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Graphic novels have a lot more prizes than they once did, including literary awards that help validate the medium. Awards season is well upon us, and I’ve been way behind in noting some of the most important.

§ This One Summer by Mariko Tamaki and Jillian Tamaki continued to barnstorm all the honors by winning the Lynd Ward Graphic Novel Prize, perhaps th emost prestigious stand-alone comics prize in the US. The jury cited the book thusly

“This One Summer,” says the jury, “is a beautifully drawn, keenly observed story. It is told with a fluid line and a sensitive eye to the emblematic moments that convey character, time, and place—the surf at night, the sound of flip-flops, a guarded sigh—all at the meandering pace of a summer’s vacation. The Tamakis astutely orchestrate the formal complexities of the graphic novel in the service of an evocative, immersive story. At first blush a coming of age story centered on two young girls, the book belongs equally to all its cast of characters, any of whom feel realized enough to have supported a narrative in their own right. Striking, relatable, and poignant, this graphic novel lingers with readers long after their eyes have left the pages.”

Richard McGuire’s Here was named an Honoree:

Of “Here” the jury says, “Making literal the idiom ‘if these walls could talk…’ McGuire’s ‘Here’ curates the long history of events transpiring in one location. Through the subtle transposition of objects and individuals in a room, the book teaches us that space is defined over time. … Evoking our longing for place, the book performs this cumulative effect for the reader, by layering people, experiences, and events in the context of a single environment.”

The Prize is presented by Penn State and is named after the author of what are now accepted to be early example of standalone graphic novels. (Ward donated his papers to the university.) This year’s jury consisted of Joel D. Priddy, Veronica Hicks, Brandon Hyde, Brent Book and Jonathan E. Abel. MOre information on the prize, the jury and past winners can be found here.

§ The Cartoonist Studio Prize, presented by Slate Magazine and the Center for Cartoon Studies, was also presented a while back. And the graphic novel winners Here by Richard McCguire. (Do you sense a pattern here?) The webcomic prize was won by Winston Rowntree for Watching. The prize comes with a $1000 cash award for each. This year’s jury consisted of Slate Book Review editor Dan Kois; CCS fellow Sophie Yanow; and guest judge, cartoonist Paul Karasik. You can see all the runners up in the above link.

(This result has been sitting in my links for a month; apologies and congratulations to the winners.)

§ While This One Summer and Here have scooped up a bunch of prizes, you must be wondering about the third most honored graphic novel of 2014, Roz Chast’s Can’t We Talk About Something More Pleasant. Well, Chast won the Heinz Award, which is present to six “exceptional Americans, for their creativity and determination in finding solutions to critical issues.” Along with glory, the prize includes $250,000 in cash.

” ‘Floored’ does not begin to describe it,” Chast says of her reaction. “I don’t think I’ve fully absorbed it yet.”

§ As you may have heard, the PEN American Center, a literary organization that promotes free speech, presented French satirical magazine Charlie Hebdo with the PEN/Toni and James C. Goodale Freedom of Expression Courage Award, and all hell broke loose. Many prominent authors protested the award on the grounds that Charlie Hebdo is offensive. You can read many of those comments here. Other authors, including Neil Gaiman, Art Spiegelman, Alison Bechdel and Salmon Rushdie filled the tables at the awards gala vacated by the protesters, and defended Charlie Hebdo as an equal opportunity satirist. You can read all about that here.

While no one in the kerfuffle seems to think that being offensive deserves death, the dissenters felt that giving Charlie Hebdo an award intensified “the anti-Islamic,
anti-Maghreb, anti-Arab sentiments already prevalent in the Western world.”

The pro-Charlie group felt that, as Gaiman put it, “The Charlie Hebdo cartoonists are getting an award for courage. They continued putting out their magazine after the offices were firebombed [in 2011], and the survivors have continued following the murders.”

There aren’t any easy answers here. Terrorists acts are committed to create terror and confusion and turn ordinary people on both sides into radicals. In this goal, at least, the Hebdo attacks were a rousing success.

In the above photo Charlie Hebdo Editor-in-Chief Gerard Biard accepts the award as Alain Mabanckou looks on. AP photo by Beowulf Sheehan

In this magnificent expansion of a piece he did in 1989, McGuire fixes his lens on one patch of land spanning millions of years. Through vivid illustrations, we see life playing out — with appearances by dinosaurs, Native Americans, early settlers, modern families, futuristic creatures, and more — in a grand yet remarkably intimate display. [...]

My book Here has just been released; it is a graphic novel that shows one location, a suburban living room, over the span of billions of years. The book is loosely based around my childhood home. While preparing this playlist, it occurred to me how we all get branded by the music we grew up [...]

Although The Beat is a loyal New Yorker subscriber (it’s the only thing that holds our attention whilst on the elliptical) just beause you’re a subscriber does’t mean you get the Cartoons of the Year special edition. However if our email is to be believed, this issue includes several new pieces that may necessitate a trip to the newsstand.

