Best Graphic Story - where do we go from here?
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?
Broadly speaking, there would appear to be three answers.
Change the rules
The central reason that Best Graphic Story is broken is because it is built around a definition that is not used anywhere outside of the Hugo awards. To put it simply, no-one knows what a 'graphic story' is. On the one hand, one can understand how the award is attempting to be a 'broad church' award, and so be open to webcomics as well as print comics and so on, yet the evidence of the past two years would show it's not working.
Looking at the nominations that made the ballot for the past two years, every one of them is a trade paperback collection - that is, in book form. People have shown, to a certain extent, that they know what they are and thus are comfortable with nominating them. Indeed, they're so comfortable with nominating TPB collections that they don't seem to notice when a collection contains more than one story.
While I haven't seen the full released nominations for this year yet (obviously), I did have a look at the numbers released last year (PDF link). The majority of nominations that made the cut-off were TPB collections. Other forms barely made a showing, indeed, the highest webcomic, Freakangels, with 11 votes, would've been disqualified had it made enough votes to appear on the ballot due to not being a story, rather the webcomic as a whole, which hasn't finished running yet. Girl Genius gets another eight votes just as that too.
It's clear that having the category 'open to all' isn't resulting in 'all' turning up. It's clear that 'Graphic Story' in ambiguous enough that a number of people effectively made wasted votes - and let us not forget the semantic mess that possibly lead to Paul Cornell being denied a nomination.
Thus, I'd change the rules in roughly the following way:
Define the award as being for the graphic novel (collected or original) published for the first time in English. Eligibility will be determined by the date the first book collection is published, disregarding any single issues or prior serialisation.
This improves things in these ways:
First, it makes it clear that the award will be for a single book. It takes away any ambiguity over whether Fables should be nominated for a story in a volume or for the whole volume, or whether a manga series can be nominated book by book or as a series as a whole once it has ended. I'd feel a lot more comfortable knowing that if I nominate something, then if other people don't nominate it, it's because they don't like it, not because they did like it but couldn't manage to nominate it in the exact same way I did (my key example last year wasY: The Last Man. Should the last issue be nominated, the last volume, or the series as a whole? I consider the entire series to be the story, but I couldn't count on others to think the same way.) Thus, removing ambiguity is, I believe, vital.
Secondly, given that I've said the award will go to a book, the eligibility dates have to be changed. That would be to cover any series which ends in one calendar year and then has the collection published the following year. Without making it clear that eligibility is linked to the collected edition, people would either have to nominate something that wasn't published yet, or something people might nominate might fall through to the cracks.
Thirdly, why the book publication? Not just because that's what most nominations were, but because that's how the vast majority of Hugo voters will encounter their 'graphic stories'. It's vitally important, I believe, that the material that's eligible should be that which is available in bookshops, as that's where the vast majority will look to see what's out there, and where the vast majority will go to when they hear about something that they should try. Bluntly put, the comics market is tiny. The vast majority of Hugo voters would not be a part of that market - that is, I believe any crossover between 'SF fans who buy comics' and 'Hugo nominators' is small. Look at me, here I am, a self-confessed expert on the Best Graphic Story award, and even I don't buy comics. Only the TPBs.
Fourthly, the change above would not deny any of the webcomics nominated so far the chance to make the ballot. Both Girl Genius and Scholck Mercenary were nominated for material that later appeared in print collections, and Freakangels is similarly collected in print by Avatar, so if people knew they could nominate those then they wouldn't be wasting their votes.
Finally, having such an open category is as absurd as having a 'Best Text Story' category, where this year, say, a voter would have to pick between The City and the City, Palimpsest, One of Our Bastards is Missing, and Non-Zero Probabilities.
Regrettably, changing the rules so they make sense to people would appear to be hugely unlikely, as both Kevin Standlee and Cheryl Morgan have made it clear to me that they can't see anything wrong with them. Which leads us on to option two.
