The UK may not have such a big comic market as France has but it goes without saying that it’s just a matter of time before all this existing and emerging talent weave a real industry… time for some great publishers like Blank Slate, NoBrow or Myriad to get big, and initiatives like the new British Comic Awards can only help and encourage artists & publishers to get better.

The nominees of this freshly created initiative that “celebrates the very best in British comics” were just announced yesterday, not that many surprises but some real good stuff within the emerging talent category.
As you’ve probably read before, for this first edition there are 5 award categories: Best Comic, Best book,Young People’s Comic Award, Emerging talent & Hall of Fame… and while the winners won’t be announced until next November @ the Thought Bubble Comic Art Festival we already have some favorites.

From the always minimalistic meticulousness of Tom Gauld‘s ungraceful characters to the extremely talented Will Kirkby whose creatures sometimes remind us of the best Mignola, there is a lot of good art competing. Worth mentioning and stopping by at every single artists’ webpages, but ourselves we highly encourage you to stop by Louis Roskosch, Kristyna Baczynski or Joe Decie (on top of Tom or Will of course).

Those are just a few examples of this year’s nominated talent, the rest of the nominees and much more info on their web page.
