Ting deskMerle “Ting” Tingley to be inducted into Giants of the North

by BK Munn
The Doug Wright Awards have announced their 2015 nominees for the best comics produced by Canadians over the past year. The nominees were selected by panel made up of Jerry Ciccoritti, Barbara Postema, Sean Rogers, Geneve Firanski and Chester Brown. The winners will be chosen by a jury made up of cartoonist and teacher Fiona Smyth, cartoonist and past DWA nominee Zach Worton, and Conan Tobias, Editor-in-Chief and Publisher of Taddle Creek magazine. The winners will be announced at the awards ceremony during TCAF on May 9.
The ceremony will also feature the induction of retired London Free Press political cartoonist Merle “Ting” Tingley into the Giants of the North: The Canadian Cartoonist Hall of Fame. The 93-year-old Ting won many awards in his day and according to the Wright awards organizers, “is regarded by many as the dean of Canadian newspaper cartoonists.” Widely-syndicated for 40 years, Ting’s cartoons are remembered by many “thanks to his signature cartoon mascot, “Luke Worm”, which he included in each of his cartoons creating a “look-and-find” game for many of his younger readers.” The London-based Ting Comic and Graphic Arts Festival is named for him.
Here are the nominees:

Best Book

Ant Colony, by Michael DeForge (Drawn & Quarterly)
Fatherland, by Nina Bunjevac (Jonathan Cape/Random House)
Safari Honeymoon, by Jesse Jacobs (Koyama Press)
The People Inside, by Ray Fawkes (Oni Press)
This One Summer, by Jillian Tamaki and Mariko Tamaki (Groundwood/First Second)

Doug Wright Spotlight Award (a.k.a. “The Nipper”)

Aaron Costain, for Entropy #10
Elisabeth Belliveau for One Year in America (Conundrum Press)
Julie Delporte, for Everywhere Antennas (Drawn & Quarterly)
Meags Fitzgerald, for Photobooth: A Biography (Conundrum Press)
Simon Roy for Tiger Lung (Dark Horse)
Sophie Yanow, for War of Streets and Houses (Uncivilized Books)

Pigskin Peters Award (“unconventional, experimental, or avant-garde Canadian comics”)

Comics Collection 2010-2013 and Less than Dust by Julien Ceccaldi
Great Success! 1983-2013 by Henriette Valium (Crna Hronika)
New Comics #3-5 by Patrick Kyle (Mother Books)
Undocumented: The Architecture of Migrant Detention by Tings Chak (The Architecture Observer)
“Swinespritzen” by Connor Willumsen