Endeavor to influence the public perception
It's a bit of a woolly way of phrasing it, but what I mean by that is if the letter of the law can't be changed, then some kind of mass-publicity programme could be carried out to the idea that 'this is what is eligible for the 'Best Graphic Story' category. Get people used to thinking in terms of nomination the TPBs, and it's an improvement.
It's fair to say, I think, that this has already been carried out on a small scale. Both Girl Genius and Schlock Mercenary got their votes by using their websites to declare that they were eligible, and, most importantly, what was eligible. Similarly, this year Paul Cornell used his blog to tell people how to vote for his comic if they wanted to vote for it, in an attempt to avoid last year's mess. In all three cases, the publicity has clearly worked as they all got nominations.
Spreading the word wider, though, may prove trickier. The above worked because they were targeting existing fans. Trying to inform and educate (and possibly entertain) people who may not be terribly interested might not work so well. Proof of how ineffective it is may well lie in how few of Paul Cornell's Thirty Comics for Hugo Voters were nominated. I applaud Paul for trying to do something (indeed, up until this point it's a damn sight more than I did), but I think it's fair to say it didn't work.
Perhaps the chief reason it didn't work in this case was because Paul tried to provide something resembling a broad overview, with a short paragraph dedicated to each comic. My own personal feeling is that presented this way, it's just a list with no reason for anyone to be particularly interested in an item on it. What is perhaps needed more is actual advocacy about particular books. By telling someone "I care about this book, and here's why", that's what will grab them to be interested and maybe give it a chance.
Of course there's the question of 'why would anyone listen'? The obvious answer then would be 'if the advocacy is coming from a place they trust'. So, in internet terms, prominent bloggers (they know who they are, I'm sure) should review more SF comics, while in broader terms, magazines (or websites serving the purpose) should look to publish more reviews of SF comics. Broadly speaking, it's all about raising general awareness, and hopefully if a lot of these places are saying "These comic books are really good", then it might give more and different comics a chance of appearing on the ballot.
The main question mark left over the effectiveness of this would be the question of 'but just how influential are reviews/bloggers?' After all, In Great Waters didn't get a Best Novel nomination despite being pushed from several quarters. On the other hand, the barrier to entry for Best Graphic Story is much lower. Last year it was 13 nominations, this year 19. Even if it's 25 next year (which I doubt it'll reach), there still might be a much better chance of influencing things.
The only other way voters could be influenced without actually changing the rules would be if, when nominations were collected, then as well as sending out the voting form, an information sheet on "All about Best Graphic Story" was included to educate voters about the new category. Again, this would seem unlikely, for similar reasons to those given at the end of changing the rules. Those involved seem to prefer voters to 'work it out for themselves' without any 'official' guidance.
So, what's option three?
Fix the 'Best Graphic Story' Hugo? Fuck the 'Best Graphic Story' Hugo!
Perhaps I've put it a bit strongly there. But if Best Graphic Story is broken, and if impetus to fix it is lacking from within those who can, then why waste time and energy trying?
Why not, perhaps, put time and energy into coming up with an alternative instead.
A juried award of some kind, perhaps. One that casts a broad net and aims to highlight the very best of SF comics and manga published in a year. A juried award would perhaps be able to overlook the populist crap (and not-so-crap) in favour of finding undiscovered or overlooked gems that would deserve greater recognition. Don't forget what I said way back up earlier; people don't read comics, and with a popular award a comic has to find readers in order to stand a chance. A juried award would give comics like that their chance. Certainly, I think if a jury were to be presented with SF comics from 2009, they'd come up with a very different shortlist to the Best Graphic Story Hugo nominations.
But, hell. To do it properly wouldn't be easy. In order to work, it'd have to have some weight behind it. Not just be, say, a website that puts a little .GIF up as an award. Rather, a proper one, with some kind of ceremony behind it. But who's going to set up one of those awards? Who's got the time, the experience - hell, the money? Where would the jury come from? It's a nice idea, and part of me would love to see it happen. But it is, I fear, as unrealistic as hell.
So, three different options. All with things for and things against. It's a most vexing situation.
