Winners of the 39th Aydın Doğan International Cartoon Competition Received Their Awards

The award ceremony of the 39th Aydın Doğan International Cartoon Competition, organized by the Aydın Doğan Foundation and held every year with the participation of cartoon artists from all over the world, took place on November 14^th at Hilton Istanbul Bosphorus. Pawel Kuczynski from Poland received the grand prize, while Elena Ospina from Colombia the second, and Halit Kurtulmuş Aytoslu from Türkiye received the the third. Empowered Girls, Empowered Futures special award was presented to Oğuzhan Çiftçi, while Muhammet Şengöz from Türkiye, Xiaoqiang Hou from the People's Republic of China, and Zygmunt Zaradkiewicz from Poland were awarded the Success Award.

Speaking at the award ceremony, Aydın Doğan Foundation Chief Executive Officer Candan Fetvacı said, “We are very proud to organize the 39th Aydın Doğan International Cartoon Competition this year. This internationally respected competition, where thousands of pieces are competing every year and the drawings are selected with great care by very valuable masters, requires great care, effort and determination. The majority of the pieces submitted to our competition in recent years focus on global problems. Drawing is the oldest and most valuable means of communication. We see that cartoon art sheds light on our lives with its unique form of expression. "Moreover, we meet with pieces created without resorting to words, with the silent but universal power of the drawings".

The ceremony was held with the participation of guests from society and the world of art; well-known names like Ercan Akyol, Gürbüz Doğan Ekşioğlu, Tan Oral, Gülgün Çarkoğlu, İzel Rozenthal, Tülay Güngen, Kamil Masaracı, Ayşegül Kirpiksiz and Cem Erciyes were present during the event.

Children's Book Illustration and Graphic Novel Honor Awards were also presented to their winners.

At this ceremony, specially for the 100th Anniversary of our Republic, Aydın Doğan Foundation presented the Honorary Awards, which is awarded this year to the artists who have shaped the field of illustration and who have produced active works from the first days of their careers till today with their contemporary, modern and original pieces. Those deemed worthy of the Children's Book Illustration Honor Awards are; our valuable artists, Can Göknil, Mustafa Delioğlu, Feridun Oral, who regularly produce pieces in their field, whose published books inspire today's cartoonists and illustrators, and who also share their experience and knowledge by serving as jury members. Meanwhile the Graphic Novel Honor Award was given to İlban Ertem.

The "Graphic Novel Award" and "Children's Book Illustration Award" given under the Aydın Doğan International Cartoon Competition, were also presented to their owners on the same night. The 2021 Graphic Novel Grand Prize was awarded to İlker Gazioğlu for the piece "Post-Apocalyptic Bird Paradise", and the 2022 Graphic Novel Grand Prize was awarded to Uğur Erbaş for "Germakoçi".

The 2021 Children's Book Illustration Grand Prize was awarded to Burcu Yılmaz for "If", and the 2022 Grand Prize to Ceyhun Şen for " The Song of the Wind ".

The pieces competing in the cartoon competition can be viewed between November 15^th and December 8^th.

The pieces that won awards and were deemed worthy of exhibition in the 39th Aydın Doğan International Cartoon Competition will be open to visitors at the Turkish Journalists Association Press Museum between the dates November 15^th and December 8^th.