This article provides a list of notable awards for

webcomic Webcomics (also known as online comics or Internet comics) are comics published on a website or mobile app. While many are published exclusively on the web, others are also published in magazines, newspapers, or comic books. Webcomics can be co ...

s and some of the winners from each year. Webcomics may be eligible for any number of literary awards that recognise achievement in

comics a medium used to express ideas with images, often combined with text or other visual information. It typically the form of a sequence of panels of images. Textual devices such as speech balloons, captions, and onomatopoeia can indicate ...

or literature generally. As examples, webcomic artists have won

Ignatz Awards The Ignatz Awards recognize outstanding achievements in comics and cartooning by small press creators or creator-owned projects published by larger publishers. They have been awarded each year at the Small Press Expo since 1997, only skipping a ...

and

Eisner Awards The Will Eisner Comic Industry Awards, commonly shortened to the Eisner Awards, are prizes given for creative achievement in American comic books, sometimes referred to as the comics industry's equivalent of the Academy Awards. They are named in ...

Gene Luen Yang Gene Luen Yang (Chinese Traditional: 楊謹倫, Simplified: 杨谨伦, Pinyin: ''Yáng Jǐnlún''; born August 9, 1973) is an American cartoonist. He is a frequent lecturer on the subjects of graphic novels and comics, at comic book conventions a ...

's graphic novel ''

American Born Chinese American-born Chinese are the subset of Chinese Americans who were born in the US. The term may also refer to: * ''ABC'' (Jin album), a Cantonese language album by Chinese American rapper Jin, the name of which is the colloquially used acronym of ...

'' (originally published as a webcomic on

Modern Tales Modern Tales was a webcomics subscription service active from 2002 to 2012. Joey Manley was the website's publisher and original editor. The site featured a roster of approximately 30 professional webcomic artists. Shaenon Garrity, one of the si ...

), was the first graphic novel to be nominated for a

National Book Award The National Book Awards are a set of annual U.S. literary awards. At the final National Book Awards Ceremony every November, the National Book Foundation presents the National Book Awards and two lifetime achievement awards to authors. The Nat ...

,Bosman, Julie. (October 12, 2006). "National Book Award Finalists Chosen". ''

The New York Times ''The New York Times'' (''the Times'', ''NYT'', or the Gray Lady) is a daily newspaper based in New York City with a worldwide readership reported in 2020 to comprise a declining 840,000 paid print subscribers, and a growing 6 million paid ...

'', Pg. E2 and

Don Hertzfeldt Don Hertzfeldt (born August 1, 1976) is an American animator, writer, and independent filmmaker. He is a two-time Academy Award nominee who is best known for the animated films ''It's Such a Beautiful Day'', the '' World of Tomorrow'' series, an ...

's animated film ''

Everything Will Be OK ''Everything Will Be OK'' is a 2006 animated absurdist black comedy short film by Don Hertzfeldt. It is the first chapter of a three-part story about a man named Bill. Hertzfeldt released the second film in the series, titled ''I Am So Proud of ...

'', which won the 2007

Sundance Film Festival The Sundance Film Festival (formerly Utah/US Film Festival, then US Film and Video Festival) is an annual film festival organized by the Sundance Institute. It is the largest independent film festival in the United States, with more than 46,66 ...

Jury Award in Short Filmmaking, was based on his webcomics. However, a number of awards have existed that are specifically for webcomics, or which focus mainly on webcomics. This list details these awards, including their source, criteria, and winners.

Awards relating to multiple mediums

Pulitzer Prizes

The Pulitzer Prize is an award for achievements in newspaper, magazine, online journalism, literature, and musical composition within the United States. In 2010, Mark Fiore won a

Pulitzer Prize The Pulitzer Prize () is an award for achievements in newspaper, magazine, online journalism, literature, and musical composition within the United States. It was established in 1917 by provisions in the will of Joseph Pulitzer, who had made h ...

, becoming the first cartoonist to win a Pulitzer for an entry of entirely online cartoons. Fiore was later also a finalist for the Pulitzer in 2018. In 2012 and again in 2020,

Matt Bors Matt Bors (born 1983) is a nationally syndicated American editorial cartoonist and editor of online comics publication The Nib. Formerly the comics journalism editor for Cartoon Movement, he was a finalist for the Pulitzer Prize in 2012 and 202 ...

was a finalist for the Pulitzer, for his webcomics that appeared in the online magazine he founded, ''

The Nib The Nib is an American online daily comics publication focused on political cartoons, graphic journalism, essays and memoir about current affairs. Founded by cartoonist Matt Bors in September 2013, The Nib is an independent member-supported pu ...

