Walk Without Rhythm – This Week’s Links

It is Banned Books Week, and if you are a regular peruser of this week’s links, a selection of which can be found below, then you’ll likely know that this is, well, a banner year for banned books, with graphic novels increasingly being shoved into the spotlight by conservative activist groups looking to restrict the reading of young people by excluding increasingly wide-ranging material that apparently offends, with increasingly vague, amorphous reasons as to why it offends, usually boiling down to the usual dog whistle rhetoric one has come to expect in twenty twenty-three - PEN America covers this year’s Banned Books Week in detail here , including spotlight interviews with graphic novelists Maia Kobabe and Mike Curato.

Ultimate Love pic.twitter.com/heUOK8J6Mm
— Michel Fiffe (@MichelFiffe) October 5, 2023

This week’s news.
•  Starting off this week with the autumnal awards season in full flow, as the winners of this year’s Cartoon Crossroads Columbus Awards were announced last weekend , with Raina Telgemeier taking home the Transformative Work Award, Daniel Clowes winning the Master Cartoonist Award, and Evan Salazar receiving 2023’s Newly Emerging Talent Award which confers a $7,500 prize.
•  Elsewhere, the jury’s selection for 2023’s Grand Prix du livre de Montréal was announced, with Julie Delporte’s Corps Vivante and Nick Drnaso’s Acting Class both in contention for the prize, with the winner to be announced in November.
•  Looking ahead to next week’s New York Comic Con, The Harvey Awards announced 2023’s inductees to their Hall of Fame , with this year’s group comprising Chris Claremont, Bill Griffith, George Pérez, Louise Simonson, Walt Simonson, and Marv Wolfman - this year’s prize ceremony will take place on the 13th of October.
•  Koyama Provides announced their next wave of grants, meant this time round as “encouragement to persevere” to artists, rather than being linked to specific projects, with $1500 awards given to Melissa Mendes , Jay Stephens , and Erin Williams .
•  The Chicago Alternative Comics Expo announced the opening of applications to this year’s Cupcake Award program , a juried prize that supports the publication of a new minicomic by an emerging artist whose work is primarily self-published, with two prizes of $400 and a half table at CAKE 2024 up for grabs - the deadline for submissions is the 31st of October.
•  Returning to the comics crime files, and ICv2 shares news of the theft of items from the collection of James Strand , in Portland, Oregon, following Strand’s death earlier this year - the FBI estimates the value of the collection at between $1 million to $2 million, and are currently trying to put together an inventory list with the help of local book and collectibles dealers.
•  A GoFundMe campaign has been launched to help support Marvel and DC artist Thomas Tenney, due to mounting healthcare costs and a foreclosure suit on Tenney’s home - Tenney lives with chronic obstructive pulmonary disease, and cannot currently attend comic conventions.
•  In memoriam , remembering those the world of comics has lost, and news was shared last month of the passing of Ron Russitano, owner of Phantom of the Attic store in Pittsburgh, following a cardiac arrest - a GoFundMe to help Russitano’s family cover the medical costs incurred can be donated to here .

CUPCAKE AWARD APPLICATIONS ARE OFFICIALLY OPEN!! Check out our website for full details; https://t.co/DA1IeEiSj5 .