Broken Frontier proudly announces the winners of the 21st annual BF Awards, as voted for by you, our readers, and the BF team.
I spoke a little about this when we announced this year’s Broken Frontier Awards nominations and it’s worth mentioning again. This year’s shortlist reflected differing responses to another year of turmoil in the world. Sometimes we need to challenge the darkness around us. Sometimes we need respite from it. And the mix of pure escapist comics alongside work that embodied varying degrees of social activism mirrored this.
You can see from this year’s winners that this was also an unpredictable year. Indeed the public vote went right up to the wire. On the final day of voting the lead in multiple categories kept changing and in one case the winner was decided by just one vote. Incredible stuff to watch. There are winners you may have been expecting but there are also perhaps some surprises as big name projects are beaten by small press titles. And while our abandonment of Twitter/X/Xitter was a worry in terms of driving in voters this year the reality was that engagement was around exactly the same level as last year.
This year’s Broken Frontier Hall of Fame entrants are also announced today. A reminder of the criteria for that. We look to honour individuals or organisations who have made significant contributions not just to comics publishing but also to comics community over the course of more than a decade. Of the two names one is selected from the UK scene and will be somebody who has in some sense collaborated or worked with BF to push the medium. The other choice is an international voice who similarly works to champion the form and its practitioners.
This year we are delighted to announce publisher Emma Hayley of SelfMadeHero as our first BF Hall of Fame entrant for 2025. SelfMadeHero have worked to widen participation within the UK comics industry with initiatives like their Graphic Anthology Programme, a mentorship opportunity which was dedicated to promoting diversity in comics publishing, and the subsequent Catalyst collection showcasing creators of colour. They are also now one of the co-organisers of the First Graphic Novel Competition which in all its incarnations has always been an unparalleled opportunity for up-and-coming comics creators to secure their first publishing deal. Comics community outreach at its finest.
And from the international scene we have the amazing crew at Silver Sprocket. I know that for both myself and Broken Frontier’s Lydia Turner one of the great thrills of Thought Bubble 2024 was meeting Avi and the Silver Sprocket team. Everything about their output, ethos and publishing philosophy matches our own outlook here at BF. But it’s not simply their wonderful experimental and alt catalogue of work that we’re celebrating here. Primarily it’s the socially conscious approach to the medium that Silver Sprocket embodies that we want to highlight. We have the hugest respect for what they do in that regard.
Once again let’s underline that there is work on this list you are unfamiliar with please check it out. It’s there for a reason and it’s worth your time. Much of it will have been reviewed or featured on Broken Frontier already so you can find it through our search option. Other projects have coverage incoming so keep an eye on the front page.
Once again, thank you for voting, for your support for the BF Awards and for all your sharing on social media. Congratulations to all the winners and to the nominees!
Best Writer: Marjorie Liu (Monstress, Image Comics)
Other nominees:
- Garth Ennis (2000 AD/Battle Action, Rebellion)
- James Tynion IV (The Deviant, Image Comics & The Nice House By the Sea, DC Comics)
- Pornsak Pichetshote (Man’s Best, BOOM! Studios)
- Ram V (Rare Flavours, BOOM! Studios)
Best Artist: Anna Readman (Coming Home, Re-Live & Scream! 40th Anniversary Special, Rebellion)
Other nominees:
- Aimée de Jongh (Lord of the Flies, Faber)
- Isabel Greenberg (Young Hag, Jonathan Cape)
- Jesse Lonergan (Man’s Best, BOOM! Studios)
- Shazleen Khan (Buuza!!, Self-published)
Best Colorist: Joe Latham (Haru: Book 1: Spring, Andrews McMeel)
Other nominees:
- Charles Burns (Final Cut, Penguin Random House/Jonathan Cape)
- Flo Woolley (Skin Deep, Silver Sprocket)
- Mereida Fajardo (There’s a Party in My Body (and You’re All Invited), Self-published)
- Norm Konyu (A Fall from Grace, Self-published)
Best Letterer: Rob Jones (Blinded, Spotlight)
Other nominees:
- Aditya Bidikar (The Oddly Pedestrian Life of Christopher Chaos, Dark Horse Comics)
- Hassan Otsmane-Elhaou (Zatanna: Bring Down the House, DC Comics)