''. In 2015,

Tom Tomorrow Tom Tomorrow is the pen name of editorial cartoonist Dan Perkins (born April 5, 1961, in Wichita, Kansas). His weekly comic strip, ''This Modern World'', which comments on current events, appears regularly in more than 80 newspapers across t ...

was a finalist for the Pulitzer based on his ''

This Modern World ''This Modern World'' is a weekly satirical comic strip by cartoonist and political commentator Tom Tomorrow (real name Dan Perkins) that covers current events from a left-wing point of view. Published continuously for more than 30 years, ''This M ...

'' comics published by the website

Daily Kos Daily Kos ( ) is a group blog and internet forum focused on the U.S. Democratic Party and liberal American politics. The site includes glossaries and other content. It is sometimes considered an example of "netroots" activism. Daily Kos was f ...

Ursa Major Awards

The Ursa Major Awards relate to furry media, such as video, written works, and comics. They were first presented in 2001 for works produced in the previous year. In 2004, a category for comic strips that feature anthropomorphic characters was introduced. Despite the category including all forms of comics, all winners have been webcomics. Xkcd philosophy

Weblog Awards

The Weblog Awards were held from 2003 to 2008 and featured a Best Comic Strip category starting in 2006.

Comic awards that include a webcomic category

Cartoonist Studio Prize

Presented by the '' Slate Book Review'' and the

Center for Cartoon Studies The Center for Cartoon Studies (CCS) is a two-year institution focusing on sequential art, specifically comics and graphic novels

DiNKY Awards

Since 2016 the Denver Independent Comics & Arts Expo (DINK) has been giving out comics awards with multiple categories, including the Best Web Comics award. The category was called "Outstanding Web Comic" in 2016. The following year it was renamed "Best Web Comic".

Eagle Awards

The Eagle Award was a series of awards for comic book titles and creators voted on by UK fans. It ran from 1977 to 2012 but was not presented every year. From 2001 until its conclusion it included an award for Favourite Web-based Comic. The winners of that category are listed below:

Eisner Award

The Will Eisner Comic Industry Award, commonly shortened to the Eisner Award, is a prize given since 1988 for creative achievement in American comic books. In 2003, Justine Shaw's ''

Nowhere Girl ''Nowhere Girl'' is an adult fiction webcomic by Justine Shaw, about a "college student who feels like an outsider in her own life, finding her place in the world and coming to terms with her sexuality". It is named after a song written by Briti ...

'' received a nomination for an Eisner award in the "best new series" category, while Shaw was nominated for "talent deserving of wider recognition", making her the first webcomic artist to be nominated for an Eisner. In addition to considering works published online for general categories, the Eisner Awards have included categories only for digital works since 2005. The category Best Digital Comic was awarded each year from 2005 through to 2016, though was renamed Best Webcomic in 2009. ''

Paste Magazine ''Paste'' is a monthly music and entertainment digital magazine, headquartered in Atlanta, Georgia, with studios in Atlanta and Manhattan, and owned by Paste Media Group. The magazine began as a website in 1998. It ran as a print publication fro ...

'' noted in 2016 that the Eisner's conflation of "

digital comic Digital comics (also known as electronic comics,Ian Hague, ''Comics and the Senses: A Multisensory Approach to Comics and Graphic Novels'', Routledge, 2014, ch. 2: "Sight, or, the Ideal Perspective and the Physicality of Seeing". eComics, e-comi ...

" and "webcomic" may cause independent works to be overshadowed by online services such as

Marvel Unlimited Marvel Unlimited, formerly known as Marvel Digital Comics Unlimited, is an online service by Marvel Comics that distributes past issues of their comics via the internet. The service launched on November 13, 2007, and now has more than 30,000 comic ...

and

DC Comics DC Comics, Inc. (doing business as DC) is an American comic book publisher and the flagship unit of DC Entertainment, a subsidiary of Warner Bros. Discovery. DC Comics is one of the largest and oldest American comic book companies, with thei ...

