The five nominees for the first Dwayne McDuffie Award of Diversity Award have been announced, and they include: Hex11 (HexComics), by Lisa K. Weber and Kelly Sue Milano

-- M.F.K. (mfkcomic.com), by Nilah Magruder
-- Ms. Marvel (Marvel), by G. Willow Wilson and Adrian Alphona
-- The Shadow Hero (First Second Books), by Gene Luen Yang and Sonny Liew
-- Shaft (Dynamite Entertainment), by David F. Walker and Bilquis Evely

The winner will be announced at a ceremony on February 28, at the Long Beach Comic Expo.  Film director and comic writer Reginald Hudlin will be the Keynote Speaker at the event.

The award was created in memory of McDuffie, a comic and TV writer and co-founder of Milestone Media, who passed away at 49 in 2011 (see "RIP Dwayne McDuffie").

Hudlin and Milestone co-founders Denys Cowan and Derek Dingle recently re-formed Milestone Media (see "Milestone Returns as Milestone Media 2.0").