- Nate Piekos (Black Hammer: The End/Spiral City, Dark Horse Comics)
- Rus Wootton (Monstress, Image Comics)
Breakout Talent: Mollie Ray (Giant, Faber)
Other nominees:
- Beth Hetland (Tender, Fantagraphics Books)
- Bhanu Pratap (Cutting Season, Fantagraphics Underground)
- J. Webster Sharp (The Scrapbook of Life and Death, Avery Hill Publishing)
- Joe Latham (Haru: Book 1: Spring, Andrews McMeel)
Best Periodical Series: PeePee PooPoo (Caroline Cash, Silver Sprocket)
Other nominees:
- mini kuš! (Anthology series – multiple creators, kuš! comics)
- Monster Fun (Anthology series – multiple creators, Rebellion)
- The Phoenix (Anthology series – multiple creators, David Fickling Comics)
- Rare Flavours (Ram V, Filipe Andrade & Andworld Design, BOOM! Studios)
Best New Periodical Series: The Pedestrian (Joey Esposito, Sean Von Gorman, Magma Comix)
Other nominees:
- Epitaphs from the Abyss (Anthology, multiple creators, Oni Press)
- Hate Revisited! (Peter Bagge with D. Carrino, Fantagraphics Books)
- Man’s Best (Pornsak Pichetshote, Jesse Lonergan & Jeff Powell, BOOM! Studios)
- The Rocketfellers (Peter J. Tomasi, Francis Manapul & Rob Leigh, Image Comics/Ghost Machine)
Best One-Shot: My Body Unspooling (Leo Fox, Silver Sprocket)
- Autobiography Has Become a Stone in My Shoe (Peony Gent, Self-published)
- Dwellings: All Hallows Eve Special #1 (Jay Stephens, Oni Press)
- Jacques and the Great Art Theft (Chris Baldie & Adrian Bloch, Self-published)
- Sunflowers (Keezy Young, Silver Sprocket)
Best One-Shot Anthology: Let Her Be Evil (Edited by Cassandra Jones)
Other nominees:
- Becoming Who We Are: Real Stories About Growing Up Trans (Edited by Sammy Lisel and Hazel Newlevant, multiple creators, A Wave Blue World)
- Lebanon is Burning and Other Dispatches (Yazan Al-Saadi and multiple artists, Graphic Mundi)
- Tall Tales & Short Stories (Edited by Mike Armstrong, multiple creators WIP Comics)
- Won’t Back Down: An Anthology of Pro-Choice Comics (Edited by Trina Robins, multiple creators, Last Gasp)
Best Webcomic: War on Gaza (Joe Sacco)
Other nominees:
- Buuza!! (Shazleen Khan)
- Muscle Memory: A Survivor’s Story (Al Davison)
- Nap Comix (Rachael Smith)
- Stop! Project 2025 (online anthology, multiple creators)
Best Graphic Novel: Lord of the Flies (Aimée de Jongh, Faber)
Other nominees:
- Anfield Road (Chris Shepherd, Titan)
- Final Cut (Charles Burns, Penguin Random House/Jonathan Cape)
- Mary Tyler MooreHawk (Dave Baker, Top Shelf Productions)
- My Favorite Thing is Monsters Book Two (Emil Ferris, Fantagraphics Books)
Best Graphic Non-Fiction: Suffrage Song: The Haunted History of Gender, Race and Voting Rights in the U.S. (Caitlin Cass, Fantagraphics Books)
- Adrift on a Painted Sea (Tim Bird, Avery Hill Publishing)
- Brittle Joints (Maria Sweeney, Street Noise Books)
- Lavender Clouds (Bex Ollerton, Andrews McMeel)
- They Shot the Piano Player (Fernando Trueba & Javier Marascal, SelfMadeHero)
Best Collection of Classic Material: 40 Years of Scream!: The Archival Collection (Anthology – multiple creators, Rebellion/Treasury of British Comics)
Other nominees:
- All in Line (Saul Steinberg, New York Review Books)
- The Atlas Artist Edition No. 1: Joe Maneely (Fantagraphics Books)
- Second Hand Love (Yamada Murasaki, Drawn & Quarterly)
- Walt Disney’s Silly Symphonies 1935-1939 (Anthology – multiple creators, Fantagraphics Books)
Best Book on Comics: Seattle Samurai: A Cartoonist’s Perspective of the Japanese American Experience (Kelly Goto & Sam Goto, Chin Music Press)
Other nominees:
- Cartoonists Against Racism: The Secret Jewish War on Bigotry (Rafael Medoff & Craig Yoe, Dark Horse Comics)
- Comic Papers, Music Hall & Early Cinema (Alan Clark, Half-Holiday)
- Comics 1964-2024 (Thierry Groensteen, Lucas Hureau, Anne Lemonnier, Emmanuel Payen, et al, Thames & Hudson)
- Comic Book Implosion (Expanded Edition): An Oral History of DC Comics Circa 1978 (Keith Dallas & John Wells, TwoMorrows Publishing)
Best Publisher: Silver Sprocket
Other nominees:
- Avery Hill Publishing
- Drawn & Quarterly
- Fantagraphics Books
- SelfMadeHero
Broken Frontier Hall of Fame
- 2017 – Annie Koyama (Koyama Press)
- 2018 – Corinne Pearlman (Myriad Editions)
- 2019 – David Schilter and Sanita Muižniece (kuš! comics)
- 2020 – Gosh! Comics
- 2021 – Steve Walsh (Gosh! Comics, Avery Hill Publishing)
- 2022 – Avery Hill Publishing and C. Spike Trotman (Iron Circus Comics)
- 2023 – Thought Bubble and Toronto Comic Art Festival (TCAF)
- 2024 – Emma Hayley (SelfMadeHero) and Silver Sprocket
Thank you for voting in the Broken Frontier Awards for 2024!
