I do think the WCCAs are important (as important as any award is) due to the fact that these awards are handed out by your peers. The people you are competing with for eyeballs every day are stopping, taking their hats off to you, and saying, "Good job, mate." All in all, I see it as a pretty damned good indication of what your peers think of you and your work. How some people see that as bad, I have no idea. But hey, webcomic people. Go figure...
But I gotta be honest with you folks, since the last WCCAs I stopped reading webcomics. There are a few reasons for it, but it means I'm pretty out of the loop now. So, I thought I'd be the perfect person to tell you what I think deserves to win a few of the awards. I'm not going to go over all of them since there's something like 2400 categories now. Just sharing a few of my picks with you in the hopes you'll think about what you'll be voting for in a few months instead of voting for whatever has the most buzz.
I'm only linking a few of these. I'm lazy and you all got Google.
Outstanding Comic is sort of like Best Picture at the Oscars, and you know what I'm going to say should win it?
The reason for this is simple. Garrity is always ON. She's been able to balance the needs of the story with the needs of the gag, and I haven't seen too many creators who've been able to pull that off. Also, this is her final year. And while it may be more appropriate for 2007, I think this getting it would make for a pretty good "thanks"
Outstanding Artist is a hard one to pick. Not because there's a huge amount of creators deserving it. But because the handfull of really good artists are all really, REALLY good. I think this one will/ should come down to Kazu Kibuishi or Derek Kirk Kim. I'm leaning towards DKK because of his technical skills over Kazu's coloring brilliance.
Outstanding Use of Flash / Outstanding Use of Infinite Canvas. I'm not sure which one this falls under, but Five Ways To Love a Cockroach was probably the best use of new approaches for a pretty accessible work.
Outstanding Comedic Comic. Any one of the TABB comics would be suited for this award. As much as I like Dinosaur Comics, I'm going to predict that Perry Bible Fellowship is going to ride it's huge buzz into this award
Outstanding Anthropomorphic Comic. Isn't Kris Straub doing a furry-sex comic starring a cockroach now? Give it to him.
Outstanding Gaming Comic. Now, I know this is going to come down to Penny Arcade, Little Gamers, and VG Cats as it always does, but let me tell you about another comic I think you should consider:
Naoko Muragama: Video Game Champion.
Now, I'm not just pushing this because Shaun Henderson has been my buddy for about twenty years now. Nor am I pushing it for the large amounts of T&A on display. Henderson has taken the idea of the gaming comic and has applied a plot to it. You may not believe this, but people actually make it their job to play videogames professionally. Yeah, they get paid to do something you normally do because you're either unemployed or can't get a date. Wild, huh? Naoko Muragama has successfully placed an 80s teen movie into this environment. Yeah, it is low-brow. But what comic about videogames isnt? Basically, the guy has added something new to a pretty tired genre, and I think that needs to be recognized.
Outstanding Romantic Comic. This category was wasted last year. And I'm not just saying that because my comic came in second to Questionable Content. Neither It's About Girls, nor QC, deseved to win it simply because the third-place comic, Red String, was the only actual romance comic nominated.
(But this doesnt mean you shouldnt nominate me for everything you can. Please do. I deserve it.)
Now, here's a couple of things I think need to be added:
Outstanding Adult Webcomic. There are a lot of them out there. A lot! I think it's a strong enough genre to deserve recognition.
Outstanding Webcomics Blog/ Magazine AKA The Eric Burns Memorial Award. I mean, if you're going to have a couple of awards for webcomic peripherals like site design, then this needs to be recognized as well.
Anyway, I hope anyone reading this thinks about what they're voting for in the next few months instead of just looking at what's in their bookmarks. You're applauding your peers after all.
Make sure what we say is "the best" deserves it.
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Comments
Thank you!
Excellent post! I'm a firm believer that more people need to be doing this.
Share your thoughts and opinions, give your fellow voters suggestions.
Not only is this going to build a stronger award process, but (I believe)
a better webcomic community/industry.
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Not holding my breath.
I doubt Adult Webcomics will ever get a catagory of their own for two reasons.
One is the generally negative attitude and lack of respect people in the arts community, even an already depraved and lowly arts community like webcomics, have for anything overtly and explicitly sexual.
Secondly it's the mistaken notion that it would only be a competition between Clay, Ghastly, Tang, and Josh Lesnick, simply because a lot of sexually explicit adult comics are unknown by the masses. Critics are loath to write about adult webcomics and even when they do it's usually in a very derogatory way. An adult webcomics catagory (or "Mature" webcomics catagory is the word "adult" makes some people hyperventilate) might still be dominated by the quadrinity of Clay, Tang, Ghastly and Lesnick but at least it would hopefully see some other adult webcomic artists getting some needed exposure.
It all comes down to the age old cliche that it's more socially acceptable to depict explicit scenes of voilence than it is to depict explicit scenes of sex.
Obviously note that there is
Obviously note that there is nothing about Adult (or Mature) comics that disqualifys them for any of the other award categories. We're just debating if it should qualify as one of the 4th tier "genre" categories. Personally, I don't see any reason why we wouldn't at least discuss it. Although you're right, it's probably going to come down to a "majority rules" vote.
Visit www.zortic.com and www.abbysagency.us
Considering nomenclature,
Considering nomenclature, would an "Erotica" category be more feasible? This would have the advantage of including more suggestive and softcore works, thus dispelling the idea that there would only be four possible contestants, but would still keep the emphasis on sex. Also, "Erotica" is a bit more recognized as a literary genre than "Adult" or "Mature," even though it's pretty much the same thing.
On a quasi-related note--I'd really love to see a category for short comics. Not short-form comics, but actual short stories. I realize these too are eligible in other categories, but they only ever really compete in the technical categories. A ten-page short story just doesn't have much chance of competing against multi-year epics in the major categories.
You Don't Read Webcomics, But...
Here are your recommendations for who should win?
You know how it is, Boxjam...
Life is filled with conflicts, contradiction, and confusion. Some things we're just not meant to understand.
Is it that time of year already?
Thanks for pimping Naoko, there, Bill. I doubt that it's going to crack the invincible, Chris Benoit-like stranglehold that the big gaming comics have upon the webcomic reading public, but it's appreciated none the less.
As for adult webcomics, well, you don't see "Best Adult Film" at the Oscars. Even though there is innovation going on in the field of adult webcomics, the mainstream acceptance just isn't there even among the more porn-tolerant audience that comprises the internet.
Hell, some of 'em get anxious when you have exposed boobies in your comic.
Quote:Outstanding Romantic
To be honest, I think Outstanding Romantic Comic is a wasted category in general. There just don't seem to be an awful lot of comics that are purely "romance"; and the ones that do exist are usually quite unknown, so people end up nominating more popular comics of other genres that feature romantic subplots. Red String is one of the extremely few examples of a bona fide romance comic which is decent quality and fairly popular.
Most romantic comics could probably fit into other categories anyway, such as Outstanding Drama Comic or Outstanding Reality Comic, or Outstanding Fantasy for a romantic fantasy.
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