The Embassy of Japan and partners have again organised the now traditional annual Manga Jiman competition for new manga comics talent in the UK. The award ceremony is due to be held this Friday in the Japanese Embassy in London, where the final selection will be made. Competing for the top prize (a return trip to Japan) are:

Anya Zhuravskaya – ‘Storyteller Sisters’
Ami Clark – ‘The Flower That Held Its Breath’
Byron Reynolds – ‘Crash Course’
Dean McKnight & Jade Sarson – ‘Shear Brilliance’
Elena Vitagliano – ‘The Deep Needs Train’
Gillian Ha – ‘To The Girl With The Butterfly Ears’
Lorenzo Fruzza – ‘Heart’s Orbit’
Megan Wheeler – ‘A Harvest Love’
Rebecca Burgess – ‘Letters From England’
Sarah Burgess – ‘The Man and his Shadow’
Vivian Truong – ‘Moving On’

As is traditional now with the Manga Jiman competition, the work of all the shortlisted nominees will be displayed at an exhibit in the Embassy (101/104 Piccadily, W1J7JT) which will run from February 6th to 28th. The exhibition is open Monday to Friday, 9.30am to 5.30pm and is free to enter, although being in an Embassy building you will need some form of photographic ID for entry. Good luck to all the nominees and of course if you’re in the city during February do swing by the exhibition and give them all some support.

As part of the First Fictions literary festival at the University of Sussex this weekend Myriad Editions (publishers of Rumble Strip among others good graphic works) had the First Graphic Novel competition. As we mentioned previously on the blog the nominees had been willowed down to a final shortlist of seven candidates, all of such high calibre that one of the judges, author Ian Rankin, told us that his fellow judge Bryan Talbot reckoned they were all worthy of publication, which is as high a compliment as I can imagine for the artists involved, very well done, all of them. But there can be only one, as the Highlander reminds us, and Ian (thanks, Ian) was kind enough to let us know that the winner is Gareth Brookes (no stranger to blog readers) for The Black Project, so big congrats to Gareth and to all involved for creating an award which highlights and encourages good, new comics talent in the UK. As we mentioned in previous posts the winning book will be published by Myriad in 2013, so there’s something else to look forward to. We’ve been talking to Myriad and, fingers crossed, we’re hoping to bring you a bit more on the competition in the near future.

The final seven nominees were:

Adam Blackman & Dylan Shipley: A Rat’s Tale

Gareth Brookes: The Black Project

Konstantinos Chrisoulis: Dryland

Hannah Eaton: Naming Monsters

Tom Eglington: Amber Sands

Thom Ferrier: The Enlightenment of Iwan James

Paula Knight: The Facts of Life

And the judging panel consisted of Ian Rankin, Steve Bell, Myriad’s Corinne Pearlman, Hannah Berry, Bryan Talbot and Ed Hillyer; the award was announced yesterday afternoon on the exotic south coast of England.

This weekend sees the First Fictions literary festival at the University of Sussex, in conjunction with the publishers Myriad Editions (home to graphic novel works like Woodrow Phoenix’s Rumble Strip and Darryl Cunningham’s upcoming Science Tales). The festival will also see the announcement of the winner of the First Graphic Novel Competition; as we mentioned a few weeks ago the original entries, which we’re told were of a very high calibre, have been whittled down to a final shortlist of seven nominees, with the ultimate winner to be announced this weekend. Work from the shortlist nominees will be exhibited at the festival and the winner will have their graphic novel published by Myriad in 2013. The judging panel consists of Bryan Talbot, Ian Rankin, Steve Bell, Myriad’s Corinne Pearlman, Hannah Berry and Ed Hillyer. The artists competing for the prize are:

Adam Blackman & Dylan Shipley: A Rat’s Tale

Gareth Brookes: The Black Project

Konstantinos Chrisoulis: Dryland

Hannah Eaton: Naming Monsters

Tom Eglington: Amber Sands

Thom Ferrier: The Enlightenment of Iwan James

Paula Knight: The Facts of Life

I see a couple of names in there that are already established faves with the blog crew for their own self-published work, some names I don’t know yet but look forward to getting to see some of their work further down the line. Obviously we’ll try to bring you news of who won as soon as we hear it, but if you are on the south coast please do go along and give them some support, there will be some top comics and books folks there, some damned good reading and initiatives of this sort encouraging new talent are always to be applauded and supported.

