The winner of the 11th annual Dwayne McDuffie Award for Diversity in Comics was announced at San Diego Comic-Con on July 24. The prize went to Rodney Barnes and Elia Bonetti for their horror series Crownsville, which follows a detective and journalist investigating a suicide at the infamous, abandoned Crownsville Hospital in Maryland.
Barnes accepted the award in-person at the ceremony, hosted by Phil LaMarr. Charlotte McDuffie states, “I am so proud of this year’s winners, Rodney and Elia! And it was wonderful that Rodney could be here in person. Please, everyone check out their award-winning book, Crownsville, as well as our other nominees’. All of our finalists and winners from the past 11 years will be made available for purchase on DwayneMcDuffie.com soon!”
This year’s other nominees consisted of Age 16 by Rosena Fung; Ra! Ta! Ma! Cue!, by Howie Shia; Okchundang Candy, by Jung-Soon Go; and Flip, by Ngozi Ukazu. All of the creators were first-time nominees, with Crownsville marking Barnes and Bonetti’s first win for the award. The comic’s win comes ahead of its release in trade paperback on Tuesday, August 11.
The Dwayne McDuffie Award for Diversity in Comics was established in 2015 to honor the memory of the late writer, who died in 2011, aged just 49, after complications from emergency heart surgery. The organizers share that actor J. August Richards, who played one of McDuffie’s characters (Deathlok) on Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D., was meant to give this year’s keynote speech, but was unable to attend at the last minute. Instead, he sent a video speech from Culver Studios, and “the crowd at the DMAD ceremony burst into laughter [after] Richards’ video speech was shut down by studio lot security!”
Stay tuned to The Beat for more news from SDCC ’26.
