Introducing the Broken Frontier Awards 2018 – Celebrating Another Year of Indie, Alt and Small Press Coverage at BF!

Broken Frontier proudly presents the shortlists for our 15th 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 2018.

As always, you will have a big say in who gets to take home an award!

The BF crew have completed their role in the initial 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, 2019.

This year’s nominations both embody and celebrate the work we covered on the site this year. From hand-stapled, DIY culture and zines to serial genre comics and high profile graphic novels, we hope that every aspect of the form and its many methods of delivery are represented in this shortlist. 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’s at least one major omission on the graphic novel front that may surprise you. But, as ever, the BF Awards are a reflection of the site’s ethos and the practice that excited our hard-working team in 2018.

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!

Broken Frontier Awards 2018: The Nominations

Best Writer

• Cecil Castellucci (Shade the Changing Woman)
• Jeff Lemire (Black Hammer, Gideon Falls, Royal City)
• Magdalene Visaggio (Eternity Girl)
• Mark Russell (Exit Stage Left: The Snagglepuss Chronicles)
• Ram V (Grafity’s Wall, Paradiso)

Best Artist

• Alexander Utkin (Gamayun Tales)
• Jon McNaught (Kingdom)
• Kristyna Baczynski (Retrograde Orbit)
• Mark Stafford (Lip Hook)
• Tillie Walden (On a Sunbeam)

Best Colorist

• Becca Tobin (Understanding)
• Dave Stewart (Black Hammer, B.P.R.D)
• Jason Wordie (Grafity’s Wall)
• Jordie Bellaire (Redlands, The Dead Hand)
• Kate Brown (Faith Says You: It’s Dark Outside)

Best Letterer

• Aditya Bidikar (Grafity’s Wall, These Savage Shores)
• Clayton Cowles (Mister Miracle, Redlands)
• Jared K. Fletcher (Paper Girls, The Gravediggers Union)
• Nate Piekos (Beasts of Burden, Quantum Age)
• Todd Klein (Black Hammer: Age of Doom)

Breakout Talent

• Eleanor Crewes (The Times I Knew I Was Gay, Good Comics)
• Ivy Atoms (Pinky & Pepper Forever, Silver Sprocket)
• Jayde Perkin (What a Life, I’m Not Ready, ELCAF x WeTransfer Award winner)
• Lottie Pencheon (Summer Break, Shortbox)
• Pornsak Pichetshote (Infidel, Image Comics)

Best New Series

• Daygloayhole (Ben Passmore, Silver Sprocket)
• Gideon Falls (Jeff Lemire, Andrea Sorrentino, Image Comics)
• Jazz Creepers (Douglas Noble, Sarah Horrocks, Sarah Gordon et al, Strip for Me)
• Prism Stalker (Sloane Leong, Ariana Maher, Image Comics)
• These Savage Shores (Ram V, Sumit Kumar, Vitorio Astone, Aditya Bidikar, Vault Comics)

Best Ongoing Series

• Generous Bosom (Conor Stechshulte, Breakdown Press)
• Minor Leagues (Simon Moreton, Lydstep Lettuce)
• Paradiso (Ram V, Devmalya Pramanik, Dearbhla Kelly, Alba Cardona et al, Image Comics)
• Royal City (Jeff Lemire, Steve Wands, Image Comics)
• The Unbeatable Squirrel Girl (Ryan North, Erica Henderson, Derek Charm et al, Marvel Comics)

Best Limited Series

• Exit Stage Left: The Snagglepuss Chronicles (Mark Russell, Mike Feehan, Mark Morales et al, DC Comics)
• Infidel (Pornsak Pichetshote, Aaron Campbell, José Villarrubia, Jeff Powell, Image Comics)
• Mister Miracle (Tom King, Mitch Gerads, Clayton Cowles, DC Comics)
• Shade the Changing Woman (Cecil Castellucci, Marley Zarcone et al, DC Comics/Young Animal)
• Twisted Romance (Alex de Campi, Katie Skelly, Carla Speed McNeil et al, Image Comics)

Best One-Shot

• Afterwords (Gareth Brookes, self-published)
• Greenhouse (Debbie Fong, self-published)
• Stutter (Joe Stone, self-published)
• The Times I Knew I Was Gay (Eleanor Crewes, Good Comics)
• XENOS: At the Edge of Life (Cat Sims, self-published)

Best Webcomic

• Cafe Suada (Jade Sarson)
• The Contradictions (Sophie Yanow)
• Finding Home (Hari Conner)
• Leaving Richard’s Valley (Michael DeForge)
• Swan Boy (Branson Reese)

Best Graphic Novel

• Coyote Doggirl (Lisa Hanawalt, Drawn & Quarterly)
• Grafity’s Wall (Ram V, Anand Radhakrishnan, Jason Wordie, Aditya Bidikar, Unbound)
• Kingdom (Jon McNaught, Nobrow Press)
• On a Sunbeam (Tillie Walden, Avery Hill Publishing/First Second)
• Shit is Real (Aisha Franz, Drawn & Quarterly)

Best Graphic Non-Fiction

• Escaping Wars and Waves: Encounters with Syrian Refugees (Olivier Kugler, Myriad Editions)
• Follow Me In (Katriona Chapman, Avery Hill Publishing)
• The Great North Wood (Tim Bird, Avery Hill Publishing)
• Summer Break (Lottie Pencheon, Shortbox)
• Why Art? (Eleanor Davis, Fantagraphics)

Best Collection of Classic Material

• Berlin (Jason Lutes, Drawn & Quarterly)
• Charley’s War: The Definitive Collection (Pat Mills, Joe Colquouhoun, Rebellion/Treasury of British Comics)
• Coin-Op Comics Anthology: 1997-2017 (Peter Hoey and Maria Hoey, Top Shelf Productions)
• The New World: Comics from Mauretania (Chris Reynolds, New York Review Comics)
• Somnambulance (Fiona Smyth, Koyama Press)

Best Book on Comics

• Drawn to Purpose: American Women Illustrators (Martha H. Kennedy, University Press of Mississippi)
• The Inking Woman (Edited by Nicola Streeten and Cath Tate, Myriad Editions)
• The Life and Legend of Wallace Wood Volume 2 (Compiled by Bhob Stewart, Fantagraphics)
• Logo-a-gogo: Branding Pop Culture (Rian Hughes, Korero Press)
• Marie Duval (Simon Grennan, Julian Waite, Roger Sabin, Myriad Editions)

Best Publisher

• Avery Hill Publishing
• Drawn & Quarterly
• Koyama Press
• Retrofit/Big Planet
• Silver Sprocket

Broken Frontier Hall of Fame

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