The nominees of the 19th annual Doug Wright Awards

From the DWA blog.

Nominees for the 2023 Doug Wright Awards were selected from entries of books published in the 2022 calendar year. The short list and winners were chosen by a panel of three judges for each category.

This year, a record 200 entries by Canadian authors and artists were submitted from dozens of publishers and self-published authors.

Each winner will receive a small cash prize, and the winner of The Nipper will be awarded a week-long stay at the Valleyview Artist Retreat, in Caledon, Ontario. 

Here are the nominees for the 19th annual Doug Wright Awards:

The Doug Wright Award for best book

Ducks, Kate Beaton, Drawn & Quarterly
Time Zone J, Julie Doucet, Drawn & Quarterly
Shelterbelts, Jonathan Dyck, Conundrum Press
The Flamingo, Guojing, Random House Studio
Kwändür, Cole Pauls, Conundrum Press
You Know, Sex, Cory Silverberg and Fiona Smyth, Triangle Square

The Nipper: The Doug Wright Award for emerging talent

Emily Carrington, Our Little Secret, Drawn & Quarterly
Jonathan Dyck, Shelterbelts, Conundrum Press
Kiona Callihoo Ligtvoet, We Were Younger Once, Conundrum Press
Lynette Richards, Call Me Bill, Conundrum Press/Emanata Imprint
Adam de Souza, Blind Alley No. 1, ISH, Self-Published, Silver Sprocket

The Pigskin Peters: The Doug Wright Award for best small- or micro-press book

The Life I Want, Patrick Allaby, Self-Published
Assorted Baggage, Matthew Daley, Black Eye Books
Where Have You Been?, Ivana Filipovich (trans: Ivana Filipovich/Andrea Hankinson), Self-Published
Butterfly House, Troy Little and Brenda Hickey, Pegamoose Press
Thousand Oaks: Machine Mail (Part 3), Blaise Moritz, Urban Farm Print and Sound

The Egghead: The Doug Wright Award for best kids’ book

Scout is Not a Band Kid, Jade Armstrong, Random House Graphic
Paws: Mindy Makes Some Space, Michele Assarasakorn and Nathan Fairbairn, Razorbill
Super Family! (Simon and Chester Book 3), Cale Atkinson, Tundra Books
The Flamingo, Guojing, Random House Studio
You Know, Sex, Cory Silverberg and Fiona Smyth, Triangle Square

Giants of the North: The Canadian Cartooning Hall of Fame

This year’s Giants of the North inductee is Henriette Valium (1959–2021), a comic book artist and painter, and the winner of the 2017 Pigskin Peters award, for his book The Palace of Champions.


The Ceremony

The Doug Wright Awards returns in-person and indoors for 2023, with host Dustin Harbin, at our new venue, the historic Arts & Letters Club, 14 Elm Street, Toronto, at 8 p.m. ET on Saturday, April 29th, 2023.

The event will also be livestreamed on YouTube.

About the Doug Wright Awards

The Doug Wright Awards were founded in 2005 to celebrate excellence in the field of Canadian comics. The awards are named for Doug Wright (1917–1983), the creator of the long-running strip Doug Wright’s Family (a.k.a. Nipper), one of the most widely read and loved Canadian comics of the twentieth century.