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Hugo Nominations: Graphic Story
I went through my list of comics I read in 2009 (sigh--over 1000 of them, despite my resolution to cut down) and picked out a batch of items to nominate for the Best Graphic Story Hugo. (You may recall I was pretty disappointed with the selection last year, though I do think a very good item won.)
I almost completely limited myself to items I actually read in 2009. I'm sure this means I missed a few good oversized items (I'm pretty much always caught up on my comic books/floppies/pamphlets, but anything oversized I'm much more likely not to be) but c'est la bande dessinée.
Going through the list helped make it clear to me how difficult this process is, and some of the difficulties of fitting the Hugo nominating format onto the ongoing interlocking serials that so many American comics are. There were quite a few good series that I couldn't figure out "a story" to nominate--e.g., Willow Wilson and MK Perker's Air, Gail Simone's Secret Six, Warren Ellis and Mike Wolfer's Gravel, Mike Carey's X-Men: Legacy, Duane Swierczynski's Cable, Jolly Blackburn's Knights of the Dinner Table. (The best KoDT story this year wasn't f&sf, anyway--it was either the business intrigue about the ownership of Hard 8 Industries or the Cattlehack wild west storyline featuring the Black Hands. The Garycon story was good, though not as good as last year's Last Man Standing summer special--and a story about an sf/gaming convention certainly should be considered an sf story, right?)
The hardest single work to pass over for formatting reasons was Abnett and Lanning's "space heroes" mini-franchise for Marvel. This comprises the ongoing Nova and Guardians of the Galaxy series and whatever miniseries happen to be tying in to it at the time--there are usually two. This is great space adventure, inventive and heroic and just a lot of fun to read. However, not only do the real stories span multiple "arcs", but multiple ongoing titles. I almost nominated the "War of Kings" crossover, but that wasn't the best part of the run. The current overarching story, "Realm of Kings", is really, really good, including its remarkable portrait of a Marvel Earth conquered by the Great Old Ones--and I will probably nominate it next year.
Anyway, after some trimming, I came up with a list of eleven titles that really stood out. From these I chose my five nominees, and I thought I'd pass it on, in alphabetical order:
(The two here that are head and shoulders above the others are I Kill Giants and Order of the Stick.)
ETA: I deliberately did not nominate or list The Unwritten by Mike Carey and Peter Gross; the first 8 issues were published in 2009. I don't think the book actually got its feet under it until around issue 8, and now it's quite good indeed. But I'm not going to nominate a book for 2009 based on the issues in 2010.
I almost completely limited myself to items I actually read in 2009. I'm sure this means I missed a few good oversized items (I'm pretty much always caught up on my comic books/floppies/pamphlets, but anything oversized I'm much more likely not to be) but c'est la bande dessinée.
Going through the list helped make it clear to me how difficult this process is, and some of the difficulties of fitting the Hugo nominating format onto the ongoing interlocking serials that so many American comics are. There were quite a few good series that I couldn't figure out "a story" to nominate--e.g., Willow Wilson and MK Perker's Air, Gail Simone's Secret Six, Warren Ellis and Mike Wolfer's Gravel, Mike Carey's X-Men: Legacy, Duane Swierczynski's Cable, Jolly Blackburn's Knights of the Dinner Table. (The best KoDT story this year wasn't f&sf, anyway--it was either the business intrigue about the ownership of Hard 8 Industries or the Cattlehack wild west storyline featuring the Black Hands. The Garycon story was good, though not as good as last year's Last Man Standing summer special--and a story about an sf/gaming convention certainly should be considered an sf story, right?)
The hardest single work to pass over for formatting reasons was Abnett and Lanning's "space heroes" mini-franchise for Marvel. This comprises the ongoing Nova and Guardians of the Galaxy series and whatever miniseries happen to be tying in to it at the time--there are usually two. This is great space adventure, inventive and heroic and just a lot of fun to read. However, not only do the real stories span multiple "arcs", but multiple ongoing titles. I almost nominated the "War of Kings" crossover, but that wasn't the best part of the run. The current overarching story, "Realm of Kings", is really, really good, including its remarkable portrait of a Marvel Earth conquered by the Great Old Ones--and I will probably nominate it next year.
Anyway, after some trimming, I came up with a list of eleven titles that really stood out. From these I chose my five nominees, and I thought I'd pass it on, in alphabetical order:
- Beasts of Burden #1-4: Evan Dorkin and Jill Thompson (collection forthcoming), Dark Horse Comics
- Captain Britain and MI-13: Vampire State (collecting Captain Britain and MI-13 #10-15 and Annual #1, collected Oct 2009): Paul Cornell and Leonard Kirk, Marvel Comics
- Empowered, vol. 5: Adam Warren, Dark Horse Comics
- Hotwire: Requiem for the Dead: Steve Pugh with Warren Ellis, Radical Comics
- I Kill Giants: Joe Kelly and JM Ken Nakimura (series completed and collection published 2009), Image Comics
- Life and Times of Savior 28 (collection of five issue miniseries): J. M. Dematteis and Mike Cavallaro, IDW Publishing
- Locke and Key: Head Games (collection of six issue miniseries): Joe Hill and Gabriel Rodriguez, IDW Publishing
- Mighty Thorcules (collecting Incredible Hercules 132-137): Greg Pak, Fred van Lente, Reilly Brown, and Rodney Buchemi, Marvel Comics
- Order of the Stick vol. 4: Don't Split the Party (web comic collection): Rich Berlew, Ookoodook Press
- Proof: Thunderbirds Are Go! (collecting Proof #10-16): Alex Grecian and Riley Rossmo, Image Comics
- Wonder Woman: Warkiller (collecting Wonder Woman vol. 3 #34-39): Gail Simone and Aaron Lopresti, DC Comics
(The two here that are head and shoulders above the others are I Kill Giants and Order of the Stick.)
ETA: I deliberately did not nominate or list The Unwritten by Mike Carey and Peter Gross; the first 8 issues were published in 2009. I don't think the book actually got its feet under it until around issue 8, and now it's quite good indeed. But I'm not going to nominate a book for 2009 based on the issues in 2010.
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Also, there's something just wrong about giving an award in 2010 for a 27-part serialized work where part 26 appeared in 2006. The final issue didn't even read like a conclusion, just where the series ran out of gas.
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