2020 Ringo Awards Announce Jury

Jury selection has been announced for the Mike Wieringo Comic Book Industry Awards. Named for illustrator Mike Wieringo, who passed away at age 44, the awards recognize “the creativity, skill and fun of comics”.

The awards will be presented as part of the Baltimore Comic-Con Saturday, October 24th. The nomination process is ongoing until June 25, 2020.

“We amassed a really strong jury for this year’s Ringo Awards,” said Marc Nathan, Baltimore Comic-Con promoter. “It is an amazing cross-section of the industry, with multiple award-winning creators, educators, and comics veterans bringing their experience and expertise to the table. We’re looking forward to another fantastic final ballot this year.”

The Jury

Joan Hilty is currently an editorial director for Nickelodeon, concentrating on comics and graphic novel licensed publications. She’s been a senior editor at DC Comics, where she began with the Vertigo imprint and won the 1999 International Horror Guild Award for the anthology Flinch. She is also the founder and consulting editor-in-chief for Page Turner, a New York based book agency specializing in graphic novels and illustrated works.

In addition to her work at Nickelodeon, Hilty is on the faculty of the School of Visual Arts in New York.

James Kuhoric is an award winning horror writer, editor, and publisher of comics. His specialty has been licensed comic books and prose since 1997. His writing includes runs on Stargate SG-1, Battlestar Galactica, The Six Million Dollar Man, and Freddy vs. Jason vs. Ash.

Together with Jae Lee and Jason Shawn Alexander, he created the western horror series Dead Irons, and with Grand Bond created Legendary Talespinners. He’s been nominated for several Spike TV Scream Awards, winning one for Army of Darkness, and has nominations for a Bram Stoker Award and two Gem Awards.

Kuhoric is currently a vice president at Dynamite Entertainment, as well as president of American Mythology Comics.

Jill Thompson is a multiple Eisner Award winning creator, best known for The Scary Godmother and Magic Trixie along with her graphic novel Wonder Woman: The True Amazon. She has collaborated with Neil Gaiman (Sandman), Grant Morrison (The Invisibles), Will Pfeifer (Finals), Evan Dorkin (Beasts of Burden), and Mick Foley (Tales from Wrescal Lane), to name a few.

Thompson has also been the model for several comics characters, most notably The Scary Godmother and Duela Dent, the Joker’s Daughter, in Kingdom Come.

She’s working on new on more Scary Godmother material, and the book has been adapted for the stage and as two animated television movies on Cartoon Network.

Carol Tilley is a comics historian and associate professor in the School of Information Sciences at the University of Illinois. Her 2012 research on Fredric Wertham was featured in the New York Times and other media, and she’s currently working on a cultural history of how young readers read, used, and subverted comics in the mid-20th century to create a popular print culture in the US.

Tilley is a past president of the Comics Studies Society and has been a judge for the Will Eisner Comics Industry Awards.

Gene Luen Yang is a comic book writer and artist. His first graphic novel, American Born Chinese, was a National Book Award finalist and winner of both the Printz Award and Eisner Award.

His other works include His other works include Secret Coders (with Mike Holmes), The Shadow Hero (with Sonny Liew), Superman from DC Comics (with various artists), and the Avatar: The Last Airbender series from Dark Horse Comics (with Gurihiru). In 2016, he was named a MacArthur Foundation Fellow. His two-volume grahpic novel Boxers & Saints won the L.A. Times Book Prize and was a National Book Award finalist.

His most recent books are Dragon Hoops from First Second Books and Superman Smashes the Klan from DC Comics.

The Categories