Earlier today GLAAD announced its 2014 nominees for its Outstanding Comic Book Award. Congratulations to all the nominees! The complete list can be found here.
Hawkeye, by Matt Fraction, David Aja, Javier Pulido, Annie Wu, et al (Marvel)
Lumberjanes, by Noelle Stevenson, Grace Ellis, Booke Allen and Shannon Waters (BOOM! Studios)
Memetic, by James Tynion IV and Eryk Donovan (BOOM! Studios)
Rat Queens, by Kurtis J. Wiebe and Roc Upchurch (Image Comics)
Saga, by Brian K. Vaughan and Fiona Staples (Image Comics)
As Kevin Melrose noted in his coverage at CBR, GLAAD’s comic book category was typically dominated by superhero titles from DC and Marvel though alternative comics and graphic novels captured the award some years. The reason for the abundance of mainstream titles from the Big Two is committee members had to rate a title on four criteria; one being LGBT content, I think another is boldness, the third is impact, and the last one I forget. Impact was partly defined by the perceived audience size of any series under consideration. A comic from DC or Marvel would receive a higher score than a series or book from a small press publisher even if the latter might tell a compelling story with well rounded characters. Based on these titles I have to wonder if the nominating committe have revised or new guidelines. If that’s the case it’s a change deserving applause! And shame on DC for not having one title make the list.
