Classic EBI #45: The 2003 Everything But Imaginary Awards Part Two
EVERYTHING BUT IMAGINARY 1/14/04 -- THE 2003 EVERYTHING BUT IMAGINARY AWARDS PART TWO
The 2003 Everything But Imaginary Awards Part Two
Welcome back to the 2003 Everything But Imaginary awards, the comic book award show voted on by the readers of Comixtreme.com! Let’s have a big hand for your host, soon to be a featured player on the WB’s The Surreal Life, Blake M. Petit!
Thanks, Blake. Welcome back, folks to the first-ever Everything But Imaginary Awards! Last week, we presented the winners in our first six categories: best superhero title, best science fiction title, best fantasy title, best horror title, best “no tights” title and best humor title. If you’re just tuning in, you can catch a recap right here: The 2003 EBI Awards Part One.
Here’s how this is going to work - there are six remaining categories and 12 awards to hand out. In each category there will be two “Blakie” winners - the “Writer’s Choice” awards, as selected by yours truly, based entirely on my own preferences and biases, and the “Reader’s Choice” awards, voted on by you, the reader. In some instances, the same title won both awards (one of those moments of cosmic synergy), so those books will be awarded the coveted “Double Blakie” award.
Everybody got that? I hope so, it wasn’t that hard… Let’s hand out some awards!
Best Mature Readers Title
Writer’s Choice: This isn’t just my favorite mature readers title - it’s one of my favorite comic books on the market. DC/Vertigo’s Fables, written by Bill Willingham. This is a smart title, a comic book that mixes magic and action with political drama and intrigue. As I mentioned last week when it took home the Reader’s Choice Award for Best Fantasy, this is a comic about classic fairy tale and folk characters that are trying to make their way in our world. Willingham and a rotating stable of artists, in the most recent story arc particularly, have blended together elements of dramatic storytelling, romance, drama and sheer horror (the gory final battle against Goldilocks being the best example). They have also created (or rather, re-created) some great characters -- Snow White is a smart, savvy woman, Prince Charming is a scheming rogue, and Bigby Wolf (until now best known for causing trouble for Little Red Riding Hood and The Three Little Pigs) has become one of my favorite comic book detectives, a gumshoe in the old sense with a dash of Lon Cheney Jr. thrown in for good measure. This is a great comic book.
Reader’s Choice: Brian Michael Bendis, the hardest-working writer in comics, scores again for the premiere Marvel MAX title Alias. The story of former superhero Jessica Jones, Alias focused on her days as a private detective, the mystery as to why she dropped out of the hero biz, and her relationships with various former spandex-clad colleagues. This has been a solid seller and a critically acclaimed book from day one, but it won’t be in the running for this award next year, as Bendis decided to rework it, bring it into the “mainstream” Marvel Universe and recreate it as The Pulse. Ah, but we’ll always have trade paperbacks.
Honorable Mention: Supreme Power, Sleeper
Best All-Ages Title
Writer’s Choice: This is the part where the writer’s biases reaaaaally come in to play, because this is a title I doubt more than a handful of you read on a regular basis, but month in and month out my favorite all-ages comic book this year was the reborn Uncle Scrooge published by Gemstone Comics. Scrooge has long been one of my favorite characters, and his absence from the American comic book scene was too painful and too long. I still think Gemstone makes a major mistake putting this title out at 64 pages a month with a $6.95 price tag, but reprints of classic Carl Barks stories and wonderful, masterful new stories like “The Coin” by Don Rosa make this a book I want to read each and every month, one that I think any young reader could jump right into, and one that I think could really expand the comic book world if it were only done right.
Reader’s Choice: Not a surprise, Bendis and Mark Bagley score again with Ultimate Spider-Man. This re-imagining of Marvel’s premiere superhero clears away the decades of continuity that could be somewhat daunting to new readers and it tells stories that, for the most part, you can give to kids to read with little problem. Even those jokes or stories that stray on the more mature side of things are usually no harsher than anything your kids are seeing on prime-time TV. Add to that the fact that the characters are strong, the dialogue is snappy and the artwork is flat-out beautiful, and Ultimate Spider-Man gets its second EBI award this year in as many categories.
Honorable Mention: Justice League Adventures, Sentinel
Best New Title
Writer’s Choice: The qualification for this award was that it be given to an ongoing series, the first issue of which was released between Jan. 1 and Dec. 31, 2003. While it pained me to see Young Justice end, I’d be lying if I didn’t say that I’ve enjoyed the reborn Teen Titans more than any comic book launched this year. Geoff Johns and Mike McKone have taken the best characters from two old titles and created a new dynamic that’s working wonderfully. Old elements, like the Superboy/Wonder Girl romance, have been maintained. Impulse has been completely reborn as the new Kid Flash. The question of Superboy’s true parentage looks to be something that will be debated both in the comics and by readers for some time to come. Also, the fact that the only character in this book that currently has his own series is Robin leaves Johns a lot of room to tell the sort of character-oriented stories he does so well.
Reader’s Choice: One of the best-received titles in Marvel’s Tsunami imprint picks up the Reader’s Choice Award for best new title - Brian K. Vaughan’s Runaways. For those of you not in the know, this is a title about a group of teenagers who discover their parents are supervillains and head for the hills, hoping to escape their past. Vaughan is one of the best, most versatile writers in comics today, also being responsible for Y: The Last Man and Mystique, and the fact that he’s bringing back two of my old favorite characters in this book -- Cloak and Dagger - makes it even more appealing. I’ll be honest, this isn’t a comic book I’ve read, but if and when Marvel ever puts out a trade paperback collecting the first story arc, I’ll more than likely give it a try.
