Third Annual Spurgeon Award honors Annie Koyama
COLUMBUS, Ohio, — Cartoon Crossroads Columbus (CXC), the international showcase for cartoon art, is proud to announce that the third annual Tom Spurgeon Award will go to comics publisher and philanthropist Annie Koyama.
The Spurgeon Award honors those who have made substantial contributions to the field of comics, but are not primarily cartoonists. The award is named after Tom Spurgeon, a writer, historian, and champion of comic arts who served as CXC’s founding executive director. The award is open to retailers, distributors, journalists, editors, publishers, and others.
Annie Koyama is the founder-publisher of the alternative comics powerhouse, Koyama Press, established in 2007 in Toronto. Koyama Press supported more than just its own slate of creators as a positive voice in the community for comics and cartoon art.
Annie’s personal story is no less inspiring. After surviving a terminal brain aneurysm diagnosis, Annie chose to leave a successful career in film and advertising to pursue her passion for supporting and publishing emerging artists by creating Koyama Press in 2007. Titles from Koyama Press have been nominated for or won every major award in comics. In 2011, Koyama Press was presented with the Joe Shuster Award for Outstanding Publisher. CXC finds itself in good company as Annie has been honored with the Bob Clampett Humanitarian Award, Broken Frontier’s first Hall of Fame Award and was conferred an Honorary Doctorate of Letters from Ontario College of Art & Design University.
“Annie Koyama is a beacon in the world of independent comics,” comments Caitlin McGurk, CXC Awards Committee Chair. “Through her unwavering efforts to uplift the voices of a diverse network of cartoonists, she quickly established herself as a fairy godmother-like figure in the community—and one with impeccable taste. Koyama serves as a model of excellence for how to make a lasting impact in the lives of creators, and we are thrilled to honor her with this award.”
Although Koyama Press ceased operations in 2021, Annie Koyama has continued to support artists with the creation of a grant initiative, Koyama Provides. These mini-grants support the projects of independent artists, often providing them with enough funding to allow creators to complete projects, or start new ones.
“I’m thrilled to have been chosen as the 2024 recipient of the Tom Spurgeon Award,” stated Annie Koyama by email, “I’m thankful to have found a way to stay connected to a community that I love, by directly supporting artists, especially cartoonists. Tom reached out to me in the early days of the press, when I had seemingly come out of nowhere and he continued to support the press and my plans beyond the press, for which I’ll always be grateful.”
The Tom Spurgeon Award in 2023 went to Calvin Reid of Publishers Weekly, and in 2022 to writer, translator and manga scholar Frederik L. Schodt. In 2021, the award’s first year, it awarded to three posthumous recipients: Chicago Tribune-New York Daily News syndicate vice-president and director Mollie Slott; All-Negro Comics founder and publisher Orrin Evans; and Fantagraphics co-publisher Kim Thompson.
Past CXC Award Winners here.
.About Cartoon Crossroads Columbus
CXC is a 501(c)3 nonprofit that draws together Columbus educational and arts organizations including the Billy Ireland Cartoon Library & Museum, the Wexner Center for the Arts, Columbus College of Art & Design, the Columbus Museum of Art, the Columbus Metropolitan Library, The Laughing Ogre, GFC: Gateway Film Center, and Pop Culture Studies at Ohio State University.
The festival is generously supported by the Greater Columbus Arts Council, White Castle, UBS, Columbus Dispatch / Dispatch.com, Ohio Arts Council, The Columbus Foundation, Japan Foundation, New York, Orange Barrel Media, and Seventh Son Brewing Co.
Special Guests are underwritten with support from Drawn & Quarterly, Ohio State Energy Partners, OSU Institute for Japanese Studies, and Avery Hill Publishing.
CXC aims to provide an international showcase for the best of cartoon art in all its forms, including comics, animation, editorial cartoons, newspaper strips, and beyond, in a city that is a growing center of importance to comics and cartooning. The festival also focuses on helping the next generation of young talent develop careers that will invigorate the industry for years to come.