April 20, 2026

April 20, 2025
For Immediate Release

WHITE RIVER JUNCTION, VERMONT – The Center for Cartoon Studies is thrilled to announce the 14th annual Cartoonist Studio Prize winners whose work exemplifies excellence in cartooning. An astonishing volume of work was submitted for this year’s award, with nominees in each of the “long-form” categories, and the “short-form” categories were selected in March. The winners for each category are listed below.

Long-form winner:
Do Admit! The Mitford Sisters and Me by Mimi Pond (Drawn & Quarterly)

Named for one of their family catchphrases, this stunning graphic biography follows the Mitford sisters—six notorious English debutantes—as they come of age against the backdrop of World War Two, mingle with a Who’s Who of twentieth-century luminaries, and grow to embody the deep political schisms erupting across Europe in miniature.

Pond effortlessly weaves together the historic and the intimate as she traces the arcs of their lives, all contrasted against her own adventure-starved upbringing in San Diego. Endlessly inventive page compositions maintain the story’s distinctly playful sensibility; words careen and bound across the page with the infectious enthusiasm of their author. 

Do Admit! blasts apart the usual constraints of biography and memoir to produce a staggeringly rich work that is just as much a love letter to comics form as it is to the six sisters who so profoundly captured Pond’s imagination.

Short-form Winner:
Two Snakes by Suerynn Lee (Alright Press)

Told through a series of conversations, but well versed in the uses of silence, Two Snakes is an eloquent study of a fraught relationship between two snakes navigating their places in the world. 

As they slither side by side through a lush yet solitary landscape, they meditate on the expectations of their families and the social forces that have kept them apart. Soon enough, they are forced to confront the limits of what they are able to offer one another, whether it be escapism or absolution.

Concise in its vision and fully realized from start to finish, Lee’s fifteen-page story is an exquisitely crafted minicomic that demonstrates the unique power of short-form, with Lee’s ink wash, risographed in a deep Prussian blue, proving the perfect visual complement to a narrative about murkiness, fluidity and change.

The Center for Cartoon Studies (CCS) offers a two-year course of study that centers on the creation and dissemination of comics, graphic novels, and other manifestations of the visual narrative. Experienced and internationally recognized cartoonists, writers, and designers teach classes for our students. CCS programs include a two-year Master of Fine Arts Degree, One- and Two-Year Certificates in Cartooning, and annual summer workshops. The school is located in the historic downtown village of White River Junction, Vermont. cartoonstudies.org