The 2004 Web Cartoonist’s Choice Awards were announced July 25th. Big congratulations are in order for newcomer Adrian Ramos who picked up 6 awards for Count Your Sheep. Penny Arcade remains a favorite with 5 more awards to put on their mantle, including Outstanding Website Design. Both these titles share the coveted Outstanding Comic award this year.
The full list of categories and winners follows below:
OUTSTANDING COMIC: Count Your Sheep by Adrian Ramos, Penny Arcade by Mike Krahulik & Jerry Holkins
OUTSTANDING NEWCOMER: Count Your Sheep by Adrian Ramos
OUTSTANDING ART: Mac Hall by Ian McConville & Matt Boyd, Scary-Go-Round by John Allison
OUTSTANDING WRITING: Penny Arcade by Mike Krahulik & Jerry Holkins
OUTSTANDING USE OF FLASH: Homestar Runner by the Brothers Chaps
OUTSTANDING USE OF INFINITE CANVAS: The Morning Improv by Scott McCloud
OUTSTANDING WEBSITE DESIGN: Penny Arcade by Mike Krahulik & Jerry Holkins
OUTSTANDING BLACK AND WHITE ART: Zebra Girl by Joe England
OUTSTANDING CHARACTER (Visual): Wapsi Square by Paul Taylor
OUTSTANDING NEW CHARACTER DESIGN: Count Your Sheep by Adrian Ramos
OUTSTANDING ENVIRONMENT DESIGN: Reman Mythology by Amy Kim Ganter
OUTSTANDING LAYOUT: Mac Hall by Ian McConville & Matt Boyd
OUTSTANDING USE OF COLOR: Mac Hall by Ian McConville & Matt Boyd
OUTSTANDING CHARACTER (Writing): Count Your Sheep by Adrian Ramos
OUTSTANDING COMEDIC COMIC: Penny Arcade by Mike Krahulik & Jerry Holkins
OUTSTANDING DRAMATIC COMIC: Demonology 101 by Faith Erin Hicks
OUTSTANDING LONG FORM COMIC: Demonology 101 by Faith Erin Hicks
OUTSTANDING SHORT FORM COMIC: Count Your Sheep by Adrian Ramos
OUTSTANDING STORY CONCEPT: Elf Only Inn by Josh Sortelli
OUTSTANDING ANTHROPOMORPHIC COMIC: VG Cats by Scott Ramsoomair
OUTSTANDING FANTASY COMIC: Count Your Sheep by Adrian Ramos,
Errant Story by Michael Poe
OUTSTANDING GAMING COMIC: Penny Arcade by Mike Krahulik & Jerry Holkins
OUTSTANDING REALITY COMIC: Real Life by Greg Dean
OUTSTANDING ROMANTIC COMIC: Queen of Wands by Aeire
OUTSTANDING SCIENCE FICTION COMIC: Saturnalia by space coyote,
Schlock Mercenary by Howard Tayler
OUTSTANDING SUPERHERO / ACTION COMIC: Sparkling Generation Valkyrie Yuuki by Kittyhawk
Congrats to all the winners! Glad to see a few new names up there too!
– dunk
I’m quite happy for Elf Only Inn and Count Your Sheep, and I really rooted for Fallen Angel Used Books. Two out of three can’t be so bad.
Now, Goddamit, not only Homestar Runner got nominated, it also won? I think we need a better screening next time (if there’s going to be a next time, seeing as how more and more artists look at the WCCA’s with disdain)
I had a whole long diatribe and while there are a few standouts, its not worth it these awards an an f-ing joke.
In regards to Homestar Runner, I think it’s simply because there just AREN’T a lot of webcomics utlizing flash anyway. Frankly, I’m not sure flash is even used enough in webcomics to warrent a category yet.
What really sticks in my craw is that Scott McCloud was pretty much guarenteed to win the infinite canvas category this year. He was nominated TWICE in the SAME category. I mean GIVE ME A BREAK. There are dozens of people eliglible for that second nomination besides McCloud. Now don’t get me wrong, I’m not saying McCloud doesn’t deserve this award, his work is fantastic. I’m just saying two nominations gave him an unfair advantage.
I dunno, maybe the critics are right and web comic awards are a bit of a farce. I particpated again this year because I believe talented people deserve to be credited for their work. Just not the SAME people every year.
I’m not upset that the majority of my nominations weren’t represented in the final tally. With thousands of web comics out there, I figured a lot of my nominations would be different from my peers. What upsets me is how the awards are practically the same as last year, and the year before that. Yeah, Megatokyo, Penny Arcade, ect. are great and all, but there a lot of equally great comics out there not getting represented in those categories. It surprises me the majority of cartoonists participating voted so remarkably similar three years in a row.
