The recipients of the 2023 MoCCA Award of Excellence have been introduced over the weekend. Every MoCCA, exhibitors have an opportunity to obtain an Award of Excellence. This will not be decided by date of publication however by what most impresses the judges that’s tabled that weekend. Awardees obtain $100 sponsored by the M. Prize, a WACOM Intuos pill, and their work exhibited on-line on the Society of Illustrators web site with hyperlinks to their very own web sites and portfolios. This 12 months’s judges have been Columbia University’s comics archivist Karen Green and artists Colleen Doran and N. Steven Harris.
Here’s the complete record of recipients:
A ee mi, Emoland (self-published)
Taiwanese cartoonist and illustrator, studied MFA at Maryland Institute College of Art (MICA). Emoland is a riso zine she produced in 2021. According to a NYPL bio of the artist:
“She makes use of psychedelic retro styles, bright colors, and comics that empathize with people’s lives to create therapeutic works on social media. A ee mi attempts to explore the meaning of love, life, and existence”.
Emoland is a compilation of 15 brief tales by the artist. [Instagram]
Chad Bilyeu, Chad in Amsterdam (self-published)
An expat overseas. Originally from Cleveland, Ohio, an artwork director, author, and photographer, Chad chronicles his life and experiences residing and dealing within the Netherlands along with his ongoing Chad in Amsterdam autobio sequence (2018 to current). [Instagram]
Leela Corman, Unterzakhn (Schocken/Pantheon)
Unterzakhn (Schocken/Pantheon, 2012) acquired reward upon its authentic launch manner again in 2012 however caught extra so abroad with its French and Italian translations. Hopefully this new award will convey it again into the limelight. It must be famous that Leela Corman has been busy since Unterzakhn – with 2016’s We All Wish For Deadly Force (Retrofit/Big Planet) and 2022’s Victory Parade (Schocken/Pantheon). [Instagram]
Synopsis:
“A mesmerizing, heartbreaking graphic novel of immigrant life on New York’s Lower East Side on the flip of the 20th century, as seen via the eyes of twin sisters whose lives take radically and tragically completely different paths.
“For six-year-old Esther and Fanya, the teeming streets of New York’s Lower East Side circa 1910 are both a fascinating playground and a place where life’s lessons are learned quickly and often cruelly. In drawings that capture both the tumult and the telling details of that street life, Unterzakhn (Yiddish for “Underthings”) tells the story of these sisters: as wide-eyed little ladies absorbing the sights and sounds of a neighborhood of struggling immigrants; as youngsters taking their very own tentative steps into the broader world (Esther working for a girl who runs each a burlesque theater and a whorehouse, Fanya for an obstetrician who additionally performs unlawful abortions); and, lastly, as adults battling for their very own piece of the “golden land,” the place the distinction between simply barely surviving and triumphantly succeeding entails, for every of them, painful choices that may have unavoidably tragic repercussions.”
Yiping Dong, The Way To The Underworld (self-published)
Graphic designer and inventive technologist hailing from China. Currently finishing a BFA at Parsons School of Design. Her web site.
Valita Durkin, Hive (self-published)
Hive synopsis from web site:
“On her coronation Queen Miel takes her virgin mating flight, to begin her new hive in the realm of light, but she flies too high and is sucked into a strange tumultuous world ( Earth.) Where the king of Man and two ancient goddesses are locked in a prideful struggle that results in the vernal goddess Flora withholding spring and the goddess of wynter unleashing two monstrous destructive boars upon the land. Miel seemingly stuck on Earth decides she is going to make it the best place she can to create her new hive by renewing spring and bringing peace to the land, but she will need the help of the Queen of man an accomplished weaver lonely for her seaside homeland far away and Ari an extremely talented spider with extremely poor social skills. Miel now must find a way to help this rapidly changing kingdom and ensure the safety of her children.”
Erik Kriek, The Exile (Living the Line)
Dutch artist Erik Kriek’s graphic novel The Exile was revealed by Living the Line following a profitable Kickstarter marketing campaign in October 2022. Making $15,063 over a $14,000 funding objective. The synopsis:
“After seven years of exile, battle-hardened Hallstein Thordsson returns residence to Iceland, solely to seek out that previous wounds haven’t healed. His very presence disrupts the fragile stability and threatens to tip all of Iceland into violence.
“A remarkable decades-spanning epic, Erik Kriek’s The Exile is equal parts action “Western” and household drama, with a shocking story of violence and penalties at its core. Told in a naturalistic trendy fashion however with large constancy to the historic interval through which it’s set, The Exile depicts the Viking age in all of its battle, turmoil, and social construction, with each element depicted vividly on the web page.”
