The Forbidden Planet International Blog

Gerry Hunt‘s historic comic, At War with the Empire (previously mentioned here – see our recent round-up on the Irish comics scene) has been short-listed for the Bord Gáis Energy Irish Book awards, in the Best Irish-Published category.

This is fantastic news for Irish Comics.

The awards take place on the 22nd of November, and they are decided by an aggregated mix of public and Literary academy votes. So one can vote here.

I spoke with Gerry Hunt, who said:

“What pleases me is that until this last few years we haven’t had a history of Irish comics but recently the upsurge has been brilliant and I hope that me being short listed will give a big boost to Irish Comics.”

I was impressed with Gerry’s use of the term comics.

“For me they will always be Comics which I have been reading since before I was old enough to read and which the Europeans have been calling them for all, children and grown ups, since the 1830s. At present I am working on the 1913 lockout in Dublin which I hope to have out early next year, the centenary year.”

The Best Irish-published award wait is set up to reward the excellence of native publishing and submitted titles must therefore emanate from an Irish-based publishing house.  Ireland’s leading library supplier, International Education Services, assumed sponsorship of this category in 2011.

The only genre books are in the Children’s awards, senior, and there are three, Zom-B by Darren Shan, Skulduggery Pleasant: Kingdom of the Wicked  by Derek Landy and  my favourite, Artemis Fowl: The Last Guardian by Eoin Colfer.

I must admit considerable bemusement at the inclusion in the ‘Novel’ category of three short story collections. I think that it is brilliant that there are collections featuring as I feel they are a very important form of prose, but should be in ‘best book’ not ‘Best Novel’.