Last updated on June 30th, 2026
The 2026 GLAAD Media Awards were held last week in Los Angeles. The awards honor LGBTQ representation in media.
Below’s a look at this year’s animation and comics related winners. Winners in each category are in bold; animation/comic related entries are in italics. A full list of nominees and winners is here.
Outstanding Comedy Series
- Palm Royale (Apple TV)
- Hazbin Hotel (Prime Video)
- Abbott Elementary (ABC)
- Big Boys (Hulu)
- Ghosts (CBS)
- Hacks (HBO)
- Loot (Apple TV)
- The Righteous Gemstones (HBO)
- Survival of the Thickest (Netflix)
- The Upshaws (Netflix)
Outstanding Children’s Programming
- Firebuds (Disney Jr.)
- Be@rbrick (Apple TV)
- “Ghost Town,” Mermicorno: Starfall (HBO Max)
- Star Wars: Young Jedi Adventures (Disney Jr./Disney+)
- “No Wrong Way to Be You,” Sesame Street (HBO Max)
Outstanding Kids & Family Programming – Animated
- Adventure Time: Fionna and Cake (HBO Max)
- The Bravest Knight (Hulu)
- Jurassic World: Chaos Theory (Netflix)
- Moon Girl and Devil Dinosaur (Disney Channel)
- The Proud Family: Louder and Prouder (Disney+)
Outstanding Video Game
- Lost Records: Bloom and Rage (DON’T NOD)
- Ambrosia Sky: Act One (Soft Rains)
- Assassin’s Creed Shadows (Ubisoft)
- The August Before (Silly Little Games/Catoptric Games)
- Cabernet (Party for Introverts/Akupara Games)
- The Great Villainess: Strategy of Lily (One or Eight/Alliance Arts)
- Hades II (Supergiant Games)
- Old Skies (Wadjet Eye Games)
- Road to Empress (New One Studio)
- The Roottrees are Dead (Evil Trout Inc.)
Outstanding Comic Book
- Avengers Academy: Marvel’s Voices, by Anthony Oliveira, Elsa Sjunneson, Carola Borelli, Bailie Rosenlund, Pablo Collar, Charles Stewart III, Alti Firmansyah, Minkyu Jung, KJ Díaz, Ruth Redmond, Dono Sánchez-Almara, Ariana Maher, Joe Caramagna (Marvel Infinity Comics)
- Absolute Green Lantern, by Al Ewing, Jahnoy Lindsay, Jason Howard, Riley Rossmo, Sid Kotian, Iñaki Azpiazu, Pressy, Lucas Gattoni (DC Comics)
- The Department of Truth, by James Tynion IV, Martin Simmonds, Letizia Cadonici, Aditya Bidikar, Jordie Bellaire, Dylan Todd (Image Comics)
- Exceptional X-Men, by Eve L. Ewing, Carmen Carnero, Federica Mancin, Nolan Woodard, Travis Lanham (Marvel Comics)
- Minor Arcana, by Jeff Lemire, Patricio Delpeche, Letizia Cadonici, Steve Wands (BOOM! Studios)
- The Oddly Pedestrian Life of Christopher Chaos: Children of the Night, by Tate Brombal based on an idea by James Tynion IV, Isaac Goodhart, Priscilla Petraites, Miquel Muerto, Aditya Bidikar (Dark Horse Comics)
- Poison Ivy, by G. Willow Wilson, Marcio Takara, Brian Level, Atagun Ilhan, Mark Buckingham
- Arif Prianto, Lee Loughridge, Hassan Otsmane-Elhaou, Tom Napolitano (DC Comics)
- Runaways, by Rainbow Rowell, Elena Casagrande, Roberta Ingranata, Lee Ferguson, Dee Cunniffe, Travis Lanham (Marvel Comics)
- Secret Six, by Nicole Maines, Stephen Segovia, Cian Tormey, Roger Cruz, Rain Beredo, Steve Wands (DC Comics)
- Wynd: The Power of the Blood, by James Tynion IV, Michael Dialynas, Andworld Design, Nancy Mojica, Madison Goyette (BOOM! Studios)
Outstanding Original Graphic Novel/Anthology
- Gaysians, by Mike Curato (Algonquin Books)
- Cannon, by Lee Lai (Drawn & Quarterly)
- Dan in Green Gables, by Rey Terciero, Claudia Aguirre (Penguin Workshop)
- First Kiss with Fangs, by Marker Snyder (Holiday House)
- Hey, Mary!, by Andrew Wheeler, Rye Hickman, Hank Jones, Frank Cvetkovic (Oni Press)
- It Rhymes With Takei, by George Takei, Steven Scott, Justin Eisinger, Harmony Becker, José Villarrubia (Top Shelf Productions)
- Low Orbit, by Kazimir Lee (Top Shelf Productions)
- A Song for You and I, by K. O’Neill (Random House Graphic)
- Spent, by Alison Bechdel, Holly Rae Taylor, Jon Chad (Mariner Books)
- Trans History: From Ancient Times to the Present Day, by Alex L. Combs, Andrew Eakett, Tif Bucknor (Candlewick Press)
Disney TV shows vs. Pixar’s “therapy”
This year’s children’s programming winner is “Firebuds,” a Disney Jr. series about kids that have adventures with sentient talking emergency vehicles (think Pixar’s “Cars” if humans actually coexisted). One of the kids has two Moms, while one of the talking cars has two Dads (who’re also talking cars). There’s also a minor nonbinary character. I note there’s also a few other Disney Jr. shows with same-sex parents: a doll couple on “Doc McStuffins” (one voiced by Wanda Sykes) and Nash Durango on “Star Wars: Young Jedi Adventures,” who has two Moms.
