The Eagle Awards were announced last night at the MCM Expo Awards. Results are below, and congrats to everyone who won this year. You all have the chance to say you won the last Eagle Award.

After a long history dating back to ’79, the Eagle Awards are being retired, and in their place next year we’ll have the MCM Awards, organised (no surprises here) by MCM Expo. The Eagle Awards site may have the winners up this month… but Heidi was far quicker, so I’ve grabbed these from The Comics Beat… and added a few thoughts along the way….

Best Newcomer (writer): Jeff Lemire (Essex County 2009, Nobody 2009, Sweet Tooth 2009, Doug Wright Award fro Emerging Talent 2008)
Best Newcomer (artist): Francesco Francavilla (Zorro 2008 and many more)
Best Writer: Scott Snyder
Best Artist (pencils): J.H. Williams III
Best Artist (inks): Scott Williams
Best Writer/Artist: Frank Miller (Since I reckon it’s ythe only thing he published in the period, this would be an award for Holy Terror? Really? Oh Christ)
Best Fully-Painted Artwork: Alex Ross
Best Colourist: Dave Stewart
Best Letterer: Richard Starkings
Best Editor: Karen Berger
Best Publisher: DC/Vertigo
Best Full-Colour US Comic: Batman
Best Black/White US Comic: The Walking Dead
Best Full-Colour British Comic: Dr Who Magazine (comic?)
Best Black/White British Comic: Viz
Best New Comic: Batman
Best Manga: 20th Century Boys
Best European Comic Book: Dylan Dog
Best Web-Based Comic: Freakangels
Best Single Story: Dr Who #12
Best Story Arc: ‘No Way Out’, The Walking Dead
Best Cover: Batwoman #1 by JH Williams III
Best Original Graphic Novel: Batman: Noel
Best Reprint Compilation: Thor by Walt Simonson
Best Comics-Related Book: Supergods by Grant Morrison
Best Comics Movie/TV Show: The Big Bang Theory
Best Comic Book Website: Bleeding Cool
Best Comics-Related Magazine: DC Comics Superhero Collection (Easy to forget there’s a magazine attached to the statue – maybe the Comics Journal should give it a try?)
Roll of Honour: Frank Quitely
Huntsman Challenge Award: The Time of Reflection

The Eagles have long been the only British Comic awards. Now they’re gone. Will the MCM Awards be any different? I hope so, I really do.

The Eagles may have been organised by many well meaning people, but generally, the last few years at least have not been kind, and instead of a UK Comic Awards we can be rightly proud of, celebrating the very best of UK Comics, we have something that’s more often than not mentioned with a laugh and a snarky tone. Good luck MCM Expo.

One of our long-time favourite Brit small press comic creators Paul Rainey drops us a line to say that the Milton Keynes Art Gallery is hosting an exhibition of Pushwagner art this summer. This will be the first solo exhibition of Norwegian artist and comics creator Hariton Pushwagner outside of his native land and will include work from his Soft City, a comics work created off an on between 1969 and 1976 and which  “provides an account of mechanical, daily life in a dehumanized, dystopian modern city “, as well as numerous other works and paintings. The exhibition runs from 28th of June to 2nd of September.

(Jobkill from Apokalypse, by and (c) Hariton Pushwagner)

And alongside it they will be holding a number of art events including MKcomics, a small press comics fair which Paul is organising. The event will take place inside the actual exhibition space and it is not only free to enter, Paul tells us if you are a small press creator it will be free to exhibit. As Paul puts it “Currently, small press comics are one of the most vibrant, creative and diverse artistic scenes taking place in the UK and MKomix is your opportunity to sample just some of what is going on.” Absolutely no argument from us on that point, we know just how incredibly bustling, diverse and vibrant the UK small press comics scene is (it really is a great time to be reading Brit comics). MKomix will be on July 19th from 6 to 9pm in the Milton Keynes Art Gallery; for more details or to contact Paul about taking part check out the MKomix blog or drop him a line at paul(at)pbrainey(dot)com.