Can it be fixed? How can it be fixed? Should we even be trying to fix it?
Broadly speaking, there would appear to be three answers.
Change the rules
The central reason that Best Graphic Story is broken is because it is built around a definition that is not used anywhere outside of the Hugo awards. To put it simply, no-one knows what a 'graphic story' is. On the one hand, one can understand how the award is attempting to be a 'broad church' award, and so be open to webcomics as well as print comics and so on, yet the evidence of the past two years would show it's not working.
Looking at the nominations that made the ballot for the past two years, every one of them is a trade paperback collection - that is, in book form. People have shown, to a certain extent, that they know what they are and thus are comfortable with nominating them. Indeed, they're so comfortable with nominating TPB collections that they don't seem to notice when a collection contains more than one story.
While I haven't seen the full released nominations for this year yet (obviously), I did have a look at the numbers released last year (PDF link). The majority of nominations that made the cut-off were TPB collections. Other forms barely made a showing, indeed, the highest webcomic, Freakangels, with 11 votes, would've been disqualified had it made enough votes to appear on the ballot due to not being a story, rather the webcomic as a whole, which hasn't finished running yet. Girl Genius gets another eight votes just as that too.
It's clear that having the category 'open to all' isn't resulting in 'all' turning up. It's clear that 'Graphic Story' in ambiguous enough that a number of people effectively made wasted votes - and let us not forget the semantic mess that possibly lead to Paul Cornell being denied a nomination.
Thus, I'd change the rules in roughly the following way:
Define the award as being for the graphic novel (collected or original) published for the first time in English. Eligibility will be determined by the date the first book collection is published, disregarding any single issues or prior serialisation.
This improves things in these ways:
First, it makes it clear that the award will be for a single book. It takes away any ambiguity over whether Fables should be nominated for a story in a volume or for the whole volume, or whether a manga series can be nominated book by book or as a series as a whole once it has ended. I'd feel a lot more comfortable knowing that if I nominate something, then if other people don't nominate it, it's because they don't like it, not because they did like it but couldn't manage to nominate it in the exact same way I did (my key example last year wasY: The Last Man. Should the last issue be nominated, the last volume, or the series as a whole? I consider the entire series to be the story, but I couldn't count on others to think the same way.) Thus, removing ambiguity is, I believe, vital.
Secondly, given that I've said the award will go to a book, the eligibility dates have to be changed. That would be to cover any series which ends in one calendar year and then has the collection published the following year. Without making it clear that eligibility is linked to the collected edition, people would either have to nominate something that wasn't published yet, or something people might nominate might fall through to the cracks.
Thirdly, why the book publication? Not just because that's what most nominations were, but because that's how the vast majority of Hugo voters will encounter their 'graphic stories'. It's vitally important, I believe, that the material that's eligible should be that which is available in bookshops, as that's where the vast majority will look to see what's out there, and where the vast majority will go to when they hear about something that they should try. Bluntly put, the comics market is tiny. The vast majority of Hugo voters would not be a part of that market - that is, I believe any crossover between 'SF fans who buy comics' and 'Hugo nominators' is small. Look at me, here I am, a self-confessed expert on the Best Graphic Story award, and even I don't buy comics. Only the TPBs.
Fourthly, the change above would not deny any of the webcomics nominated so far the chance to make the ballot. Both Girl Genius and Scholck Mercenary were nominated for material that later appeared in print collections, and Freakangels is similarly collected in print by Avatar, so if people knew they could nominate those then they wouldn't be wasting their votes.
Finally, having such an open category is as absurd as having a 'Best Text Story' category, where this year, say, a voter would have to pick between The City and the City, Palimpsest, One of Our Bastards is Missing, and Non-Zero Probabilities.
Regrettably, changing the rules so they make sense to people would appear to be hugely unlikely, as both Kevin Standlee and Cheryl Morgan have made it clear to me that they can't see anything wrong with them. Which leads us on to option two.
