Ngozi Ukazu | |
---|---|
![]() Ukazu at the 2018 Texas Teen Book Festival | |
Nationality | American |
Area(s) | Cartoonist, Writer |
Notable works | Check, Please! |
Awards | "Digital Book of the Year" Harvey Award (2019) "Outstanding Comic" Ignatz Award (2019) |
http://www.ngoziu.com |
Ngozi Ukazu is an American cartoonist and graphic novelist. In 2013, she created the webcomic Check, Please!, which later became a New York Times-bestselling graphic novel.
Ngozi Ukazu grew up in Houston, Texas. [1] [2] She attended Bellaire High School, where she contributed to the school’s newspaper, The Three Penny Press, as the comics editor. She is the daughter of Nigerian parents. [2] She studied computer science, obtaining a degree in Computing and The Arts from Yale University in 2013 [3] and earned a masters degree in Sequential Art from the Savannah College of Art and Design in 2015. [4]
Ukazu launched Check, Please! as a webcomic in 2013 after writing a screenplay about Eric "Bitty" Bittle, a gay college freshman and champion figure skater who joins a hockey team. [5] [6]
Ukazu created a Kickstarter campaign in 2015 to print the first volume of the comic; the campaign resulted in the highest-funded comics project in Kickstarter's history. [7] In 2018, the first installment, Check, Please!: #Hockey, was published by First Second Books. [1] The sequel, Check, Please!: Sticks & Scones, was a New York Times bestseller in May 2020. [8]
For DC Comics she created the graphic novel Barda in 2024, both writing and illustrating. [9]
Webcomics are comics published on the internet, such as on a website or a mobile app. While many webcomics are published exclusively online, others are also published in magazines, newspapers, or comic books.
Colleen Doran is an American writer-artist and cartoonist. She illustrated hundreds of comics, graphic novels, books and magazines, including the autobiographical graphic novel of Marvel Comics editor and writer Stan Lee entitled Amazing Fantastic Incredible Stan Lee, which became a New York Times bestseller. She adapted and did the art for the short story "Troll Bridge" by Neil Gaiman, which also became a New York Times bestseller. Her books have received Eisner, Harvey, Bram Stoker, Locus, and International Horror Guild Awards.
The Will Eisner Comic Industry Awards, commonly shortened to the Eisner Awards, are prizes given for creative achievement in American comic books, referred to as the comics industry's equivalent to the Academy Awards. The awards are regarded by many as the most prestigious, significant awards in the comics industry. They are named in honor of the pioneering writer and artist Will Eisner, who was a regular participant in the award ceremony until his death in 2005. The Eisner Awards include the Comic Industry's Hall of Fame.
Carla Speed McNeil is an American science fiction writer, cartoonist, and illustrator of comics, best known for the science fiction comic book series Finder.
Ryan North is a Canadian writer and computer programmer.
First Second Books is an American publisher of graphic novels. An imprint of Roaring Brook Press, part of Holtzbrinck Publishers, First Second publishes fiction, biographies, personal memoirs, history, visual essays, and comics journalism. It also publishes graphic non-fiction for young readers, including the Science Comics and History Comics collections, and for adults, including the World Citizen Comics, a line of civics graphic books, and biographical works such as The Accidental Czar.
Raina Telgemeier is an American cartoonist. Her works include the autobiographical webcomic Smile, which was published as a full-color middle grade graphic novel in February 2010, and the follow-up Sisters and the fiction graphic novel Drama, all of which have been on The New York Times Best Seller lists. She has also written and illustrated the graphic novels Ghosts and Guts as well as four graphic novels adapted from The Baby-Sitters Club stories by Ann M. Martin.
Dean Edmund Haspiel is an American comic book artist, writer, and playwright. He is known for creating Billy Dogma, The Red Hook, and for his collaborations with writer Harvey Pekar on his American Splendor series as well as the graphic novel The Quitter, and for his collaborations with Jonathan Ames on The Alcoholic and HBO's Bored to Death. He has been nominated for numerous Eisner Awards, and won a 2010 Emmy Award for TV design work.
Erfworld was a story-driven fantasy/comedy webcomic and independently published graphic novel about a master strategy gamer summoned into and stuck inside a wargame running from December 2006 to its abrupt cancellation in October 2019. It featured contemporary memes and pop culture references.
Kathryn Moira Beaton is a Canadian comics artist best known as the creator of the comic strip Hark! A Vagrant, which ran from 2007 to 2018. Her other major works include the children's books The Princess and the Pony and King Baby, published in 2015 and 2016 respectively. The former was made into an Apple TV+ series called Pinecone & Pony released in 2022 on which Beaton worked as an executive producer. Also in 2022, Beaton released a memoir in graphic novel form, Ducks: Two Years in the Oil Sands, about her experience working in the Alberta oil sands. Publishers Weekly named Ducks one of their top ten books of the year.
Jennifer Sheena "Jen" Wang is an American cartoonist, writer and illustrator based in Los Angeles. Wang has published graphic books including Koko Be Good,In Real Life, and The Prince and the Dressmaker. Wang is a co-founder and organizer for Los Angeles-based comics festival Comic Arts LA. Jen's art work has been published in Adventure Time and LA Magazine.
Notable events of 2013 in webcomics.
Notable events of 2012 in webcomics.
Check, Please! is a 2013 webcomic written and illustrated by Ngozi Ukazu. It follows vlogger and figure skater-turned-ice hockey player Eric "Bitty" Bittle as he deals with hockey culture in college, as well as his identity as a gay man. Ukazu provides fans of Check, Please! a variety of extra content through her Tumblr and a dedicated Twitter account, establishing a piece of transmedia storytelling to expand on worldbuilding. A large fan base has accumulated around Check, Please!, and when Ukazu set up a Kickstarter campaign to fund the physical release of a first volume of the webcomic, she reached her goal with ease. In November 2019, Ukazu started up a Kickstarter to fund a Check Please! "chirpbook" containing Bitty's best tweets. The Kickstarter surpassed her goal within a single day. In 2021, Ukazu started a Kickstarter to fund a Year Four release with one of the rewards including a new comic entitled "Madison" taking place between Years Two and Three. On the final day of the campaign, the Check Please! Year Four Kickstarter became the most funded webcomics Kickstarter ever.
Notable events of 2017 in webcomics.
Oglaf is a sexually explicit comedy webcomic produced by Australians Trudy Cooper and Doug Bayne.
Notable events of 2019 in webcomics.
Media related to Ngozi Ukazu at Wikimedia Commons