I did absolutely zero research for the character’s background!… If the story was about being a Montrealer/Quebecker… then I would have placed a lot more importance on that kind of research – or would have felt completely out of bounds writing such a thing. However, I feel that Fantome’s story is not about her background and more about investigating the Ecomuseum and being a superhero, so that’s where I focused the writing on.” Andrasofszky echoed a similar reluctance, stressing that both Fleur de Lys and Kébec are “supporting characters in other peoples’ books.” He also pointed out that, in action series, no matter how much you want to put in, “you have to cut, and cut, and cut again… It’s hard to find the time. I just want to get to the alien invasion.”

So does the fact that these are stories in the superhero genre limit the writing of these Québécois characters? “Quebec as its own unique entity has little if nothing to do with Fantome’s story,” says Carter. About Kébec, Andrasofszky says that he didn’t want her language to define her character: “I didn’t want to say, ‘Oh, she’s francophone and therefore…’ She’s a number of different things.” He tries to give an impression of their background (using language to highlight their class differences, for instance), but stresses that they are “living individuals that are more than the product of their culture.” As for Kébec and Fleur de Lys’ costumes, he was more circumspect: “It (Captain Canuck) is a book about a flag-wearing super-hero… It’s not about addressing politics… Maybe it’s a missed opportunity… I don’t know that I’m qualified to deal with that.”

I asked Shainblum if it was possible to have a flag-wearing superhero who was not political. “No,” he said. “And why would you even try? It defeats the purpose of the project… I mean, we struggled with it, Phillip Wise [Northguard] struggled with it himself.” On creating Fleur de Lys: “I wanted a Quebec-themed female character in the series, a yin to Northguard’s yang. And I wanted her to be a Quebec sovereignist to balance the maple leaf effect of Northguard, and give them a chance to actually discuss the issue and let me air some of my feelings about it.” Indeed, in New Triumph #4, Phillip and Manon discuss the Quebec independence movement in a way that’s surprisingly sympathetic, coming from an English Montrealer, and gives us insight into both characters and their motivations. Shainblum’s treatment of Manon Deschamps is by far the most authentic portrayal of a Quebec character in superhero comics, and an excellent example of the possibilities within the genre.

Quebec holds a unique place in Canada and North America. Its distinct language, culture, and history can be obstacles to creators from outside the province working fast to meet deadlines and genre conventions. But those challenges could also provide rich opportunities for those who take the time and make the effort to dig deeper below the surface of the fleur-de-lys flag.

Dark Horse to Publish The Secret Loves of Geek Girls

Posted on December 9, 2015 by Graphic Policy Team

Dark Horse Comics has announced plans to publish the highly anticipated anthology The Secret Loves of Geek Girls. Editor Hope Nicholson has assembled a dazzling mix of prose, comics, and illustrated stories about love, dating, and sex featuring more than fifty creators, including Booker Award–winning novelist Margaret Atwood, Mariko Tamaki, Trina Robbins, Gisèle Lagacé, Marguerite Bennett, Marjorie Liu, and Carla Speed McNeil. It also features a foreword by Kelly Sue DeConnick and a new cover by Noelle Stevenson.

The anthology was originally funded through Kickstarter and will be published through Dark Horse in October 2016.

The Secret Loves of Geek Girls includes:

Cartoons by award-winning novelist Margaret Atwood that detail her personal experiences as a young woman
A comic by Fionna Adams and Jen Vaughn about what it’s like being a trans woman trying to figure out romantic and sexual inclinations while entrenched in comics
A story by Mariko Tamaki and Fiona Smyth in which a seventeen-year-old Tamaki dreams of being Montreal’s first chubby Asian Frank N. Furter
A story by Marguerite Bennett about fandom and how it allows us to say what we feel to our loved ones
New comics by Meaghan Carter, Megan Kearney, ALB, Meags Fitzgerald, Gillian G., Diana Nock, Roberta Gregory, Laura Neubert, Sarah Winifred Searle, Natalie Smith, Jenn Woodall, and Irene Koh
Illustrated stories by Janet Hetherington, Sam Maggs and Selena Goulding, Megan Lavey-Heaton and Isabelle Melançon, Cherelle Ann Sarah Higgins and Rachael Wells, Annie Mok, and Stephanie Cooke and Deena Pagliarello
Prose stories by Brandy Dawley, Diana McCallum, Jen Aprahamian, Katie West, Adrienne Kress, Soha Kareem, Loretta Jean, J. M. Frey, Trina Robbins, Twiggy Tallant, Hope Nicholson, Crystal Skillman, Emma Woolley, Gita Jackson, Natalie Zina Walschots, Alicia Contestabile, Tini Howard, Cara Ellison, Jessica Oliver Proulx, and Erin Cossar