This brings me to Pixar executive Pete Docter’s statement last week noting that studio’s films basically are cutting any mention of or depictions of LGBTQ folk (enforced with their flop “Elio”). In Docter’s words, “we’re making movies, not hundreds of millions of dollars of therapy.” Like I noted in last year’s GLAAD Media Awards post, I expected Disney and other studios to start rolling back LGBTQ representation under Trump’s second term, since they’re afraid of losing money, and thus would rather appease bigots. However, I didn’t expect “no gays” to be basically said out loud, which might be a sign of where things are heading.
The “therapy” remark also shows A) Docter is unaware of what Pixar’s own corporate siblings are doing (since the same kids watching Pixar films have already seen LGBTQ characters on Disney Jr.) and B) movies have millions of dollars of lucrative box office at stake, and thus are prone to more conservative approaches than a relatively “disposable” TV show. Thus, the oddness that a show aimed at preschoolers can have gay parents as secondary characters, while Pixar has deemed such “a bridge too far” for their movies. (Ignoring, of course, future Disney Jr./Disney+ shows possibly dialing back on LGBTQ representation to appease Trump/bigots.) Let alone a “mature” PG-13 movie getting an easily-excisable, appears-for-10-seconds gay character (“Avengers: Endgame”).
Years ago, I used to go to the theater to watch new Pixar films. But the above “therapy” remarks, the quality having slid off, and needless sequels (“Toy Story 5?!”) all send the message I can just wait for their future films to hit DVD/Blu-ray. That way, I can either buy them used or get them from the library for free. Or skip seeing them at all and watch something else; if Pixar doesn’t seem to care about their films (beyond the box office), why should I?
Other thoughts
The kids and family programming winner is the “Adventure Time: Fionna and Cake” revival. It beat out two Disney-owned shows (“Moon Girl and Devil Dinosaur,” “The Proud Family” revival) and “The Bravest Knight,” a third-party show that in the US is streamed on Disney-owned Hulu.
“Hazbin Hotel” was nominated for the general outstanding comedy series category, but lost to Apple TV’s “Palm Royale.”
On the comics side, “Avengers Academy: Marvel’s Voices” is this year’s comic book winner. The comic is a Marvel Unlimited webcomic about a superhero school for young heroes, including the aforementioned Moon Girl and Devil Dinosaur. Winning for outstanding graphic novel is “Gaysians,” about a group of gay Asian American friends in Seattle.
The video game winner this year is “Lost Records: Bloom & Rage,” a two-part adventure game about a group of teenage girls in the mid-90s who reunite as adults in the present. It’s available for PlayStation 5, Windows, and Xbox Series X/S (sorry, Switch/MacOS/Linux users?).
Live-action stuff
Over on the live-action side, it’s not surprising that Crave/HBO Max series “Heated Rivalry” is the winner for outstanding new TV series. For outstanding drama series, “The Sandman” saw a nomination (despite Neil Gaiman’s current status), as well as Disney+’s “Doctor Who,” though both lost to Netflix’s “Stranger Things.”
The Hallmark Channel/Hallmark+ also saw a few nominations: “Finding Mr. Christmas” was nominated for outstanding reality competition program, where it was up against “RuPaul’s Drag Race”; both lost to Peacock’s “The Traitors.” Hallmark Christmas movies “A Keller Christmas Vacation” and “The Christmas Baby” were both nominated for “outstanding film—streaming or TV,” along with Paramount+’s “Noah’s Arc” reunion film; all of these lost to Netflix’s “Queen of Coal.”
Image: “Firebuds.” (Disney Jr.)
