The 2024 Ignatz Award winners were announced at Small Press Expo (SPX) on September 14 at the Bethesda North Marriott in Maryland. It was a good night for Canada, with Drawn & Quarterly, the powerhouse Montreal-based indie comics publisher, taking home three awards, and the burgeoning Toronto-based Pulping Collective taking home two.

SPX, the storied independent comics convention that celebrated its 30th anniversary this year, has been home to the awards since they were established in 1997. The Ignatz, per SPX, recognizes “outstanding achievement in comics and cartooning” through “exceptional work that challenges popular notions of what comics can achieve, both as an art form and as a means of personal expression.”

In an introductory speech, cartoonist Jeffrey Brown explained the provenance of the design of the Ignatz Award: a brick sitting atop a wooden stand.

“The Ignatz Award, as most of you here probably know, is a brick,” he said. “It comes from the Krazy Kat comic [by George Harriman]. In the comic, Krazy Kat loves the mouse Ignatz, and Ignatz, in return, throws a brick at Krazy Kat’s head. And that's kind of an appropriate symbol for comics, right? Because we love comics, and they kick our ass.”

This year's winners are as follows:

  • Outstanding Anthology: Pulping, edited by Jenn Woodall, Jon Iñaki, Jonathan Rotsztain, Mitch Lohmeier, and Paterson Hodgson (Pulping Collective)
  • Outstanding Artist: “Night Fever” (from Gladiolus Magazine #1) by Robyn Smith (Black Josei Press)
  • Outstanding Collection: Offshore Lightning by Saito Nazuna and translated by Alexa Frank (Drawn & Quarterly)
  • Outstanding Comic: My Body Unspooling by Leo Fox (Silver Sprocket)
  • Outstanding Graphic Novel: Roaming by Jillian Tamaki & Mariko Tamaki (Drawn & Quarterly)
  • Outstanding Minicomic: Manga Cube by Yuan Song (Self-Published)
  • Outstanding Online Comic: Buuza!! by Shazleen Khan
  • Outstanding Series: CosmoKnights (Book Two) by Hannah Templer (Top Shelf Productions)
  • Outstanding Story: “The Happy Art” (from Pulping) by Sami Alwani (Pulping Collective)
  • Promising New Talent: The Great Beyond by Léa Murawiec (Drawn & Quarterly)