The nine nominees for this year’s Sophie Castille Awards for Comics in Translation – English have just been announced. The winner will be announced at the Lakes International Comic Art Festival, taking place 26-28 September 2025. This is the third year of the Sophie Castille Award – English, an award for the best translation of a non-English graphic novel into English. Publishers worldwide were invited to submit for consideration graphic novels they have published that are translations of works into the English language.
“We’re thrilled to be working with our partners, VIP Brands, Ltd., and Comica in the presentation of these important Awards,” commented LICAF Director Julie Tait. “Translation is a nuanced and complex aspect of bringing international work into English and to a new audience; a skill much underappreciated and certainly not the job of machines.”
The jury comprises three judges: Alex Fitch is the presenter of the UK’s only monthly broadcast radio show on comics – Panel Borders – on the Arts Council Radio Station in London. He has been widely published on the topics of film and graphic novels, lectures on the History of Animation at the University of Brighton, and is an award-winning postgraduate comics scholar.
Dr. Harriet E. H. Earle is a senior lecturer of English at Sheffield Hallam University and a research fellow at the Centre for War, Atrocity, and Genocide at Nipissing University in Canada. She is the author of Silence in the Quagmire: The Vietnam War in US Comics and Comics: An Introduction.
Gabi Putnoki is the driving force behind the Graphic Novel Reading Room, a comic community initiative spreading the love of graphic novel reading and bringing new readers to the form.
The nine nominees for this year’s Award in English are:
- Martha Kuhlman and Tereza Čechová for Bald, by Tereza Čechová and Štěpánka Jislová. English edition by Graphic Mundi. Originally published in Czech as Bez vlasů by Nakladatelství Paseka in 2020
- Diana Schutz and Brandon Kander for Blacksad: They All Fall Down, Part Two, by Juan Díaz Canales and Juanjo Guarnido. English edition by Dark Horse Comics. Originally published in French by Dargaud in 2021
- Margaret Morrison for Capital & Ideology, by Claire Alet and Benjamin Adam. English edition by Abrams Comic Arts. Originally published in French by Sueil in 2021
- Jerome Saincantin & Erica Olson Jeffrey for Harry Dickson Vol. 1: Mysterion, by Jean Ray, Onofrio Catacchio, Doug Headline and Luana Vergari. English edition by Cinebook. Originally published in French as Harry Dickson – Mystera by Dupuis in 2023
- Victor Martins for Not Today: Undoing Home Repairs by Ana Margarida Matos. English Edition by Fieldmouse Press. Originally published in Portuguese as Hoje Não by Chili Com Carne
- Ryan Holmberg for Oba Electroplating Factory by Yoshiharu Tsuge. English edition by Drawn & Quarterly. Originally published in Japanese as 大場電気鍍金工業所 in 1973 by Futabasha. Read the Beat’s review here.
- Andrea Rosenberg for Return to Eden by Paco Roca. English edition by Fantagraphics. Originally published in Spanish as Regreso al Edén by Astiberri Ediciones in 2020
- Robin Lang and Helge Dascher for The Jellyfish by Boum (Samantha Leriche-Gionet). English edition by Pow Pow Press. Originally published in French as La méduse by Pow Pow in 2024 Read the Beat’s review here.
About The Sophie Castille Awards for Comics in Translation:
“These awards are to honor translators who are, more often than not, the unsung heroes of comics in translation. The difference between a good and bad translation will be the difference in the success of the comic in translation. This award is for translators and all unsung heroes in the comics industry. A way to remind us all to remember and respect all those that make comics the wonder that they are.
They have been created in honour of Sophie Castille, international rights director and V. P. of licensing for Mediatoon and cofounder and director of Europe Comics, who died unexpectedly in 2022. Since the late nineties, Sophie built bridges for bandes dessinées and their authors from France and around the world. She was a constant source of creativity, motivating publishers from all over the world and encouraging them to exchange ideas. She became a key figure in the growth of comics and graphic novel translations around the world.
Comics and graphic novels, considered in France as The Ninth Art, are a diverse and dynamic international medium that is growing in popularity every year and is loved the world over. Spreading these works internationally through translation is a way to bring the world together.”
