Doug Wright Awards to fete comic creators

Vancouver cartoonist David Boswell, creator of alternative comic Reid Fleming: World's Toughest Milkman, will join the Canadian Cartoonists Hall of Fame at this year's Doug Wright Awards.

Organizers of the annual awards announced the honour on Wednesday, along with nominees for its annual celebration of the best in Canadian, English-language comic works.

The weeklyReid Fleming strips, first printed in Vancouver's Georgia Straight in 1980, follow a milkman as he deals with grouchy managers, angry customers, hoodlums on hot rods and mad dogs, along with otherhazards of modern life.

The strips were collected in two hardcover volumes and issued in comic form from Boswell's Heart Break Comics. Boswell is also a photographer and artist.

Hamilton, Ont. cartoonist David Collier and web comic creators Kathryn and Stuart Immonen are among those in the running for the 2011 Wright Awards.

Nominees for best book:

• Bigfoot by Pascal Girard.
• Chimo by David Collier.
• Lose #2 by Michael DeForge.
• Moving Pictures by Kathryn Immonen, Stuart Immonen.
• Streakers by Nick Maandag.

Nominees for best emerging talent:

• Entropy # 5 by Aaron Costain.
• Spain and Morocco by Alex Fellows.
• Catland Empire by Keith Jones.
• Orc Stain Volume One by James Stokoe.
• Baba Yaga and the Wolf by Tin Can Forest, aka Marek Colek and Pat Shewchuk.

Nominees for the Pigskin Peters award fornon-traditional and avant-garde comics:

• Indoor Voiceby Jillian Tamaki.
• Stooge Pile by Seth Scriver.
• So I've Been Told by Maryanna Hardy.
• Spotting Deer by Michael DeForge.
• Wowee Zonk #3 edited by Patrick Kyle, Ginette Lapalme and Chris Kuzma.

Created in 2004, the Doug Wright Awards were named after the late cartoonist and creator of Doug Wright's Family, which ran in newspapers both in Canada and abroad from the late 1940s until the early 1980s. Past winners have includedSeth,Mariko and Jillian Tamaki,Jeff Lemire andBryan Lee O'Malley.

The 2011award ceremony will be held in Toronto on May 7.