The Company Man by Robert Jackson Bennett (Orbit)

Deadline by Mira Grant (Orbit)

The Other by Matthew Hughes (Underland)

A Soldier’s Duty by Jean Johnson (Ace)

The Postmortal by Drew Magary (Penguin)

After the Apocalypse by Maureen F. McHugh (Small Beer)

The Samuel Petrovich Trilogy by Simon Morden (Orbit)

The Phil K is always a good indicator of hot new science fiction talent, although I’m dismayed to realise I haven’t actually read any of the nominees this year, that’s unusual for me, but even I can’t read everything (I do try though!). Although I do have Company Man and Deadline in my try to get these read pile and I did read Robert Jackson Bennett’s previous book, Mister Shivers, which was a simply superb slice of very unusual horror told on the dusty roads of Depression era America and is much recommended.

The annual Eagle Awards have just announced that the nominations for the 2012 Awards (comics published in 2011) are now open at The Eagle Awards website.

As usual, nominations are open until 1st February, when the top five nominations in each category will be moved to the voting process, starting 15th February.

The 2012 Eagle Awards will be presented on Friday, 25 May at the MCM London Comic Con, with a full list announced midnight 26th May.

And yes, please vote, make sure you vote well. And if you happen to fancy voting for the FPI Blog, we’re up for nomination in the favourite website about comics. Thanks very much if you do.

One that I must point out to you as well; the Roll Of Honour. I know Mick McMahon has never been nominated, which is somethign a lot of people online ar campaigning for. But neither had the great, now sadly late Ronald Searle. McMahon next year, Searle this.

Best Writer – Mainstream
Geoff Johns (Aquaman, Green Lantern, Justice League)
Grant Morrison (Action Comics, Batman Incorporated)
Jeff Lemire (Animal Man, Frankenstein: Agent of S.H.A.D.E., Sweet Tooth)
Jonathan Hickman (FF, S.H.I.E.L.D., Ultimate Comics Ultimates)
Scott Snyder (American Vampire, Batman, Detective Comics, Swamp Thing)

Best Writer – Independent
Brian Clevinger (Atomic Robo)
Cullen Bunn (The Sixth Gun)
Joe Hill (Locke & Key)
Nathan Edmondson (Who Is Jake Ellis?)
Nick Spencer (Morning Glories)

Best Artist – Mainstream
Adam Kubert (Astonishing Spider-Man & Wolverine, X-Men: Schism)
Esad Ribic (Ultimate Comics Ultimates, Uncanny X-Force)
J.H. Williams III (Batwoman)
Sara Pichelli (Ultimate Comics Spider-Man)
Yanick Paquette (Swamp Thing)

Best Artist – Independent
Craig Thompson (Habibi)
Duncan Fegredo (Hellboy: The Fury)
Gabriel Rodriguez (Locke & Key)
Mike Huddleston (Butcher Baker: The Righteous Maker, The Homeland Directive)
Nate Simpson (Nonplayer)

Best Ongoing Series
Detective Comics (Snyder/Jock/Francavilla; DC)
Green Lantern (DC)
Scalped (DC/Vertigo)
The Sixth Gun (Oni)
The Walking Dead (Image)

Best Limited Series
Criminal: Last of the Innocent (Marvel/Icon)
The Red Wing (Image)
The Rocketeer Adventures (IDW)
Who Is Jake Ellis? (Image)
Witch Doctor (Image)

