Absolute Batman has taken Best Series in the 2026 Ringo Awards results, while self-published creator and publisher Matt Garvey won Best Comics-Related Publication for Making Your First Comic. The awards were presented in connection with Baltimore Comic Con, and the results also marked a major showing for Absolute Martian Manhunter collaborators Deniz Camp and Javier Rodríguez.

That combination makes the results notable beyond a single superhero-series win. Absolute Batman came through in a Best Series field that also included Absolute Martian Manhunter, Coexistence, FML, Granite State Punk, and Murder Podcast. Meanwhile, Garvey’s win put a self-published instructional comics book alongside publications devoted to creators, comics history, and the form itself.

Absolute Batman takes the marquee series honor

Best Series is often the simplest award category for readers to understand: it recognizes a continuing comics project rather than isolating one craft discipline, a single short story, or an individual volume. Absolute Batman winning places it at the head of a field spanning major publishers, smaller presses, and self-published work.

The nominated Best Series slate shows that contrast clearly:

  • Absolute Batman — DC Comics
  • Absolute Martian Manhunter — DC Comics
  • Coexistence — self-published
  • FML — Dark Horse Comics
  • Granite State Punk — Orange Cone Productions
  • Murder Podcast — Ignition Press

For DC readers keeping up with the publisher’s broader output, the result sits near other current superhero-comics discussion, including the publisher’s Wonder Woman material covered in our look at Wonder Woman 2026 Annual: Wonder War – The Matriarch Special #1. The significant point here is narrower, though: the Ringo result belongs to Absolute Batman as a series, not to an individual issue or cover.

Deniz Camp and Javier Rodríguez’s multiple honors

Absolute Martian Manhunter did not take Best Series, but its creative team still emerged as one of the clearest success stories in the 2026 results. Deniz Camp and Javier Rodríguez received multiple awards across the creator categories.

Camp is recognized in the Best Writer category. Rodríguez’s presence is especially broad: he appears in the Best Artist or Penciller/Inker Team, Best Colourist, and Best Cover Artist results. Those are distinct areas of comics production, even when one creator’s work connects them on the page.

What those craft categories mean

Writing covers the storytelling blueprint: plot, characterization, scene construction, dialogue, narration, and the pacing of information from panel to panel. A comics writer’s work is not merely prose; it needs to function in concert with visual storytelling and page space.

Pencils and inks refer to the drawing stages traditionally associated with comics art. Pencilling establishes the imagery and composition, while inking finishes or reinforces line work. Awards may recognize an individual artist or a penciller/inker partnership because the end result is shaped by both disciplines.

Colouring does more than fill in a finished drawing. Colour choices can direct a reader’s eye, establish atmosphere, differentiate settings, support time shifts, and make action legible. Cover art, by comparison, has a different job: it is a single image intended to represent, sell, or intrigue readers about a comic or collection before they reach its interior pages.

Rodríguez being recognized across those visual categories is therefore a meaningful indication of range. It also explains why Absolute Martian Manhunter remains central to this year’s awards conversation despite Absolute Batman claiming the Best Series trophy.

Matt Garvey wins for Making Your First Comic

Garvey’s Making Your First Comic won Best Comics-Related Publication. The category is broader than an award for a conventional comic story. Its field includes books and magazines about comics, artists, and comics culture, meaning it can reward a practical creator guide as readily as an art book or an interview-focused publication.

The other named works in the category were:

  • Becoming Frazetta – The Early Years of a Fantasy Art Master
  • COMICS! The Magazine #0
  • Facing Feelings: Inside the World of Raina Telgemeier
  • Graphic Samurai: The Art of Denys Cowan
  • Messiahs, Meshugganahs, Misanthropes, and Mysteries

The win is particularly useful as a reminder that comics awards can honor the ecosystem around sequential art as well as the finished stories. A publication about how to make a comic is a different type of object from a graphic novel, but it addresses an essential part of the medium: helping prospective creators understand how to begin.

“Self-published” matters here as a publishing description, not as shorthand for a lesser tier of work. The same awards slate includes self-published projects in categories such as Best Series, Best Short Story, and Best Humour Comic. Garvey’s category win is a concrete example of independent publishing receiving recognition alongside books from large and established companies.