' "Digital First". In 2017, the category was split into "Best Digital Comic" and "Best Webcomic" and as of 2020 these two categories remain. The table below shows the winners of Best Digital Comic/Webcomic and of Best Webcomic.

Harvey Awards

The Harvey Awards, named for writer and artist

Harvey Kurtzman Harvey Kurtzman (; October 3, 1924 – February 21, 1993) was an American cartoonist and editor. His best-known work includes writing and editing the parodic comic book '' Mad'' from 1952 until 1956, and writing the ''Little Ann ...

and originally coordinated by the publisher

Fantagraphics Fantagraphics (previously Fantagraphics Books) is an American publisher of alternative comics, classic comic strip anthologies, manga, magazines, graphic novels, and the erotic Eros Comix imprint. History Founding Fantagraphics was found ...

, are given for achievement in comic books. The Harveys were created in 1988 as part of a successor to the Kirby Awards which were discontinued after 1987. The Harvey Awards have included a category for online works since 2006. Originally called Best Online Comic Work, it was renamed to Digital Book of the Year following the 2018 revamp of awards and their move to

New York Comic Con The New York Comic Con is an annual New York City fan convention dedicated to Western comics, graphic novels, anime, manga, video games, cosplay, toys, movies, and television. It was first held in 2006. History The New York Comic Con is a f ...

Ignatz Awards

The Ignatz Awards are intended to recognize outstanding achievements in comics and cartooning by small press creators or creator-owned projects published by larger publishers. They have been awarded each year since 1997, except for 2001 as the show was cancelled after the

September 11, 2001 attacks The September 11 attacks, commonly known as 9/11, were four coordinated suicide terrorist attacks carried out by al-Qaeda against the United States on Tuesday, September 11, 2001. That morning, nineteen terrorists hijacked four commercial ...

. Recipients of the award are determined by the votes of the attendees of the annual

Small Press Expo The Small Press Expo (SPX) is an American alternative comics convention. A registered 501(c)(3) that was created in 1994, every year since its inception, SPX has put on a festival, known as The Expo, that provides a forum for artists, writers and ...

. Comics published online have won awards in multiple categories, such as ''Chester 5000'' winning Outstanding Series and ''Hark! A Vagrant'' for Outstanding Anthology or Collection. As well as these, the Ignatz Awards have presented an award for Outstanding Online Comic since 2002.

Joe Shuster Awards

The Joe Shuster Awards recognise

Canadian Canadians (french: Canadiens) are people identified with the country of Canada. This connection may be residential, legal, historical or cultural. For most Canadians, many (or all) of these connections exist and are collectively the source of ...

comic creators, retailers and publishers. The awards have been handed out since 2005 and are administered by the

Canadian Comic Book Creator Awards Association The Canadian Comic Book Creator Awards Association was formed in 2004 as a means to honour Canadian creators, publishers and retailers in the medium of comic books. With permission of the estate of Joe Shuster, the Canadian-born co-creator of Super ...

. The Joe Shuster Awards have presented a Webcomics Creator award since 2007.The exact title of this category has varied over the years; "Webcomic" has been styled as "Web Comic" and "WebComic", and "Creator" has been "Creator(s)" and "Creator/Creative Team". Unlike other categories given by other awards, this award is for a creator or team rather than a work and so can be in recognition of multiple pieces of work. This category is not always presented; it was not presented in 2016, nor in 2019 even though other Joe Shuster Awards were presented in those years. The award will be granted in 2020, with nominees announced and the winner to be announced in late October.

National Cartoonists Society Awards

The National Cartoonist Society Division Awards (also called the National Cartoonist Society Awards, the Reuben awards, or the Silver Reubens) are awards for cartooning, illustration and animation which have been presented since 1956. They are presented by the

National Cartoonists Society The National Cartoonists Society (NCS) is an organization of professional cartoonists in the United States. It presents the National Cartoonists Society Awards. The Society was born in 1946 when groups of cartoonists got together to entertain the ...

, an organization of professional

cartoonist A cartoonist is a visual artist who specializes in both drawing and writing cartoons (individual images) or comics (sequential images). Cartoonists differ from comics writers or comic book illustrators in that they produce both the literary and ...

s in the United States. The NCS first presented a category for webcomics in 2012. The next year it was split into two categories — Online Comics – Short Form, and Online Comics – Long FormOriginally "On-Line Comics". — which remains the set-up through 2019. The awards are given out in May each year. The naming of each award ceremony is not always consistent, with some ceremonies being referred to as the year they are in, some as the year past, and some not as a year but as a count, eg "the 71st" ceremony. The current naming system appears to be that the award ceremony relates to the previous year; for example, the "2018 Divisional Awards" were presented in May 2019. This is the naming system used in the table below.