Best Debut Book
Butcher Baker, The Righteous Maker (Image)
Daredevil (Marvel)
Kirby: Genesis (Dynamite)
Swamp Thing (DC/Vertigo)
Ultimate Comics Spider-Man (Marvel)

Best Original Graphic Novel
Habibi (Pantheon)
Infinite Kung Fu (Top Shelf)
Luchadoras (Blank Slate)
Nelson (Blank Slate)
Seeds (Com.x)

Best Publisher
Blank Slate
Dark Horse
DC
Image
Marvel

The seven shortlist nominees are:

Adam Blackman & Dylan Shipley: A Rat’s Tale

Gareth Brookes: The Black Project

Konstantinos Chrisoulis: Dryland

Hannah Eaton: Naming Monsters

Tom Eglington: Amber Sands

Thom Ferrier: The Enlightenment of Iwan James

Paula Knight: The Facts of Life

Candidates had to submit between 15 to 30 pages of a graphic work in progress for consideration. The winner will be announced at the First Fictions event, organised by the University of Sussex and Myraiad, on January 21st 2012 and work from the shortlisted entries will be showcased there too. The outright winner will have their graphic novel published by Myriad in 2013. Very nice to hear about this and to have another graphic novel prize to compiment the successful Cape/Observer/Comica graphic short story prize. If you’re one of the nominees do drop us a line if you have some of your work online, we’d love to get a peek!

As such I think the shortlist is quite different from the sort of comics award nominees we might often expect to see, but again this reflects what the young students are enjoying (plus the number of schools taking part has now leapt to 66 – well done, all!). The final shortlist comprises eight titles:

Star Wars: Blood Ties, by Tom Taylor and Chris Scalf

Gate 7, by CLAMP

Wuthering Heights (quick text version), adapted from Bronte’s novel by Sean M Wilson and John M Burns

FF Volume  1 by Jonathan Hickman, Steve Epting and Barry Kitson

Marineman: a Matter of Life and Death by Ian Churchill

Sita: Daughter of the Earth, by Saraswati Nagpal and Manikandan

Green Lanten: Secret Origin, by Geoff Johns and Ivan Reis

Chimighanga, by Eric Powell

The first awards were given out this summer, with first place going to Yana Toboso’s Black Butler manga, second to Bryan Talbot’s Grandville Mon Amour, with third place going to Young Kim’s graphic adaptation of Twilight. The awards will take place on July 6th, 2012.

Lomax by Frantz Duchazeau

BDZoom has published a list of the 15 masterpieces, and, it must be said, it contains the usual suspects. On the list we find the new Bilal, the new Davodeau (which is supposed to be brilliant), Craig Thompson’s Habibi (which I bet is the most bought and seldom read literary comic of the year), but also Lomax, the profound biography of the father and son duo who preserved the American folk music heritage for posterty (by Frantz Duchazeau, who continues his Americana theme) and Bastien Vives’ Polina (which I wrote about earlier, see here).

I haven’t seen Un enchantement by Christian Durieux, which is supposed to be quite an intricate puzzle of a book, set in (and published in collaboration with) the Louvre museum, so I’m looking out for that.  I was quite disappointed though by Marc-Antoine Mathieu’s formal wizardry in 3 Secondes (more about this later).

Trop N'Est Pas Assez by Ulli Lust

The only book on the list that’s not published by one of the big publishers, is Uli Lust’s Trop N’Est Pas Assez.  Its publisher, Ca et La, once more proves itself to be one of the most interesting publishers of translations of the best of international literary comics (after Eddie Campbell, Gilad and Galit Seliktar, Dash Shaw and many others).

At the Blois comics festival (where Lax won the grand prize, incidentally) the list was brought down further to only five, which included Les Ignorants (by Devodeau), Polina and Habibi from my picks above.  The other hopefuls are L’art de Voler by Kim and Antonio Altarriba, and Portugal by Cyril Pedrosa.  The final winner will be announced on December 5.