Honorable Mention: Superman/Batman, Emma Frost
Best Miniseries or Special
Writer’s Choice: It’s an old property that was returned to us this year via the “series of miniseries” format, but since its introduction in 1995 I have never failed to be amazed by an issue of Kurt Busiek’s Astro City, so handing this award to Astro City: Local Heroes was a no-brainer for me. In five issues there were four excellent stories about a world full of superheroes - that of a doorman, a snoopy girl reporter who drove off a powerful hero into space, a city girl forced to spend a summer in the country and a defense attorney forced to clear the name of a mobster he knows is guilty. Busiek’s gift comes from taking the foundations of fantasy and superhero universes built by others over long decades and telling new, fresh stories that seem so obvious in retrospect that you wonder why no one has told them before. I can’t wait for the next Astro City mini next year.
Reader’s Choice: Perennial favorite Neil Gaiman makes the list with the bizarre, brilliant Marvel Knights minseries 1602. Gaiman has taken the entire Marvel Universe four centuries back in time, and no one knows why. He’s telling a story about superheroes in a world where mutants are condemned as Satanic, Nick Fury is the master of defense for the Queen of England, Captain America is a blonde haired, blue-eyed Native American warrior and the Fantastic Four are missing. The series also features beautiful artwork by Andy Kubert and Richard Isanove, one of the best art teams in comics. This is supposedly not an “Elseworlds” story, but part of the Marvel Universe - so how did it slip back in time? What happened to everyone? Most importantly, where is everything going to go next? This miniseries isn’t over yet, but I couldn’t be more excited to find out where it has left to go.
Honorable Mention: Sandman: Endless Nights, Formerly Known as the Justice League
The New Beginning Award
Writer’s Choice AND Reader’s Choice: The New Beginning Award is given out for an old property reinvigorated this year - either by a relaunch or a new creative team - and the readers and I agree that no comic book fit that bill in 2003 like Birds of Prey. Although the book had great creators in the past in Chuck Dixon and artists like Butch Guice and Greg Land, after they left the book for the pastures of CrossGen comics it floundered for some time… until earlier last year when the book was given to Gail Simone and Ed Benes to make their own. Simone has said she was reluctant to take the book for fear of being typecast, but there are far worse things to be known as than the best writer Black Canary and Oracle have ever had. The women of the Clocktower read like real women - they can talk about their boyfriends at one minute and be all business the next. They crack jokes that seem natural coming from their mouths and protect Gotham City with a style all their own. Benes’ artwork is fantastic too - he draws great women without making them look unnaturally put-together, he does good night scenes and he gives the book a fantastic style. This book is so good that it’s even improving the Nightwing title with the story about his relationship with Oracle. It’s one of the best books currently coming out of the DCU.
Honorable Mention: Teen Titans, Wolverine
The “Happy Trails” Award
Writer’s Choice: The Happy Trails Award is given to the cancelled ongoing comic book that people were most sorry to see go away this year. There were a few titles that went the way of the dodo in 2003 that left a big void in my pull list, but hands-down, the comic I miss the most is Peter David’s Supergirl. Over the course of its 80 issues, David took a character mired down by conflicting continuity and… well… mired her down with even more continuity, but it was all good continuity. From the Earth-Born Angel storyline to the return of Kara Zor-El, David told great stories while trying to give people what it seemed the fans wanted. The saddest part of the whole thing is that the book got the axe just when sales were on the rise - most likely to make way for the Cir-El incarnation of the character that cluttered up the Superman titles this year. As far as I’m concerned, it wasn’t a fair trade-off.
Reader’s Choice: Although this was predictably the category with the widest array of votes spread out over the most titles, Comixtreme.com proved itself to be the site where Deadpool fans come to roost, voting for Agent X to get the 2003 Happy Trails Award. The title that kinda sorta replaced Deadpool at the same time as X-Statix replaced X-Force was a fan favorite, but suffered when Gail Simone left the book. The mystery of Agent X (was he really the allegedly-dead Deadpool or was he someone else?) floundered until it was announced that the book was being cancelled, at which point Simone returned to wrap things up. Fans can take heart, though, with Agent X gone, Deadpool will return in a few months with another character whose revamped book failed -- Cable (alias “Soldier X”).
Honorable Mention: Ruse, The Crew
This was a lot of fun, guys, and I think the most fun I had was learning what you guys dug the most. It’ll come in handy over the next 52 weeks of “Everything But Imaginary.” I hope your favorites won, and if they didn’t, get out the vote next year.
Thanks for watching The 2003 Everything But Imaginary Awards. We now return to our regularly-scheduled programming…
Favorite of the Week: January 7, 2004
In the first week of the new year, my favorite single issue was Plastic Man #2. Kyle Baker has taken the pliable paladin and launched into a hysterical story that has all the brilliant elements that made it such a great strip under creator Jack Cole and that virtually every incarnation since then has been missing. This time out Plastic Man has been assigned to capture that notorious crook Eel O’Brian… but his boss doesn’t know that Plas and Eel are the same guy! It’s not the first time Plastic Man has been assigned to capture himself, but the cliffhanger at the end of this issue - to my knowledge - has never been done with this character before. I can’t wait to see where it goes.
Blake M. Petit is the author of the superhero comedy novel, Other People's Heroes, the suspense novel The Beginner and the novel-in-progress Lost in Silver at Evertime Realms. He’s also the co-host, with good buddy Chase Bouzigard and Not-On-the-Internet Mike Bellamy, of the 2 in 1 Showcase Podcasts. E-mail him at Blake@comixtreme.com and visit him on the web at Evertime Realms. Read past columns at the Everything But Imaginary Archive Page.