Prizes

The CSS Article Prize recognizes scholarly journal articles and essays or chapters in edited volumes from the previous year that significantly advance the field of Comics Studies—that is, articles or essays that greatly add to our understanding of comic art and/or its historical, cultural, critical, or theoretical contexts.

Eligibility and qualifications: This prize recognizes high-quality, research-oriented articles about comic art or Comics Studies, written in English and published in print journals and/or online journals, or as chapters in books and/or e-books by either academic or other publishers.

The Seldes Prize acknowledges the year’s best scholarly writing about comic art or Comics Studies published in public venues outside of academia, whether online or in non-academic periodical format. This prize is named in honor of Gilbert Seldes, the pioneering American cultural critic who almost a century ago first celebrated the comics, the most “despised” of the “lively arts,” and called for their proper study and appreciation. Comics Studies as a field emerged out of the writings and research of individuals who followed in Seldes’s footsteps, studying and preserving the history of a form that few academic institutions would embrace until the late 20th century. Even as Comics Studies becomes more fully integrated into the 21st-century academy, this long tradition of public criticism and scholarship continues to serve as its life’s blood.

Eligibility and qualifications: The Seldes Prize recognizes written or comics work in essay, article, or blogpost form and audio/visual work, including select podcast episodes, videos, or hybrid works. The prize is awarded to the writer or creator (or, in the case of collaborative work, writers or creators) judged best by the prize committee, based on a portfolio of no more than 6000 words or two hours of audio/visual work. The site of publication must be “public” and non-academic in nature (that is, unaffiliated with an academic institution), though the prize winner may or may not have an academic affiliation.

The Charles Hatfield Book Prize, named for CSS cofounder and first President Charles Hatfield, recognizes scholarly books from the previous year that significantly advance the field of Comics Studies—that is, books that greatly add to our understanding of comic art and/or its historical, cultural, critical, or theoretical contexts.

Eligibility and qualifications: This prize recognizes high-quality, research-oriented monographs about comic art or Comics Studies, written in English or translated into English (based upon the year of English publication) and published in book and/or e-book format by either academic or other publishers. Periodicals are not eligible for this prize. Archival editions of comics or comic art will not be eligible for this prize unless they incorporate a substantial scholarly component including extensive original research.

The CSS Edited Book Prize recognizes high-quality, research-oriented, and multi-authored edited collections from the previous year that significantly advance the field of Comics Studies—that is, edited books that greatly add to our understanding of comic art and/or its historical, cultural, critical, or theoretical contexts.

Eligibility and qualifications: This prize recognizes high-quality, research-oriented, and multi-authored edited collections about comic art or Comics Studies, written in English or translated into English (based upon the year of English publication) and published in book and/or e-book format by either academic or other publishers. Special issues of journals are not eligible for this prize. 

The Comics Studies Society will award one prize for an exceptional dissertation in the field of Comics Studies defended in the past three calendar years (January 1 to December 31). The 2023 CSS Prize cycle will therefore evaluate theses and dissertations defended between January 1, 2020 to December 31, 2022.

The value of the awards will be $300 for Doctoral dissertations as well as conference registration to the CSS’s annual conference.

• The deadline for nomination, which must include a report from the nominating program, will be April 15th.
• The thesis or dissertation must have two or more chapters focusing on comics studies themes.
• A thesis or dissertation may only be submitted once for the CSS Dissertation Prize.

It is the responsibility of the Graduate Student to prepare the nomination. Dissertation chairs and graduate advisors are, however, encouraged to reach out to graduate students to self-nominate. 

The nomination submission must include:

1. The complete dissertation with one chapter highlighted as exemplifying the character and quality of the whole project.
2. A statement from the Chair of the Dissertation Committee or Graduate Advisor detailing those elements of the thesis or dissertation which make it exceptional

The decisions of the Awards Committee will be final. The results will be announced at the annual conference of the Comics Studies Society where the recipients will receive their award.

Graduate Students should submit nominations via this Google Form, including all supporting documentation. Please submit self-nominations and documentation as one pdf document.

The Graduate Student Caucus (GSC) of the Comics Studies Society is committed to encouraging finely-crafted and innovative comics scholarship by members of the graduate student community. To promote the writing and dissemination of such scholarship, the GSC awards the Hillary Chute Award for Best Graduate Student Paper. The award is named for Hillary Chute, whose pioneering work as a comics scholar paved the way for feminist and political readings of graphic memoir. Papers will be judged by blind review based on overall quality and contribution to the field of Comics Studies.

Eligibility and qualifications: This prize recognizes outstanding graduate student scholarship in Comics Studies during the previous calendar year. In order to qualify for this award:

• The author must be a graduate student during the awards cycle or have been a graduate student in the year before the awards cycle. This means that the author must either be enrolled in a graduate program at the point of submission or have completed one the year before.
• The author must be a member of CSS at the point of submission. More information on how to join or renew membership may be found on the Society’s website.
• The paper must be at least 7 but no more than 15 pages (not including citations or images). It must have been written during the eligibility year. It may be a conference or seminar paper, or it may be an excerpt from a larger work (like an M.A. thesis or dissertation), but it must stand on its own for evaluation. It must also be unpublished. 

The Chute Award winner will receive a plaque and a monetary prize. They will also have the opportunity to have a consultation with an editor of Inks: The Journal of the Comics Studies Society.

The Frederick Luis Aldama Emerging BIPOC Comics Studies Leadership Award recognizes an outstanding emerging BIPOC comics scholar who has demonstrated extraordinary service to the study of comics in academia, in addition to comics-based community-led organizations and initiatives. This prize seeks to support and honor the contributions of emerging BIPOC comics scholars whose labors are integral to the health of BIPOC comics studies, but whose leadership and service often go unrecognized. This award is generously sponsored by Dr. Frederick Luis Aldama, or Professor LatinX, the Jacob & Frances Sanger Mossiker Chair in the Humanities at the University of Texas at Austin.

Eligibility and qualifications: This prize recognizes outstanding emerging BIPOC comics scholars. In order to qualify for this award:

• The nominee must be a graduate student or have been a graduate student in the previous three years before the awards cycle.
• The nominee must self-identify as Black, Indigenous, or as a person of color, inclusive of biracial, mixed-race, mixed blood, and multiracial peoples.
• The application must include the nominee’s CV and one (1) nominating letter (not to exceed five (5) pages) describing the nominee’s achievements in leadership and service in the growing field of BIPOC comics studies. Additional supporting letters are welcome but are not required. The letter can be written individually or collectively-authored with multiple signatories.