Over the weekend of June 2nd and 3rd, the Stripdagen in Haarlem, Holland, is where it’s at. This year the main theme is comics from the Arab world, from Morocco to Qatar, with lectures, interviews and exhibitions. Other exhibitions focus on the work of Peter van Dongen, Lamelos, Rudolf Valster and Stripdagen VIP par excellence, Joost Swarte (never a bad thing to have a helping of Swarte, we think). And lots more, of course!

At the same time, the 17th edition of the Rendez-vous de la BD in Amiens, France takes place, with lots of, mostly French creators (unsurprisingly), exhibitions on the series Aquablue and Okko and on venerable satirical magazine Charlie Hebdo (still going despite the firebombing of their offices a few months ago), and on American short stories in comics format.

One week later (7th to 10th June), there’s the Internationaler Comic Salon in Erlangen, Germany. With more than 400 artists present from all over the world and an expo with no less than 150 German and international publishers, this is a great opportunity to meet all of comics in one venue. Information on exhibitions and events has not been published as yet, although you can see the shortlist for the pretigious Max und Moritz awards here on the blog.

From June 4th to 10th, the Sismics Festival d’Images in Sierre, Switzerland, has people as varied as Italian cartoonist Guido Volpi, graphic artist Terhi Ekebom, the Swish Remake collective and American-Swiss illustrator Randy DuBurke.

Finally, 16th and 17th of June are the dates for the Strasbulles festival in Strasbourg, France. Guest of Honour is Korean comic artist Kim Jung-Gi, who is as yet not really well-known beyond the world of Manwha, but hopefully this exhibition of some of his sketchwork will change that. In addition to this, this year’s guest country is Germany, with exhibitions of work by and interviews with (as yet unnamed) German authors.

Next week/weekend it’s ….

And to end the month we have…

Hmmm… what was it Tim Pilcher was saying about too many cons?

Jimi Gherkin sends news of the next Alternative Press Festival – lots of notice – happpening in August…

“We are SUPER EXCITED to announce the 2nd International Alternative Press Festival (#iapf2) on 4th & 5th August 2012! So far we have exhibitions planned for Orbital Comics, Gosh! London and TEN (yes, TEN!) venues in the weeks leading up to the main fair at London’s Conway Hall. At the main Fair, we’ll have three rooms filled with exhibitors from all over the world showing comix, zines, book arts, screen printing and self published art work. We are programming workshops, talks, a spoken word festival-within-the-festival and lots more, so stay tuned for more!”

Flyer by David Ziggy Greene:

Launching this weekend at London’s Kapow comic-con is new 36-page Brit comic Overload, boasting this absolutely splendid piece of zombie Thatcher cover art by Graeme Neil Reid. The brainchild of writer/editor Martin Conaghan (who brought us the fine Burke and Hare), it is, in classic Brit comics fashion, an anthology (using creator owned tales), with Martin explaining the idea is to have a showcase for established and also some incoming writers and artists (on a related note yes, he is accepting pitches for possible stories, but please, keep it to a pitch, don’t send in entire scripts – good advice when approaching any publisher to begin with, actually).

The first issue includes work from Cy Dethan (the excellent Cancertown), Steve Penfold (Fallen Heroes), Matt Gibbs, James Reekie, Dave Cook, Gary Crutchely, Geoffrey D Wessel, Aaron Moran and of course, from the cover star, the warped mind of 2000 AD stalwart Gordon Rennie, with Emma Beeby and Eoin Coveney offers us up a UK facing the dead rising once more, including the most feared Tory Prime Minister staggering towards Downing Street to reclaim her throne… The trio issued a statement to go along with the strip:

“The Prime Minister must be aware of the fear sweeping the nation about the coming zombie apocalypse. Will he now release HM Government’s plans to deal with this matter? This comic is a call to action. The people need to know the truth; need reassured that they have thought of every eventuality. No matter how terrifying. We hope Overload’s readers will follow suit, and email their MP to ask what they intend we do when the dead rise. We all know it’s going to happen.”

