Awards | Noelle Stevenson's Nimona has been nominated for a Nebula Award, presented presented by the Science Fiction & Fantasy Writers of America. As Gary Tyrrell points out, the Nebulas (unlike the Hugos) don't have a specific graphic novel category; Nimona is nominated for the Andre Norton Award for Young Adult Science Fiction and Fantasy. [SFWA]



Awards | San Francisco-based cartoonist Mark Fiore is the winner of this year's Herblock Award for political cartooning, becoming the first cartoonist to win based entirely on a portfolio of animated cartoons. His work is published online on SFGate.com, Daily Kos and other websites. [Comic Riffs]

Comic strips | Several newspapers have run substitute strips instead of this week's Dilbert, in which the character Asok signs up as an Uber driver. Universal Uclick offered strips from 2011 to clients who didn't want to run the Uber-themed storyline in light of last weekend's shooting of six people in Kalamazoo, Michigan, by an Uber driver. [Lake County Record-Bee]

Political cartoons | Chinese political cartoonist Badiucao, who now lives in Australia, talks about the difficulty of distributing his work on social media. He has been blocked repeatedly from the Chinese social-media service Weibo (which is so heavily censored that it's become "a desert for political expression," he said), so he posts his work on Twitter, which is blocked by the Chinese government. "The people who try to use VPNs or other methods to go around the firewall [to access Twitter] are the ones who truly care about the truth of China," he said. "Because this audience so loves my work, they would volunteer to upload my work inside of China." [ABC]



Graphic novels | A politician in Northern Ireland is criticizing the Northern Ireland Arts Council for partially financing a graphic biography of Bobby Sands, who died on hunger strike in 1981 protesting the British treatment of Irish prisoners. Tom Elliott, the MP for Fermanagh South Tyrone, called Sands a "terrorist" and said, "Because it is a comic book it is directed at young people. It is wrong to be sending out a message that somehow terrorism is appropriate. That is just not right." A spokesman for the council defended the grant, saying the publisher submitted a "strong" application and the author has a "significant track record" as a creator of historical graphic novels. "We do not interfere with editorial content nor do we draw a line regarding content chosen by publishers which may attract controversy," he said. [Irish Times]

Creators | Four creators — Robot Hugs, Sylvie Reuter, Ruby etc, and Lauren Reis — talk about their depictions of mental illness and how posting them on social media is creating a new conversation about mental health. [BBC]

Creators | Artist Marcos Martin, co-creator of The Private Eye and Barrier, is the guest on the latest Off Panel podcast. [Sktchd]

Advice | The folks at ComicPrintingUK, a printer that specializes in comics, has advice for self-publishers. [Down the Tubes]

Conventions | Laura Mehaffey talks about her work as librarians of the Carolina Manga Library, which travels to conventions all over the country. [The OASG]