The results cover a wide map of comics formats

The full 2026 field ranges far beyond ongoing superhero series. Categories include original graphic novels, short stories, kids comics divided by age range, anthologies, humour comics, webcomics, humour webcomics, non-fiction comics, design, and comics-related publications. That structure matters because these formats ask very different things of creators.

An original graphic novel is presented as a book-length comics work rather than as a collected run of previously serialized issues. Among the titles listed in that category were Herobear and the Kid Vol. 1 – The Inheritance, Black Arms To Hold You Up, Drome, The Ephemerata: Shaping the Exquisite Nature of Grief, and Gamemasters: The Comic Book History of Roleplaying Games.

The kids categories distinguish works for readers age 11 and under from those aimed at readers 12 and up. The younger group included Walt Disney’s Mickey Mouse and the Amazing Lost Ocean, The Fire Breathing Duckling, Max, A Little Axolotl, and The Patchwork Girl of Oz Volume 1. The older group included Raised by Ghosts, Dracula’s Brunch Club, Hello Sunshine, and Wynd Book Four: The Power of the Blood.

Age bands do not automatically describe quality or complexity. They describe intended readership, helping books with different audience expectations avoid competing directly in one catch-all children’s category.

Webcomics, nonfiction, and anthology work also appear

The webcomic fields recognize comics made for digital reading. The listed Best Webcomic titles include Neon Pantheon, Battle Mage Farmer, Before We Sail, Daughter of a Thousand Faces, The Mafia Nanny, and Marionetta. The humour-webcomic lineup includes Nothing Butt Nightwing, The Bathroom Ghost, Evil Inc., Harley Quinn in Paradise, I Am The Chief, My Little Warlord, and Taste of Justice.

These are not simply print-comic categories relocated online. Digital comics can be built around different publishing rhythms and reading environments, while a humor-specific group allows comedy to be judged among works designed to make that effect central.

The nonfiction category similarly makes room for comics that engage with real people, history, biography, social subjects, or documented experience. Its listed works included Surrounded: America’s First School for Black Girls, 1832, Fela: Music is the Weapon, Ginseng Roots, Love Letters Every Day, Lucas Wars, and Muybridge.

Anthologies, meanwhile, collect work by multiple contributors or bring separate stories under one editorial umbrella. The 2026 list includes Bowling with Corpses and Other Strange Tales From Lands Unknown, Flash Gordon Adventures Vol. 2, Jim Henson Presents, Knapsack Magazine Volume 2: Butter, unSEEN/unHEARD: Disability & Neurodivergence Comic Anthology, and Young Men in Love: New Romance.

Career, humanitarian, and fan-voted recognition

The award announcements also include honors that do not fit the standard competitive craft categories. Jim Lee received the Lifetime Achievement Award. Jeffrey Brown received the Dick Giordano Humanitarian of the Year Award, and Jim Calafiore received the Kevin Brogan Fidelity Award.

Fan-focused awards named Reese Hannigan as Fan Favourite New Talent, Excavator as Fan Favourite Series, Etan Comics as Fan Favourite Publisher, and Doctor Doom as Fan Favourite Villain. Chip Kidd and Michael Cho received the Mike Wieringo Spirit Award for Avengers in the Veracity Trap.

Those results provide a useful counterpoint to the craft awards. Best Series and the creator categories focus attention on individual works and disciplines, while fan favorites point to the people, publishers, characters, and titles with direct audience enthusiasm. Career and humanitarian honors recognize contribution on a still different scale.

Why the 2026 results stand out

The headline is easy to state: Absolute Batman is the year’s Best Series winner. But the fuller picture is more varied. Camp and Rodríguez’s multiple recognition gives Absolute Martian Manhunter a substantial creative footprint. Garvey’s victory for Making Your First Comic demonstrates that a self-published instructional project can stand beside major publisher releases. And the category lists run from horror-tinged short work and children’s books to webcomics, historical nonfiction, design, and humor.

That spread is the practical value of reading beyond the biggest trophy. Readers seeking a current superhero series have an obvious starting point in Absolute Batman. Aspiring makers can note Garvey’s recognized guide. Readers interested in visual craft have Rodríguez’s multi-category showing to follow, while the webcomic and youth-comics lists offer entry points outside the monthly-floppy conversation. The 2026 Ringo Awards results are, in short, a snapshot of comics as a medium with many routes in and many kinds of work worth recognizing.