The first issue launches at Kapow this weekend and indeed editor Martin himself will be there at table 34 and he will be holding portfolio sessions at 1pm on both Saturday 19th and Sunday 20th so potential writers and artists looking to pitch a story to future issues of Overload are welcome to swing by and talk to him there. Always good to see another outlet for homegrown comics talent, if you are at Kapow do pick up a copy an offer the guys up some support. You can check out a quick preview of the first issue via Martin’s blog.

Writer, artist, good chum of the blog and seasoned comic con goer Sean Azzopardi returned to Canada recently to be a part of the parcel of comics delights that is TCAF; he even managed to fit in some more days off in Toronto and took in some related comics culture events taking part in the city in the wake of TCAF, and he’s very kindly sent us in a report, the view of this year’s TCAF from a self published comics creator manning his own table; Sean has also uploaded a bunch of photos to his Flickr so you can have a look around the con. Over to Sean:

TCAF 2012 was my second visit to the city of Toronto and to the festival. As I blogged last year, this is an amazing event and this time round topped that experience. There was an excellent programme of events for the duration of the festival that gave people the opportunity to experience far more than just visiting the main exhibitors spaces, situated in the library. As an exhibitor this is one part of any festival that I generally miss out on.

(pics here borrowed from Sean’s TCAF 2012 set on his Flickr, by and (c) Sean Azzopardi)

Thursday was a gentle start, an exhibition of cartoonists and gamers at Magic Pony. I love the way that beer and pizza was in plentiful supply. Good pizza as well. There were a lot of events that I would have loved to have attended, say How to Pitch, or Jeff Smith’s inking demonstration. It was Jeff Smith along with Gabriel Ba and Fabio Moon who opened the festival on Friday night, taking part in a relaxed interview. This is a cool way to start a festival. Chris Butcher starts with a brief outline of the events and introduces the interview. As an exhibitor or attendee it feels as though you are about to take part in something that is welcoming. Gabriel and Fabio have video from the Toronto Libraries up on their blog from the event:

Afterwards there was a meet up at The Cockpit one of the bar/ talk venue, but I hung around to set up my own table. I was interested to see the setting up process and saw Chris organizing the volunteers. Ask anyone who attends this event – they are the real stars, decked out in tangerine and super helpful.

There is not a lot I can say about the Saturday other than it was so busy I never left my table. It was so busy that one ‘comfort’ break was all I could manage away from my table. After a quiet start I sold steadily. But for me it’s less about the sales and more about the opportunity to engage with people about my work. It was nice to have people return after last year to chat and look at my new work. Sunday was a quite start again, but was still busy throughout the day. I did manage to get to go around the downstairs section and buy some stuff. There was so much choice; so many excellent comics on offer.

TCAF is an amazingly-curated and well thought out event. There are sections for children’s comics, Zines, local self publishers and much more. Isn’t it thoughtful to have these spotlight areas within the event, rather than a lumped-together row of tables with no theme or reason? Having a free entry policy to the main event and extensive promotion meant a really large attendance. I think it was up on last year, certainly felt that way. The mix was brilliant all ages, a good male/female ratio of exhibitors and audience.

I found myself smiling a lot at this event. A feeling of genuine joy that I was part of something special. This feeling was extended to the Sunday after-party. Chris gave a closing speech assisted by Peter and Miles. I was looking forward to this, to seeing the reaction of the first timers like Ian Williams and Simon Moreton. They were part of a strong group of UK cartoonists who made the trip to Canada, deep breath: Joe Decie, Lizz Lunney, Darryl Cunningham, Martin Steenton from Blank Slate, Doug and Emma from SelfMadeHero, Joe List, Luke Pearson, Philippa Rice, Clark, Joe (Nobrow), Tom Gauld and Matt Sherret.

The closing speech is a really important moment as it cements the feeling that you have all been involved together, a lovely way to close an event. Post-weekend there were a couple of talks that I attended as well, Gabriella Giandelli at the Italian Institute, and Arne Bellstorf at the Goethe Institut. A very nice coda to the main festival. In summary it was one of the best events I’ve attended. Full of fun and inspiration it’s my idea of a near perfect comic event. I would like to thank everyone who took part for making it a wonderful time.

More please.

Jason in action from Ila Solomon on Vimeo.