Graphic Novel Hugo: Don't Celebrate Prematurely

[kevin_standlee]

My standing searches have turned up a number of people celebrating the addition of a Best Graphic Story Hugo Award. As you may know, the WSFS Business Meeting gave first passage to an amendment creating such a category, and Anticipation, next year's Worldcon, has agreed to a request from the Business Meeting to use its Special Category authority

Comments

[kevin_standlee]

Worldcons are allowed to add a category but not required to do so. Over the years, a number of categories were added to the nominating ballot but failed to get sufficient interest to make the final ballot.

I'm going to try and do this from memory, because I don't think we have listed it anywhere. I may end up missing some in this list.

2002 and 2005: Best Web Site; in both cases, this worked and was on the final ballot.

2006: Best Interactive Computer Game; failed
1995: Best Music; failed
1993: Best Translator; failed
1989: Best Young Adult Novel wasn't actually on the Hugo Ballot, but was proposed informally; insufficient interest to justify placing on ballot.

1988: Other Forms; this worked, and it's why one keeps reading that Watchmen is the only graphic novel ever to have won a Hugo Award. Assuming Anticipation's experiment is successful, that's going to change.

I may well have missed something else in there, in which case I'm sure someone will correct me. You have caught us at TheHugoAwards.org on something though; we probably should be documenting use of the Special Category, even when it fails to make the final ballot due to lack of interest.

[chocolatescifi]

I think you're forgetting 1966 -- Best All-Time Series.

[kevin_standlee]

I wasn't trying to be that comprehensive. Besides, the rules in the 1960s were much looser than they are now. I was dealing with the period since I personally became familiar with Worldcon, that being 1984-onward.

[chocolatescifi]

Well, what's a little WSFS-related discussion without a little nitpicking or flyspecking?

[hsifyppah]

What constitutes sufficient interest in a floating category? Is there a set minimum number of nominations needed, or is this decided off the cuff by that year's committee?

[kevin_standlee]

The latter, although the decision is generally made by that year's Hugo Administration Subcommittee, not the convention committee as a whole, on account of most Worldcons delegate the job to the Hugo Administration subcommittee. The actual words in the WSFS Constitution are:Section 3.6: "No Award". At the discretion of an individual Worldcon Committee, if the lack of nominations or final votes in a specific category shows a marked lack of interest in that category on the part of the voters, the Award in that category shall be canceled for that year.
I have been part of the decision myself. There is no firm rule; it's a subjective decision of the committee. But in the case of Best Translator in 1993, we were faced with a situation where one person had about 15 nominations and not one other person got into double digits. That was clearly lack of interest.

I would say getting fewer nominating ballots than any of the regular categories, or getting a very flat distribution of nominations -- for example, about a hundred different works, all with only four or five votes -- would lead a committee to cancel a category.

[kevin_standlee]

Also, in 1990, there was an attempt at a special category for Best Non-English-Language Novel, but it also failed due to insufficient nominations and was left off the final ballot.

(I know this is an old comment I'm replying to, but I just happened to notice it.)