The 61st annual Nebula Awards, organized by the Science Fiction and Fantasy Writers Association (SFWA), was held last night, and the first ever Nebula Award for Best Comic went to Jessica Maison for Mary Shelley’s School for Monsters: The Killing Stone. The graphic novel, created with artist Anna Wieszczyk, and letterer Mark Krotzer, is the second installment in the series published by Maison’s imprint Wicked Tree Press, which reimagines the Frankenstein author as having become an immortal monster, who founded a school for other misunderstood creatures.
Mary Shelley’s School for Monsters: The Killing Stone cover by Anna Wieszczyk
Maison beat out Kit Anderson, Amy Chu, Bilquis Evely & Tom King, Jeff Lemire, Ariel Slamet Ries, Jason Walz, and G. Willow Wilson, who were respectively nominated for Second Shift, Carmilla: The Eternal, Helen of Wyndhorn, Fishflies, Strange Bedfellows, The Flip Side, and The Stoneshore Register. Because of the controversy over the SWFA only recognizing the comics’ writers, next year’s award will be renamed the Nebula for Comics Writing, meaning Maison will also be the only winner of this particular prize.
Other winners this year included Jennifer Hudak‘s “The World to Come,” in the similarly new Poem category; The Buffalo Hunter Hunter, by Stephen Graham Jones, for Best Novel; Clair Obscur: Expedition 33, by Guillaume Broche and Jennifer Svedberg-Yen, for Game Writing; and Apple TV’s Murderbot, by Paul and Chris Weitz, which received the Ray Bradbury Nebula Award for Outstanding Dramatic Presentation.
N.K. Jemisin was named the SWFA’s 42nd Damon Knight Memorial Grand Master, while the Kate Wilhelm Solstice Award for a significant impact on the genre went to sci-fi zine editor and critic David Langford; the Kevin O’Donnell Jr. Service Award, honoring SWFA contributors, went to Gay Haldeman; and Roger Zelazny received the posthumous honor of the Infinity Award.
Congratulations to all the winners! For the full list, head to the SWFA’s website, and you can watch the full ceremony below. (Jessica Maison’s acceptance speech begins about 1:15 hrs in.) The 62nd Nebula Awards will be held in Seattle in June 2027.
