Posted in: Comics, Comics History, Editor's Picks Comic News | Tagged: canada, Canadian, comic books, Comics, Eric Orchard, Gabriel Morrissette, Guy Delisle, HRL, Jack Tremblay, jeff lemire, joe shuster, Julie Doucet, kenneth ketter, L’Imaginaire, Lovern Kindzierski, Michael Cho, Nathan Fairbairn, Nunumi, stuart immonen, The Joe Shuster Awards, ty templeton, yanick paquette

2017 Joe Shuster Awards Honor Canadian Comics Creativity

Published Sat, 02 Sep 2017 09:30:30 -0500

by Ray Flook

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The Canadian Comic Book Creator Awards Association have made their selections for the 2017 Joe Shuster Awards, with Awards Director Kevin A. Boyd announcing the winners on Friday. First established is 2004, the awards serve to recognize the works of Canadians home or abroad for their outstanding achievements in the creation of comic books, graphic novels, and webcomics and are named after pioneering Canadian artist Joe Shuster, who created the iconic super-powered hero Superman with Jerry Siegel.

Here are your 2017 Joe Shuster Awards recipients…congratulations to all of them!

Webcomics Creator / Créateur de Bandes Dessinées Web: Ty Templeton

Bun Toons

Writer / Scénariste: Jeff Lemire

Black Hammer #1-6 (Dark Horse), Descender #9-17, Plutona 4-5 (image), All-New Hawkeye #3-6, All-New X-Men #1-3, Moon Knight #1-9, Old Man Logan #1-15, Extraordinary X-Men #1-17 (Marvel) Bloodshot Reborn #10-18,Bloodshot U.S.A., 4001 A.D. Bloodshot (Valiant)

Cover Artist / Dessinateur Couvertures: Michael Cho

Batman: The Golden Age Omnibus TP Vol. 1, The Flash: Silver Age Omnibus Vol. 1 TP, Suicide Squad: The Silver Age Omnibus HC (DC), A-Force #3v, All-New Hawkeye #4v, All-New, All-Different Avengers #5v, Amazing Spider-Man #7v, Astonishing Ant-Man #5v, Captain Marvel #2v, Civil War II #1v, 2v,3v,4v, 5v,6v,7v,8v Daredevil #4v, Darth Vader #25v, Doctor Strange #5v, Howard the Duck #4v, Invincible Iron Man #6v, IvX #1v, Mighty Thor #4v, Occupy Avengers #1v, Scarlet Witch #3v, Spider-Gwen #5v, Spider-Man #1v, Totally Awesome Hulk #3v, Unbeatable Squirrel Girl #5v, Uncanny Inhumans #5v, Vision #4v (Marvel) (v = Variant cover)

Artist / Dessinateur: Yanick Paquette & Nathan Fairbairn

Batman #49-50, Nightwing Rebirth #1, Wonder Woman: Earth One (DC)

Cartoonist / Auteur

Guy Delisle – S'enfuir, récit d'un otage (Dargaud)

Gene Day Award (Self-Publishers) / Prix Gene Day (Auto-éditeurs): Nunumi

Sky Rover

Named after the late Howard Eugene Day (1951-1982), this award honours Canadian comic book creators or creative teams who self-published their work but did not have the books distributed by a third party such as Diamond Comic Distributors, Inc. The nominees were selected from individual publications submitted for review before the deadline of May 30th, 2016.

Harry Kremer Award (Retailers) / Prix Harry Kremer (Détaillants): L'Imaginaire (Laurier, QC)

Named after the Harry Kremer, the original owner of Now & Then Books (in Kitchener, Ontario). The CCBCAA maintains a list of active comic book stores and a database of recommendations, referrals and secret shopper reports. A separate Retailer Award Committee overseen by Scott VanderPloeg (Comic Book Daily) reviews the data and selects a short list of stores that have shown merit in a variety of categories.

The Dragon Award (Comics for Kids)/Le Prix Dragon (Bandes Dessinées pour Enfants):

Eric Orchard, Bera the One-Headed Troll (:01 First Second)

This award recognizes the works which capture the attention and fascination of young readers, and help to create a passion for life-long reading. Works considered for this award are comic books and graphic novels by Canadian creators that are targeted at readers 14 and under. Nominees for this award are selected by a team of educators led by Jennifer Haines, MA, B.Ed., who is also the proprietor of Guelph, Ontario's The Dragon comic book shop.

Canadian Comic Book Hall of Fame / Temple de la renommée Bandes Dessinées Canadien
A lifetime achievement award honouring Canadian comic book creators (artists, writers, cartoonists, editors and in some cases, publishers) for their contributions to comic books.

Jack Tremblay (1926-)

Gabriel Morrissette (1959-)

Lovern Kindzierski (1954-)

Julie Doucet (1965-)

Stuart Immonen (-)

The T.M. Maple Award / Prix T.M. Maple: Kenneth Ketter

The T.M. Maple Award will go to someone (living or deceased) selected from the Canadian comics community for achievements made outside of the creative and retail categories who have had a positive impact on the community.

Ken was the founder and primary organizer of COSMICON (Winters College – York University, 1972-76), one of Canada's earliest comic book events and predecessor to modern pop culture conventions by being multi-genre, mixing comic books, film and music, complete with notable industry guests, dealers, art shows, film presentations and live music.

Before Cosmicon, Canadian comic conventions were mostly small gatherings of club members and swap meets.

In 1968, Captain George Henderson – owner of Canada's first comics shop, Memory Lane, had brought Stan Lee to the city for the Triple FanFair (no doubt inspired by the convention of the same name that had been taking place in Detroit around the same time – the three fandoms in the name being science fiction, movies and comics). That event took place in tents on Markham Street (former home of Memory Lane and later, the Beguiling).

For the most part Canadian comic fans of this era in this region had to pile in a car and drive to Detroit, Chicago or primarily New York to attend a comic book convention.

What happened at York University was pretty amazing and was the highlight for many young fans, a lot of whom would go on to work in comics or related activities and it came together at Winters College at Toronto's York University due to the vision and perseverance of the event's founder Ken Ketter, with the assistance of people like Ronn Sutton, Ron Kasman, Mark Segal and Gloria Agnew.