2025 Ignatz Awards Winners

The 28th annual Ignatz Awards were announced in-person and via livestream last night at the Small Press Expo. I was in attendance so I frantically took my notes and typed this up as soon as I got home. Below are the winners of the 2025 Ignatz Awards, honoring the year’s best independent and small press comics.

Outstanding Anthology

“Rust Belt Review,” Vol 6, ed. by Sean Knickerbocker (Self-Published.)

Self-described as America’s favorite serialized literary comics anthology, vol. 6 features comics by: David Caldwell, Brian Canini, Andrew Greenstone, Ivy Lynn Allie, Valerie Light, Matt MacFarland, Alex Nall, Ana Pando, John Sammis, Maggie Umber, and Sean Knickerbocker.

Outstanding Artist

Anders Nilsen for “Tongues Supplement” #1 by (NoMiracles.)

A supplemental issue (see below for more) for Anders Nilsen’s series “Tongues.” Anders is a three-time Ignatz winner and his previous work includes “Big Questions,” “The End,” and “Poetry is Useless” and has been featured in New York Times, Poetry Magazine, Kramer's Ergot, Pitchfork, The New Yorker and elsewhere. Also, apparently, he worked for a while as both cook and curator at the James Beard recognized Lula Cafe in Logan Square.

Outstanding Collection

“World Within the World” by Julia Gfrörer (Fantagraphics.) 

“World Within the World” collects over 30 works of short fiction - scary and unsettling, moving and dense, funny and sexual and profane and human, from the stone age to the space age and beyond - that had previously only been available in self-published zines or independent anthologies, many of them rare or out-of-print — until now.

Outstanding Comic

“Tongues Supplement” #1 by Anders Nilsen (NoMiracles.)

An extra issue to Nilsen’s “Tongues” series that comprises two extended scenes featuring Prometheus and the Eagle talking about deep history and sharing glimpses of their own biographies as well as another scene with Astrid. It is also collected, in a rearranged order, in the first volume of “Tongues,” out now from Pantheon.

Outstanding Graphic Novel

“Precious Rubbish” by Kayla E. (Fantagraphics.)

A debut graphic novel, “Precious Rubbish” uses the aesthetics of mid-century children’s comics - short comics, gag panels, fake ads, games, and puzzles - to tell the story of a childhood shaped by maternal emotional dysregulation, rural poverty, and incest.

Outstanding Mini-Comic

“Allodynia” by Violet Kitchen (Self-Published.)

An attempt to repair a fraying relationship via experimental medical study forces a character to confront their own relationship to pain…and its limits in this comic about the nature of empathy and our relationship to sickness. Originally released during the 2024 ShortBox Comics Fair.

Outstanding Online Comic

“Home by the Rotting Sea” by Otava Heikkilä (Online.)

From the creator of “Letters for Lucardo” and “The Second Safest Mountain,” comes this comic that follows two women living at an inflection point of hostilities between two different people in the now-melted arctic. It has been delisted from itch so this direct link is one of the few ways to find it. Originally released during the 2024 ShortBox Comics Fair.

Outstanding Series

“Wedding Juice” by Sanika Phawde (Self-Published.)

Revealing deep feelings related to familial and cultural commitments, “Wedding Juice” tells the autobiographical story of Sanika’s family’s attempts to plan a “small” Indian wedding from opposite sides of the planet in a ridiculously short amount of time over facetime.

Outstanding Story

“Boy Island” by Leo Fox (Silver Sprocket.)

Ignatz-award winner Leo Fox’s modern transgender fable weaves its way along the path of becoming with humor and insight, channeled through Leo’s iconic art and storytelling style.

Promising New Talent

Vicky Yang for “Unmoored” (Self-Published.)

Vicky Yang is a 22 year old artist and recent college graduate formerly living in New York. “Unmoored” is a story processing the time right after graduation, the disconnect between college life and the “real world,” the fear of these changes, as well as confronting familial grief and distance.

Once you’re done with this year’s winners, check out the Ignatz Archive for past winners and nominees, currently going back to 2019. The Ignatz will return next year at the 32nd SPX, held…

And for more SPX-related content in the coming weeks, consider subscribing! I got a lot of books this year and I’m excited to get to talk about them. Apologies if I spelled anyone’s name wrong. It is 2 am and I am so very tired.