Cover of Gene Day's Black Zeppelin #1, a posthumous collection of Day's work.

Joe Shuster Canadian Comic Book Creator Awards introduce the Gene Day Award for Canadian Self-Publishing in 2009.

“Gene Day really showed me that success in a creative field is a matter of hard work and productivity and persistence.” (Cerebus creator and self-publisher Dave Sim)

The Gene Day Award for Self-Publishing honours Canadian comic book creators who self-published their work during the previous calendar year. The award includes a bursary of $500.

In order to qualify you must be a citizen and current resident of Canada. Anyone who writes and illustrates a comic book of their own creation (includes creative teams) and publishes and sells that comic independently of any other publishing company and does not currently have said works distributed by a third party distributor may submit their publication for review.

Format and content is at the discretion of the creators. Must include new content, not reprinted material from other sources (such as webcomics). There are no language restrictions for this award.

Entries should be sent to:

GENE DAY AWARD SUBMISSIONS
C/O THE JOE SHUSTER AWARDS
PO BOX 67031 – 2300 YONGE STREET
TORONTO, ON M4P 3C8

Closing date for submissions: Monday, May 18th, 2009.

Entries may be submitted in person to the Joe Shuster Awards booth at the following Canadian events:

* Toronto ComiCON Fan Appreciation (April 18-19)
* Calgary Comic and Entertainment Expo (April 25-26)
* Toronto Comic Arts Festival (May 9, 10).

All entries will be reviewed by an independent jury consisting of members of the Canadian comics community. Entries will be judged individually based on originality, literary and artistic merit, and overall presentation.

The finalists will be announced on Monday, June 1st, 2009 and the winner will be announced at the Joe Shuster Awards ceremony in Toronto on Saturday, June 27th, 2009 at the Lillian Smith Library Auditorium.

About Gene Day
Gene Day (1951-1982) began his career in the Canadian alternative comix scene. In the seventies he began his own publishing imprint, Shadow Press/House of Shadows and put out over twenty issues of Dark Fantasy, a horror/fantasy/sci-fi digest that featured the early writings of Joe Lansdale, Charles De Lint, John Bell and Charles R. Saunders, amongst others; a short-lived comic publication, Out of the Depths and various other one-shots, portfolios, and prints. Day drew for the Skywald magazines Psycho and Nightmare from 1974, as well as the Canadian comic anthology, ORB, and Mike Friedrich’s independent comics company Star Reach, contributing to the Star Reach anthology, Image and Quack. Day did illustrations for fantasy role-playing games and had a collection of his comic stories, Future Day, published by Flying Buttress Press as a hardcover graphic novel in 1979.

He was a longtime inker on Marvel’s Master of Kung Fu title by Mike Zeck, starting in 1976 and later took over as full penciller on the series. He also inked on the licensed Star Wars series, pencilled by Carmine Infantino, as well as The Mighty Thor and Marvel Two-in-One featuring The Thing. From 1985 to 1986, Renegade Press published four issues of Gene Day’s Black Zeppelin, an anthology series primarily featuring stories and painted covers Day completed before his death, as well new contributions by Sim, Bruce Conklin, Augustine Funnell, and Charles Vess. More of his work appeared posthumously in Caliber Comics’ anthology series Day Brothers Presents, which also featured the work of Day’s artist brothers, David and Dan Day.

Dave Sim credits Gene Day as his earliest and most influential mentor and the inspiration for his own self-publishing efforts. Gene Day was inducted into the Canadian Comic Book Creator Hall of Fame in 2007.

About The Joe Shuster Awards
Established in 2004, The Joe Shuster Awards are Canada’s first national award recognizing outstanding achievement in the creation of comic books and are named after pioneering Toronto-born artist Joe Shuster who, along with writer Jerry Siegel, created the iconic super-powered hero, Superman. The name is used with the approval of the Estate of Joe Shuster - Michael Catron, Estate Agent. Executive Directors: James Waley and Kevin A. Boyd

For more information contact info@joeshusterawards.com