Ringo Awards

The Ringo Awards are given for achievement in

comic books A comic book, also called comicbook, comic magazine or (in the United Kingdom and Ireland) simply comic, is a publication that consists of comics art in the form of sequential juxtaposed panels that represent individual scenes. Panels are of ...

. Named for artist

Mike Wieringo Michael Lance Wieringo (June 24, 1963 – August 12, 2007), who sometimes signed his work under the name Ringo, was an American comics artist best known for his work on DC Comics' ''The Flash'', Marvel Comics' ''Spider-Man'' and ''Fantastic Four'' ...

, the Ringo Awards were founded by Cards, Comics, and Collectibles in

Reisterstown, Maryland Reisterstown is an unincorporated community and census-designated place in Baltimore County, Maryland, Baltimore County, Maryland, United States. As of the 2010 United States Census, 2010 census, it had a population of 25,968. Founded by German i ...

and the Ringo Awards Committee in 2017 to be the successor to the

Harvey Award The Harvey Awards are given for achievement in comic books. Named for writer-artist Harvey Kurtzman, the Harvey Awards were founded by Gary Groth in 1988, president of the publisher Fantagraphics, to be the successor to the Kirby Awards that were ...

s that left the

Baltimore Comic-Con Baltimore ( , locally: or ) is the most populous city in the U.S. state of Maryland, fourth most populous city in the Mid-Atlantic, and the 30th most populous city in the United States with a population of 585,708 in 2020. Baltimore was ...

as its venue in 2016. The Ringo Awards are nominated by an open vote among comic-book professionals and fans. The winners are selected from the top two fan choices as the first two nominees and the professional jury selects the remaining three nominees in each category. The Ringo Awards have included a Best Webcomic category since its first awards ceremony in 2017.

Awards exclusively for webcomics

Web Cartoonists' Choice Awards

The

Web Cartoonists' Choice Awards The Web Cartoonists' Choice Awards (WCCA) were annual awards in which established webcartoonists nominated and selected outstanding webcomics. The awards were held between 2001 and 2008, were mentioned in a ''The New York Times'' column on webcom ...

were awarded from 2001 through to 2008. Voting rights were only granted to online

s. These award had a large number of categories – the 2005 ceremony had 26 categories – such as "Best Art", "Best Writing", "Best Gag Comic" and "Best Newcomer". The main category was called "Best Comic" in 2001 and 2002 and called "Outstanding Comic" from 2003–2008. The winners of this main category are below:

Clickburg Webcomic Awards

The Clickburg Webcomic Awards, also called the

Clickies The Clickburg Webcomic Awards, generally referred to as the Clickies, were a Dutch webcomics awards ceremony held four times between 2005 and 2010. Created to promote webcomics in the Netherlands and Belgium, the Clickies were first awarded in 200 ...

, was a Dutch ceremony held four times between 2005 and 2010. It was created to promote webcomics in the Netherlands and Belgium, and winners were only from those countries. The Clickies were first awarded in 2005 at the world's first webcomic convention, Clickburg. The awards were again bestowed in 2006, 2007, and 2010, each time in a slightly different format. Its categories, which changed each time, included "Epic Clickie", "Gag Clickie", and "Cartoon Clickie".

The Webcomic List Awards

In 2009 and 2010, users of the

internet forum An Internet forum, or message board, is an online discussion site where people can hold conversations in the form of posted messages. They differ from chat rooms in that messages are often longer than one line of text, and are at least temporar ...

The Webcomic List held an amateur award ceremony, where winners of its various categories were selected through a panel of judges. The ceremony itself was presented in the form of a webcomic, allowing it to spoof televised award shows as well as exhibit sample portions of the awardees. Each awards ceremony gave out nine different awards; the winners of the Best Comic award are listed below:

Notes

References

{{DEFAULTSORT:Webcomic awards Comics-related lists Internet-related lists

webcomics Webcomics (also known as online comics or Internet comics) are comics published on a website or mobile app. While many are published exclusively on the web, others are also published in magazines, newspapers, or comic books. Webcomics can be ...