Stratford author Emily Carroll wins 2024 Doug Wright Award for best comic
Prizes for best book, emerging talent, small or micro-press book and kids book were awarded
A Guest in the House by Emily Carroll has won the 2024 Doug Wright Award for best comic book.
The Doug Wright Awards annually celebrates excellence in comics across Canada, awarding four prizes — the best book award, the Nipper Award, the Pigskin Peters Award and the best kids book. The winners each receive a small cash prize and the winner of the Nipper award also receives a week-long stay at the Valleyview Artist Retreat.
A Guest in the House is a haunting graphic novel about Abby, a newlywed to a recently widowed dentist. But the more she learns about her new husband's first wife, the more suspicious she becomes that she may not have died of natural causes.
Carroll is a Stratford, Ont.-based artist whose books include Through the Woods, a collection of horror comics, and Speak, an adaptation of Laurie Halse Anderson's YA novel, and When I Arrived at the Castle.
Thanks to everyone who came out at the awards on Saturday night (and to our TCAF table), and congratulations again to this year's winners: Emily Carroll, Naseem Hrab and Kelly Collier, Vincy Lim, and Tyler Landry. <a href="https://twitter.com/Naseemo?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">@naseemo</a> <a href="https://twitter.com/collierK_?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">@collierK_</a> <a href="https://twitter.com/owlkids?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">@owlkids</a> <a href="https://twitter.com/unciv?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">@unciv</a> <a href="https://twitter.com/01FirstSecond?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">@01FirstSecond</a> <a href="https://t.co/z6mtahKzf5">pic.twitter.com/z6mtahKzf5</a>
—@WrightAwardsVincy Lim won The Nipper award which celebrates emerging talent for their self-published works When I was a kid I was taught how to die. Now that I'm an adult I'm learning how to live. (I love you.) and When She Set Fire to My Friends' Houses.
Tyler Landry won the Pigskin Peters award for best small or micro-press book for Old Caves. Old Caves follows a retired man as he spends his days in a snow covered forest remembering his wife.
Naseem Hrab and Kelly Collier won the best kids book award for Otis & Peanut, which tells the story of an unlikely friendship between a long-haired guinea pig and a naked mole rat.
Previous Doug Wright award recipients include Canada Reads winner Kate Beaton in 2023 for her graphic memoir Ducks.
Nominees and winners were chosen by a panel of three judges per category.
This year's judges include Christian Giroux, Emily Gordon, Chris Houston, Vivi Partridge, JoAnn Purcell, Salgood Sam, Graham Sigurdson, Cory Silverberg, Myriam Steinberg, Irene Velentzas, Georgia Webber and Elaine Will.
In addition to the awards, publisher Deni Loubert and cartoonist Maurice Vellekoop were inducted into the Canadian Cartooning Hall of Fame, Giants of the North.