Michael Maslin has an index of the cartoons reprinted within—among them Emily Flake, Shannon Wheeler and Liana Finck. HE also made a screenshot of the cover, so we can find it on the newsstand.

Shannon Wheeler has also drawn a 3-page comic strip about Major Malcolm Wheeler-Nicholson (no relation) the “father of the comic book.” His granddaughter Nicky Wheeler-Nicholson (an occasional Beat contributor) sent out a teeny preview to whet our appetites.

Paul Karasik has also written a two page article dissecting a Charles Addams cartoon. He also sent along a preview!

This week’s regular issue has a cover by Richard McGuire referencing HERE, which comes out any day now. There’s the usual cover feature explaining it:

“As I walk around the city, I’m time-travelling, flashing forward, planning what it is I have to do,” Richard McGuire says about this week’s cover. “Then I have a sudden flashback to a remembered conversation, but I notice a plaque on a building commemorating a famous person who once lived there, and for a second I’m imagining them opening the door. This is the territory of my new book, ‘Here,’ playing with time in both a historic and personal way.”

The Morgan Library & Museum is hosting an exhibit called “From Here to Here: Richard McGuire Makes a Book.” This art show was organized to celebrate the publication of the graphic novel, Here.

This full-color book, due out on December 9th, is based on McGuire’s original black-and-white comic. The closing date has been scheduled for November 9th.

Here’s more about the exhibit: “Though the viewpoint in Here remains fixed on one corner of a living room, time in the story is boundless and elastic. Populating the space with multiple frames of action, dating from the ancient past to the distant future, McGuire conjures narratives, dialogues, and streams of association that unite moments divided by years and centuries. The exhibition combines original drawings for the strip and the novel with source photographs, books that influenced the form and content of McGuire’s invention, and collages and sketchbooks that afford glimpses into his creative process.”

New Career Opportunities Daily: The best jobs in media.

Gabe Fowler, the main man behind Comic Arts Brooklyn, the late fall comics arts fest that traditionally caps off New Yorks comics year, will expand to days in 2014. Taking place November 8-9, the show will see exhibits at the usual place at the Mt Carmel Church on Saturday and on Sunday a complete track of programming at the Wythe Hotel, which is also located in Williamsburg.

Announced guests this year include Roz Chast, Richard McGuire, Raymond Pettibon and Art Spiegelman, but as you can see from the above poster,more guests have been added including Michael DeForge, Lisa Hanawalt, Julie Doucet (!!!!), Josh Bayer, Charles Burns, Aisha Franz, Al Jaffee, Tim Lane, Benjamin Marra, Jim Rugg and Olivier Schwauwen.

“We want to give more artists and exhibitors the opportunity to come to the presentations,” said Fowler in a statement, “Often the very people who want most to see creators speak are unable to attend. CAB wants to change that equation.”

Paul Karasik is curating the panels again this year. “We have some cool surprises about the specific panels to be announced in the coming weeks,” Karasik said in his own statement. “But, let’s just say for now, that if you are a Charles Burns fan, you might want to circle Sunday, November 9.”

I think the addition of a day of panels is a fine idea, somewhere between the Brooklyn Book Festival and olden days of SPX when Sunday was just panels and softball. The community of small press comics, so evident at SPX and TCAF, likes to hang out and enjoy one another’s company and a day of programming will act as a fine nexus for this.

Also, programming at CAB and it’s predecessor, BCGF, has always been a problem, as the programs are consistently  packed. I missed last year’s CAB, but I understand people had to line up far in advance for the talk on City of Glass held at The Knitting Factory. A few years before the panels were held in the back room at a bar and NO ONE could get in. I realize this is yet another whole weekend given over to comics, but given the calibre of the comics and programming offered at CAB, it seems like a worthy sacrifice.

AS noted this is actually NEXT WEEK but the exhibit opens tonight!

The expanded edition of Richard McGuire’s seminal comics story “Here” is out in a few month’s from Random House, but in the meantime, there’s an exhibit of his art for the book at the New York Public Library, NEXT WEEK a talk::

In Richard McGuire’s graphic narrative Here, one corner of a living room in New Jersey, becomes the point of intersection among events from the past and future. McGuire will be joined in conversation by Michael Benson, author of Cosmigraphics: Picturing Space Through Time, and Matt Knutzen, the Geospatial Librarian at The New York Public Library. The program is co-organized with the Dorothy and Lewis B. Cullman Center for Scholars and Writers at The New York Public Library.

The exhibition From Here to Here: Richard McGuire Makes a Book will be open at 5:30 p.m. for lecture attendees.

Tuesday, September 30, 2014, 6:30 p.m.

Richard McGuire’s Here is a comics story originally published in RAW Magazine that used the comics form to dizzying effect, jumping from the dawn of time to the end of time using one specific location. It’s been anthologized many times, but but Random House is giving us all the HEre we could want with this fall an expanded 320 page edition of the book. that promises to be even more dizzying and amazing. he cover was released a little while ago.

McGuire is a multitalented artist and musician whose comics are few but powerful. This just went to the top of the fall reading list.