Ah well, Count Your Sheep, Wapsi Square, and Zebra Girl got props. That makes me happy.
Saga of the Ram
“In regards to Homestar Runner, I think it’s simply because there just AREN’T a lot of webcomics utlizing flash anyway. Frankly, I’m not sure flash is even used enough in webcomics to warrent a category yet.”
Well… It shows how much people are missing the great flash works out there. They are not looking hard enough, and that together with the huge popularity HR has put the award on their hands.
Jeeze, there are more people unsing flash than you think. The awesome works at e-sheep (specially Apocamon) didn’t even get nominated. Same goes to John Barber’s Vicious Souveniers and e-merl’s Hypercomics.
Now, I feel I shouldn’t be bitching now, because it would look like I’m not happy for those who win, which is not true. But there is someone who shouldn’t be given an award because it cannot apply to it. As many others have put, Homestar Runner is not a webcomic.
I can’t argue with you there, it’s certainly not. I wonder if the Brother’s Chaps are confused as to why they keep getting webcomic awards?
Put me down for the “Homestar Runner is NOT a Webcomic” crowd.
It’s a Webtoon, not a webcomic. It’s like “Mr. Wong” and “Queer Duck” and “Hard Drinkin’ Lincoln” and all those other webtoons that came and died before it.
I understand your frustration, but please note that Scott McCloud’s nomination did not bump anyone else from the ballot. If he did not receive two nomination, only 3 comics would have qualified for the category. However, by dividing his site into two nominations, it actually forced him to compete against himself giving the other two comics a BETTER chance than if all of his votes had been combined together. Unfortunately it still wasn’t enough to get one of the others a win.
Also note that among all of these complaints and negativity, we are always eager for people to join our planning committee and help us find ways to improve the award process. These awards belong to the entire community and anyone and everyone who has a strong opinion, and is willing to work to back it up, is strongly encouraged to help us.
Thanks,
Mark Mekkes
PS. As for Penny Arcade always winning…. Please check previous winners lists to see how many times it’s won the top award in the past.
I think the fact that Count Your Sheep was able to stand toe to toe with such a strongly established strip is an even better indication of how successful CYS is and makes the award much more valuable than if it won simply because we disqualified all of “the comics that nobody likes because too many people like it”
Congratulations to all of the winners!
Mark, I understand your position, I just have a hard time believing only three people were qaulified for the infinite canvas category. But I’ll just chalk that up to too many people nominating the same comics. That’s an issue nothing can really be done about.
Change the rules to one nomination and as soon as a comic gets nominated nobody can nomicate it again. That’ll cut down on the “me too” during the nomination process.
That’s a very good idea for the initial nominations, Ghastly. Although I’m not entirely sure how the final nominations are tallied in the current system. Mark?
“I just have a hard time believing only three people were qaulified for the infinite canvas category.”
It’s just like the Homestar Runner thing, Brian. The people who vote don’t look hard enough.
Although, I’m not really surprised. Scott Mcloud IS the name that comes up when you think of infinite canvas.
Yes, obviously this would have to be done during the nomination round. Once we took previous winners off the ballot, it’d be done.
This has been discussed and debated ALOT. There are some definate advantages to this, but also some negative implications. As soon as comics start getting taken out of the process, it cheapens the awards to some degree. That nagging question will always remain “would I have won if ‘comic x’ was in the running?” By keeping the competition as powerful as possible, the awards become more valued and honored (and more heatedly debated).
Also, do you mean to say that once a comic has won any award they should no longer be qualified for any other award? (please note that there is very little reoccurance of the same comics winning the same major category more than once. Check the past results) Once a comic has won “Outstanding Newcomer” are you suggesting that they should be done and can’t show their specific expertise in categories the next year? Why shouldn’t a comic be able to brag that it’s “won Outstanding ‘such-and-such’ award X years in a row!”
I think that the real issue (and we welcome any ideas on how to do this) is to make sure that voters are voting specifically on a comics performance during the past year and not for it’s entire run. If a comic wins for Outstanding Writing, then follows it up with a year of even better writing, there’s no reason it shouldn’t win two years in a row. However a comic shouldn’t be winning for it’s debut after it’s begun to go down hill. I think a lot of times voters just plug in their favorites without taking this into consideration.
Mark
Voter knowledge is a huge problem.
One of the goals of the WCCA is to broaden awareness of quality comics, but in order to do that, enough voters need to know about quality comics in order to get them on the ballot (I think Count Your Sheep is a great example of a success story this year).
But the problem is really kind of a chicken/egg thing, we can only promote the comics that people are already nominating. I’d love to help encourage people to check out a wider variety of comics before voting, but there’s no way for the WCCA to do that without seeming bias. We have to rely mostly on the community to do that part.
Mark
Man, Ghastly pretty much called this one.