Shinyeon Moon, Celestial Beings (self-published)
New York-based Shinyeon Moon holds an MFA in Illustration as Visual Essay from the School of Visual Arts. Has taught at SVA and the Fashion Institute of Technology, had a number of exhibitions and possesses a quantity of awards. Celestial Beings is a zine revealed in 2023.
A.T. Pratt, Healthy Body!? Healthy Brain!! (self-published)
“Healthy Body?! Healthy Brain!!” is an creative 2019 zine following the artist’s endeavours with bodily health.
Synopsis:
“HEALTHY BODY!? HEALTHY BRAIN!! Clean 2018/Clean 2019 Health and Wellness Initiative Practice Power Progress Research Report: A Lifestyle Guide by Health Guru A. T. Pratt is a comprehensive guide to fun and fitness in your local gymnasium for a modern intellectual. Since I decided to become healthy in Clean 2018, I have been achieving one G (gymnasium) point for each day of the calendar year. Has this made my muscles extraordinarily swollen to create a certified musclebound freak? Will I be cast in a starring role in a big budget superhero comic book adaptation? Find out in this helpful guide. Featuring a 2 color purple and yellow Risograph popup foldout center spread (a recreation of my local gymnasium, Plant Finesse) and 26 alternating purple and yellow colored paper illustrated text/comics pages + back and front cover on yellow cardstock.”
Peter Rostovsky, Damnation Diaries (Uncivilised Books)
Russian-born author and artist, Peter Rostovsky has seen his work and superb artwork extensively exhibited and produces comics work has appeared in anthologies, zines and extra. He is a instructor at NYU, Parsons New School, and Lesley Art + Design. Damnation Diaries (Uncivilised Books) is due for wider launch in May based on the writer’s web site.
The ebook’s synopsis:
“Hell can get you down. It’s big, hot, often painful, and a hard place to get creative projects done. But something else is bothering inmate PKRx354—something beyond the unrelenting and often absurd torture routines, the demons, or the tormenting trio of his mother, father, and girlfriend also consigned to the Underworld. Luckily there’s help: Fred Greenberg—Hell’s only psychotherapist. With Fred’s stoic and perceptive guidance, the “talking cure” proves productive. That is till a dastardly terrorist act by a mysterious faction threatens the very nature of the Underworld. Will our self-deprecating hero get to the trigger of his nagging “ennui?” Will Fred discover his personal redemption? And will our hero ever discover peace, or a minimum of a trip?
“Combining Dante, Douglas Adams, and Freud, Damnation Diaries is equal parts horror comedy and character-driven drama, uniquely converging the look of bronze-age comics with sharp literary satire. The book’s imaginative and surreal landscape serves as a perfect backdrop for caustic social commentary fit for our equally surreal times. The setting may be imaginary, but the urgent issues addressed are not: growing economic inequality, student debt, political crisis, terrorism, and the attempt to find peace under the most hostile of circumstances.”
Andi Santagata, Yennefer’s Body (self-published)
A Centre for Cartoon Studies grad with a number of fellowships and residencies. Fave genres embody horror, horror comedy, and teenage dramedy. Also recognized for his webcomic Trans Man Walking (2016-2019), Jed The Undead and is a contributor to the Five Nights at Freddy’s: Fazbear Frights anthology sequence. His self revealed zine Yennefer’s Body debuted at SPX 2022 and caught the eye of the MoCCA judges in March 2023.
The synopsis from Santagata’s web site:
“An autobio comic/zine (started as part of my residency as Teaching Artist in Residence at SAW) about blood loss, cheating death, and what happens when other people feel ownership of your body, told through the (hazy, anemia-induced) lens of video games and TV sitcoms.”
Wilfrid Lupano and Jérémie Moreau’s The Hartlepool Monkey (Knockabout, 2012) – award acquired by Stephen Vrattos (Fanfare/Ponent Mon) on the Fanfare Presents desk showcasing British indie publishers Fanfare, Book Palace, Breakdown Press, and Knockabout Press.
Hartlepool Monkey synopsis:
“1814, off the Durham coast, close to the little village of Hartlepool, a warship within the Napoleonic fleet flounders throughout a storm and sinks. At dawn, amid the wreckage and flotsam on the seaside, fishermen uncover a survivor: a monkey wearing full navy regalia, the mascot of the shipwrecked French vessel. Now, the nice individuals of Hartlepool despise all Frenchmen, although they’ve by no means seen one within the flesh. Nor have they ever seen a monkey. But this brutish, bestial castaway tallies with the obscure impression they’ve of the enemy… this alone is sufficient for the ape to seek out himself court-martialled.
“Inspired by the famous legend of the Hartlepool monkey, this is a tragi-comic fable of war and jingoism, of xenophobia and ignorance and of the glimmering of enlightenment…”
Discussion about this post