The Comics Studies Society (CSS) recognizes outstanding contributions to the study of comic art with six annual prizes: the CSS Article Prize, the Hillary Chute Award for Best Graduate Student Paper, the Gilbert Seldes Prize for Public Scholarship, the Charles Hatfield Book Prize, and the CSS Prize for Edited Book Collections. This year, we’re also introducing the CSS Dissertation Prize. For more information on the various CSS Prizes, see the CSS Website.

The CSS defines comic art as the category of artistic production that incorporates all forms of cartooning, sequential art, and graphic narrative. This includes, but is not limited to, the following forms: comic strips, comic books, papers, and magazines; albums, graphic novels, and other graphic books; webcomics and other electronic formats; single-panel cartoons, including editorial and gag cartoons; caricature; animation; and other related forms and traditions.

The CSS is currently soliciting nominations for all five prizes, which will be awarded at the 5th Annual Conference of the Comics Studies Society (July 27th-29th, 2023). Winners will receive a $300 cash award and a plaque. Please see the CSS Website for conference details.

• Nominations for the CSS prizes may be historical, biographical, critical, analytical, pedagogical, and/or bibliographical in focus.
• Nominations should draw on original research, acknowledge and advance existing scholarship where relevant, and include appropriate documentation and citation.
• Reprints of or excerpts from previously published works are not eligible for prizes.
• Each piece of scholarship may only be nominated once across all categories of the CSS Prizes, and individuals nominated for a CSS Prize may only have one piece of scholarship competing in each category. However, nominees may compete simultaneously in multiple categories per awards cycle.
• While individuals nominated for all CSS Prizes do not need to be members, only members can nominate scholars for the CSS Prizes. Please visit the CSS’s Membership Page to join the CSS.

For more information regarding the eligibility of CSS Executive Board Members and information on past winners of the CSS Prizes, please see the CSS Website.

Frequency and time period: Prizes are awarded by the CSS at its annual conference for first-time publications (not reprints or revised editions) or (concerning the Chute only) unpublished work occurring during the previous calendar year. For example, the 2023 prizes will cover publications and presentations © 2022

Nomination process: Peer nominations and self-nominations are welcomed. Nominations will be submitted through this Google Form and are due by April 15th, 2023. Nominations should include the following:

• the work’s complete title, author(s) name(s), publisher, and original copyright date.
• access to a complete digital copy of the work (such as a PDF or ebook, a link to a paywall-free article or media text, media file, etc.) that members of the CSS Prize Subcommittees can access as needed.

Nomination inquiries should be sent by email to the CSS Awards Coordinator, Biz Nijdam, at comicssociety.awards@gmail.com.

Judging and awarding process: Nominees for each prize will be reviewed by an Awards Subcommittee of not less than three members of the Comics Studies Society, which is approved by the CSS Executive Board and includes the Awards Coordinator and/or the Awards Subcommittee Chair. Prize winners will be notified approximately two months prior to the annual conference and announcements of their award will be published on the CSS website and in Inks: The Journal of the Comics Studies Society.