The JACK AND ROZ KIRBY AWARDS take shape

The three organizations behind the all-new Jack & Roz Kirby Awards have started sharing details about the event, which is set to take place during Original Art Expo weekend in Orlando Florida next month (February 20-22).

The Jack & Roz Kirby Awards are intended to recognize “innovation, excellence, and humanity in narrative communication,” according to their mission statement — and that’s reflected in the names of their chosen awards.

According to ICv2, these brand new awards – first announced back in October – will cover a total of seven categories divided into two groups (called ‘Core’ or ‘Legacy’). The majority of the awards will be pretty open in terms of timescale, but winners become ineligible for renomination for a 5-year period.

Regarding the seven categories, five sit within the Core group and two within Legacy – and each has short, single-word,descriptive names. These are:

(CORE) 

• • Independence – creators who have carved their own paths free of commercial demands or censorship
  • Innovator – those who explore unique avenues of the medium in terms of ideas in technique and delivery
  • Visionary – those whose work is strikingly original
  • Newcomer – rewarding those earlier in their artistic career (this will have a more limited timescale of eligibility but no specifics provided)
  • Storyteller – those who communicate powerful stories

(LEGACY)

• • Teacher – those who have made the effort to pass their knowledge on
  • Creator – recognition for an entire life’s body of work (no timescale of minimum eligibility provided)

Some of these categories seem to overlap somewhat, most notably Innovator and Visionary. Based on the category descriptions in ICv2’s piece, it seems Innovator is the practical side around making the comic, and Visionary is more about ideas or explored themes within the comic itself. Then Storyteller would be purely about narrative and characterisation. All of this is speculation based on what little information we have, but we should get a much clearer idea when the nominees drop.

Also disclosed are the three administering committees for the awards, an Oversight Council to oversee the process, a Voting Committee of creators to pick winners/nominees, and an Advisory Board who are providing input on the awards themselves, the ceremony, marketing, and potential candidates for each year’s Voting Committee. Only the Voting Committee can select final nominees and winners in every category. Members of the Advisory Board can only make one nomination for the Legacy Awards (Teacher and Creator) while the Oversight Council can both nominate and vote on the Legacy Awards.

The creator-only Voting Committee for the inaugeral edition of the Jack and Roz Kirby Awards comprises Dean Haspiel, Jimmy Palmiotti, Eli Schwab, Tom Scioli, and Allison Sohn.

Members of the Oversight Council include ComicArtFans CEO and Kirby Awards creator Kasra Ghanbari; Rosalind Kirby Trust representative Tracy Kirby; and Kirby Museum president and trustee Tom Kraft. 

The Advisory Board is itself a bit of a comics industry and ecosystem whose who: Rodney Barnes, Julie Bell, Sarahjane Blum, Jim Demonakos, Andrew Farago, Gamal Hennessy, Esq., Tamsin Isles, Jann Jones, Adam Kubert, Chris Ryall, ICv2 columnist Rob Salkowitz, Roy Schwartz, Jeff Singh, MD, Jim Steranko, Jeff Trexler, Esq., Sean Watkins, PhD, and Joe Wos.

The Jack & Roz Kirby Awards were first announced in October 2025. They are named after immensely influential, visionary artist Jack Kirby and his wife Rosalind ‘Roz’ Goldstein-Kirby, who fought to uphold his legacy. The awards are administered as a three-way collaboration between original art collection website Comic Art Fans, the Jack Kirby Estate (represented by the Rosalind Kirby Family Trust), and the Jack Kirby Museum & Research Center.

Historically these are the second set of awards to bear Jack Kirby’s name. The first ran from 1985-87 and were the immediate precursor to both the Eisner and Harvey Awards. They were held at San Diego Comic Con, sponsored by Amazing Heroes magazine (published by Fantagraphics), and run by its editor Dave Olbrich. A dispute led to their discontinuation after only a few years.