Acclaimed graphic novels chronicling topics as diverse as daily life in Burma and the trials of a teen outsider in Toronto will vie for the 2009 Doug Wright Awards.

Organizers revealed on Monday this year's nominees for the comic and cartooning award's three categories.

Quebec-born, France-based artist Guy Delisle is among the best book nominees for Burma Chronicles, which emerged after he spent 14 months in Burma, also known as Myanmar, with his wife — an administrator for Médecins sans frontières (Doctors without Borders) — and their child.

Another Quebecer, well-known comic artist Michel Rabagliati, is also a best book nominee for Paul Goes Fishing — the Montrealer's fourth instalment of his semi-autobiographical tale.

Rounding out the best book nominees are two debut works: Drop-in by Dave Lapp, based on his experiences as a teacher at a Toronto drop-in centre, and Skim by Jillian and Mariko Tamaki. (New York-based illustrator Jillian Tamaki is a CBCNews.ca Arts contributor.)

The latter, which was originally a short comic before the two cousins expanded the story into a full-length work, explores teen angst, suicide, homosexuality and life in general at an all-girls school in 1990s Toronto.

Five up-and-coming artists are nominated for best emerging talent, including:

• Kate Beaton for History Comics.
• Caitlin Black for Maids of the Mist.
• Jason Kieffer for Kieffer #2.
• Jesse Jacobs for Blue Winter, Shapes in the Snow.
• Nick Mandaag for Jack & Mandy.

The jury selecting this year's best book and best emerging talent winners consists of Liberal MP Bob Rae, Maclean's national editor and CBC-TV political commentator Andrew Coyne, Globe and Mail books editor Martin Levin and cartoonists Joe Ollmann and Diana Tamblyn.

The Pigskin Peters Award, an honour introduced last year and aimed at celebrating avant-garde and non-traditional comic works, has four finalists:

• Hall of Best Knowledge by Ray Fenwick.
• Ojingogo by Matthew Forsythe.
• All We Ever Do is Talk About Wood by Tom Horacek.
• Small Victories by Jesse Jacobs.

Filmmaker Don McKellar will host the fifth annual Doug Wright Awards gala in Toronto on May 9. The ceremony, slated for the Art Gallery of Ontario, will include the induction of Birdseye Center cartoonist Jimmie Frise into the Giants of the North Canadian cartooning Hall of Fame.

The Doug Wright Awards honour excellence in Canadian artistic or alternative comics.

The annual prize is named for the U.K.-born, Canadian cartoonist whose work was published in magazines and newspapers such as the Hamilton Spectator and the Montreal Standard. Wright, who died in 1983, is best known as the creator of the internationally syndicated comic strip Nipper (later known as Doug Wright's Family).