Sunnyville Stories Submission to Ignatz Awards

I have an announcement to make.  I’ve decided to submit Sunnyville Stories Volume 1 to the Ignatz Awards.

Wait a minute…you’ve never heard of the Ignatz Awards?  Permit me to explain.  The Ignatz Awards were created and are managed by the Small Press Expo as a unique award within the comics industry.  Named after the character of Ignatz Mouse from the legendary comic strip “Krazy Kat and Ignatz Mouse” by George Herriman, it’s an award meant for the small press within comics and honors outstanding achievements in that field.  

A jury is selected at random and their identities are kept secret until the final ballots are revealed to the public.  This is to prevent any attempts to influence the awards process.

To meet eligibility, the work in question must have been published between July 1st of the previous ballot year and June 30th of the current ballot year.  As Sunnyville Volume 1 was published officially on July 9th, 2012, it is eligible.  The award categories are for Outstanding Artist, Outstanding Anthology or Collection, Outstanding Graphic Novel, Outstanding Story, Promising New Talent, Outstanding Series, Outstanding Comic, Outstanding Minicomic, and Outstanding Outline Comic.  A total of six copies of the submission have to be sent into the jury.  From there, the works are screened, read through, examined, and then the best of the lot are chosen for the awards.

As for the actual voting itself, that’s done by the attendees of the Small Press Expo.  The winners are announced at the awards ceremony during the event.  You can read up more on the event on the SPX site.

As this blog post goes live, I’m readying a package containing six copies of Sunnyville Stories Volume 1 that will be going out to the jury first thing Monday morning.  I know what some of you are thinking.  Why am I doing this?  The Ignatz Awards probably get hundreds of submissions every year, maybe more than that.  My chances of being nominated for the award are slim – and I realize my chances of winning are next to nothing.  So why am I doing this?

The copies I have of my book aren’t doing any good just sitting around my work area.  Plus winning or even getting nominated would bolster my credibility AND give me publicity.  That is something that both myself and my work really need.  Even though the odds are stacked against me by a lot, I’m still submitting those books to the Ignatz jury.  Not doing so definitely guarantees that I fail.  Wish me luck everyone.