Colleen Doran’s adaptation of the Neil Gaiman short story Chivalry, published by Dark Horse, won the 2023 Locus Award for Best Illustrated and Art Book. The ceremony took place on June 24, 2023 as part of the Locus Awards Weekend, comprised of author readings and panels. Comics – and Neil Gaiman – adjacent, the winner of the 2023 Locus Award for Best Artist went to another frequent Neil Gaiman artistic collaborator/adaptor Charles Vess.
On receiving news of the award win, Doran posted on Twitter, saying:
So very grateful to Neil for letting me do this story after I begged for thirty years. Thank you, thank you. My Holy Grail.
— Colleen Doran (@ColleenDoran) June 25, 2023
“Wow, thank you, even I didn’t expect this, but thank you muchly, and wonderful news to [Neil Gaiman], [Dark Horse Comics] and to [the late Terry Pratchett, whose biography by Rob Wilkins won a Non-Fiction award] and Charles Vess. Nice being in the same boat with you. Again.”
She added:
“ So very grateful to Neil for letting me do this story after I begged for thirty years. Thank you, thank you. My Holy Grail.”
Neil Gaiman chimed in:
“Very proud of what Colleen Doran and Todd Klein and the Dark Horse team made.”
Very proud of what @ColleenDoran and Todd Klein and the Dark Horse team made.
— Neil Gaiman (@neilhimself) June 25, 2023
And Dark Horse tweeted:
“Chivalry has won the Locus Award in the Illustrated and Art Book category! Congratulations to Colleen Doran, [Neil Gaiman], Todd Klein, and team!”
Chivalry has won the Locus Award in the Illustrated and Art Book category! Congratulations to @ColleenDoran, @neilhimself, Todd Klein, and team! More below: pic.twitter.com/OJyFti26K3
— Dark Horse Comics (@DarkHorseComics) June 25, 2023
Doran is a multi-award winning artist and illustrator who has adapted a number of Neil Gaiman short stories for the comics medium. Her 2019 adaptation of his short story Snow, Glass, Apples received an Eisner Award and a Bram Stoker Award. Doran was recently announced as a finalist in the National Cartoonist Society’s 2022 Reuben Divisional Awards for Graphic Novels. She currently has an exhibition at New York’s Society of Illustrators running until July 29.
Neil Gaiman’s short story Chivalry was first collected and republished in his 1998 collection Smoke and Mirrors: Short Fictions and Illusions. The story tells of an elderly widow who accidentally finds the Holy Grail in a thrift store. It has been one of Gaiman’s most popular stories and has been adapted into other media – including as a Christmas audio play by the UK’s BBC Radio 4 in 2019.
Other comics and graphic novels among the ten nominated works in the Best Illustrated and Art Book category included: Tananarive Due, Steven Barnes and Marco Finnegan’s The Keeper (Abrams/Megascope); Marjorie Liu & Sana Takeda’s The Night Eaters, Book 1: She Eats the Night (Abrams ComicArts); and Valya Dudycz Lupescu & Vic Terra’s Mother Christmas, Vol 1: The Muse (Rosarium).
The Locus Awards are a group of annual literary science fiction and fantasy prizes voted on by the readers of the long running Locus Magazine. They have taken place since 1971. Thus far there has not been a separate prize category for comics and graphic novels but they are regularly found alongside art books of photography and illustrations, and illustrated novels/childrens books in the Illustrated and Art Book category.
