2021 Hugos: Best Graphic Story or Comic

[nwhyte]

A couple of people have asked me if I will return to the staff of DisCon III now that the Chair has resigned. Whoever the new Chair is, I will decline any such invitation. My former position as WSFS Division Head was filled within twenty-four hours of my own resignation, by someone who (unlike me) has actually done that job before, and who does not

Comments

Ghost-Spider

[anonymous]

I agree with you about Seanan McGuire's output being somewhat overrated, but I disagree with your assessment of Ghost-Spider. This is a completely average superhero comic that relies not only on a knowledge of the past few years of Spider-Gwen/Ghost-Spider (despite the fact it is labeled #1, a technique the big comic publishers, especially Marvel, use to entice readers to pick up titles they might not otherwise), but decades of Spider-Man lore, since the villains in this book are legacy Spider-Man villains. You rightfully ding Die, Monstress, and Invisible Kingdom for being essentially middle chapters in longer works (although I thought Invisible Kingdom stood pretty well on its own); Ghost-Spider is as much or more of this phenomenon (I think this category would be better named Best Graphic Series). To the larger issue of quality, there are a number of superhero books that would have been far superior to Ghost-Spider. The most obvious is Far Sector by N.K. Jemisin, but one could also have put Daredevil, Immortal Hulk, Strange Adventures, or Superman's Pal Jimmy Olsen on the ballot and had a better candidate. If one wanted to put something more traditionally SF on the ballot, there are many, many choices, such as Ascender, Barbalien, The Department of Truth, Gideon Falls, Something is Killing the Children, and Undiscovered Country, to name a few.

Re: Ghost-Spider

[nwhyte]

No idea who you are! But Ghost Spider made me laugh once or twice, in places where the author had intended it, and that’s difficult enough to find in these times.