Endeavor to influence the public perception
It's a bit of a woolly way of phrasing it, but what I mean by that is if the letter of the law can't be changed, then some kind of mass-publicity programme could be carried out to the idea that 'this is what is eligible for the 'Best Graphic Story' category. Get people used to thinking in terms of nomination the TPBs, and it's an improvement.
It's fair to say, I think, that this has already been carried out on a small scale. Both Girl Genius and Schlock Mercenary got their votes by using their websites to declare that they were eligible, and, most importantly, what was eligible. Similarly, this year Paul Cornell used his blog to tell people how to vote for his comic if they wanted to vote for it, in an attempt to avoid last year's mess. In all three cases, the publicity has clearly worked as they all got nominations.
Spreading the word wider, though, may prove trickier. The above worked because they were targeting existing fans. Trying to inform and educate (and possibly entertain) people who may not be terribly interested might not work so well. Proof of how ineffective it is may well lie in how few of Paul Cornell's Thirty Comics for Hugo Voters were nominated. I applaud Paul for trying to do something (indeed, up until this point it's a damn sight more than I did), but I think it's fair to say it didn't work.
Perhaps the chief reason it didn't work in this case was because Paul tried to provide something resembling a broad overview, with a short paragraph dedicated to each comic. My own personal feeling is that presented this way, it's just a list with no reason for anyone to be particularly interested in an item on it. What is perhaps needed more is actual advocacy about particular books. By telling someone "I care about this book, and here's why", that's what will grab them to be interested and maybe give it a chance.
Of course there's the question of 'why would anyone listen'? The obvious answer then would be 'if the advocacy is coming from a place they trust'. So, in internet terms, prominent bloggers (they know who they are, I'm sure) should review more SF comics, while in broader terms, magazines (or websites serving the purpose) should look to publish more reviews of SF comics. Broadly speaking, it's all about raising general awareness, and hopefully if a lot of these places are saying "These comic books are really good", then it might give more and different comics a chance of appearing on the ballot.
The main question mark left over the effectiveness of this would be the question of 'but just how influential are reviews/bloggers?' After all, In Great Waters didn't get a Best Novel nomination despite being pushed from several quarters. On the other hand, the barrier to entry for Best Graphic Story is much lower. Last year it was 13 nominations, this year 19. Even if it's 25 next year (which I doubt it'll reach), there still might be a much better chance of influencing things.
The only other way voters could be influenced without actually changing the rules would be if, when nominations were collected, then as well as sending out the voting form, an information sheet on "All about Best Graphic Story" was included to educate voters about the new category. Again, this would seem unlikely, for similar reasons to those given at the end of changing the rules. Those involved seem to prefer voters to 'work it out for themselves' without any 'official' guidance.
So, what's option three?
Fix the 'Best Graphic Story' Hugo? Fuck the 'Best Graphic Story' Hugo!
Perhaps I've put it a bit strongly there. But if Best Graphic Story is broken, and if impetus to fix it is lacking from within those who can, then why waste time and energy trying?
Why not, perhaps, put time and energy into coming up with an alternative instead.
A juried award of some kind, perhaps. One that casts a broad net and aims to highlight the very best of SF comics and manga published in a year. A juried award would perhaps be able to overlook the populist crap (and not-so-crap) in favour of finding undiscovered or overlooked gems that would deserve greater recognition. Don't forget what I said way back up earlier; people don't read comics, and with a popular award a comic has to find readers in order to stand a chance. A juried award would give comics like that their chance. Certainly, I think if a jury were to be presented with SF comics from 2009, they'd come up with a very different shortlist to the Best Graphic Story Hugo nominations.
But, hell. To do it properly wouldn't be easy. In order to work, it'd have to have some weight behind it. Not just be, say, a website that puts a little .GIF up as an award. Rather, a proper one, with some kind of ceremony behind it. But who's going to set up one of those awards? Who's got the time, the experience - hell, the money? Where would the jury come from? It's a nice idea, and part of me would love to see it happen. But it is, I fear, as unrealistic as hell.
So, three different options. All with things for and things against. It's a most vexing situation.