Cartoonist R. Kikuo Johnson (No One Else) is a part of the 2023 cohort to obtain the Whiting Award, probably the primary cartoonist to take action.
The Whiting Awards mentioned:
“The Whiting Foundation is proud to announce the recipients of the 2023 Whiting Awards, given annually to ten emerging writers in fiction, nonfiction, poetry, and drama. The awards, of $50,000 each, are based on early accomplishment and the promise of great work to come.”
R. Kikuo Johnson is already a multi-award successful cartoonist and illustrator whose 2021 graphic novel No One Else (Fantagraphics) obtained a 2022 Ignatz Award for Outstanding Graphic Novel, an LA Times Book Prize, and was a Lynd Ward Graphic Novel Prize Honor Book. His different books embrace Night Fisher (2005/reissued 2021 – Fantagraphics) and The Shark King (2012, Toon Books). Aside from comics, he’s additionally a prolific editorial and promoting illustrator – notably offering covers for the New Yorker. He is predicated in Hawaii and New York.
Established in 1985, the annual Whiting Awards are devoted to rising skills in fiction, nonfiction, drama, and poetry fields. The path to nomination could be very oblique – with a altering annual pool of nameless people within the literary, retail, editorial or educational area from throughout the US being invited to suggest candidates, with an extra committee deciding on winners.
The intent of the Whiting Awards, in response to their web site:
“We hope to determine distinctive new writers who’ve but to make their mark within the literary tradition. Though the writers might not essentially be younger (expertise might emerge at any age), the grant ideally provides recipients a primary alternative to commit themselves totally to writing, and the popularity has a major affect. Whiting winners have gone on to win quite a few prestigious awards and fellowships, together with the Pulitzer Prize, the National Book Award, the National Book Critics Circle Award, the Obie Award, and MacArthur, Guggenheim, and Lannan fellowships, and their work has formed and superior literature on this nation over the previous three many years. “
Among this 12 months’s different prize winners are Marcia Douglas, Sidik Fofan, and Carribean Fragoza for Fiction; Linda Kinstler and Stephania Taladrid for Nonfiction; Tommye Blount, Ama Codjoe and Emma Wippermann for Poetry; and Mia Chung for Drama.
One earlier Whiting winner from the comics house is novelist Benjamin Percy (2008, Fiction), who has since written varied titles for the Big Two – together with Green Arrow and Teen Titans for DC, and Wolverine, X-Force, and Ghost Rider for Marvel.
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