The Pulitzer has a few ways to win for comic creators/cartoonists and most would think of political cartoons when thinking “comics” and that award. On Monday it was announced that Tessa Hulls had won a 2025 Pulitzer in “Memoir or Autobiography” for Feeding Ghosts, A Graphic Memoir, the second original graphic novel to win one. Art Spiegelman’s Maus was the first to win thirty-three years ago. Welcome to the New World won in 2018 for “Editorial Cartooning” and I Escaped a Chinese Internment Camp won in 2022 for “Illustrated Reporting and Commentary.”

An affecting work of literary art and discovery whose illustrations bring to life three generations of Chinese women – the author, her mother and grandmother, and the experience of trauma handed down with family histories.

Hulls’ graphic novel, almost 10 years in the making, follows three generations of Chinese women. Her grandmother was a journalist during the Communist revolution who escapes to Hong Kong but suffers a mental breakdown. The story is of Hulls’ grandmother, her mother, and herself as they attempt to survive. Its won numerous awards including the National Books Critics Circle John Leonard Prize, the 2025 Anisfield Wolf Prize, the Libby Award For Best Graphic Novel and the shortlist for the Carnegie Medal.

Hulls learned of the news will working at the Legislative Lounge in the Capitol building in Juneau. She started to receive calls and text messages congratulating her but she was busy preparing the daily special, beef stew and salmon Alfredo linguine.

It was state Rep. Justin Ruffridge who informed Hulls after looking up the news on his phone. Hulls still went about her day doing her job, a seasonal contract gig. Hulls wants to become an embedded comics journalist working with field scientists focused on climate change and ecological resilience, a job that doesn’t really exist, but we fully expect to see her will it into existence.

Feeding Ghosts, A Graphic Memoir is available through Bookshop, Amazon, your local comic shop or bookstore, and more.

(via Anchorage Daily News)