Best Graphic Story - where do we go from here?

[ajr]

Taking it as axiomatic that the Hugo Award for Best Graphic Story is broken, the following questions arise:

Can it be fixed? How can it be fixed? Should we even be trying to fix it?

Comments

[ajr]

why do you think the Eisners don't have an sf/f category and would adding such a category be sufficient for your third solution

For the same reason they don't have a crime category, or a romance category, or a superhero category. They hand out their awards mostly based on format rather than content. It's an egalitarian approach, and it seems to work for them.

Adding a category to the Eisners therefore wouldn't work, I believe, as it wouldn't fit in with the general make-up of their awards. After all, it has already been demonstrated that SF&F comics have done very well in being nominated this year - why, then, create a ghetto for them to get shoved back into?

or do you envisage a standalone award coming from within the sf community?

I think an award from within the sf community, standalone or spun-off from/connected to an existing one, would be what I would like to see succeeding. Rightly or wrongly, I think having a body from within SF saying "These comics are good SF" would hold more weight than having the Eisners add a category saying the same thing.

[There is, perhaps, more to consider here. Probably around the issue of how 'we' see science-fiction compared to how 'they' see sci-fi. But I've typed and deleted several paragraphs multiple times, so I've had to give up. I think I need to unpack my thoughts on some areas a little more first.]