Webcomic creation can be a lonely and thankless task. Often, a web comic will be a labour of love for a single writer-artist, slaving away at their computer for hours on end, year after year. Webcomic awards therefore exist to express the thanks of the community for the comics these people create, and in 2009 a long-running webcomics list site established a new set of awards.
History of the Webcomic List Awards
The mainstay of the awards season for the web comics community has traditionally been the Webcartoonists' Choice Awards; which has run annually since 2001. When the 2009 awards were unexpectedly cancelled, several members of The Web Comic List forum decided it would be a good idea for that site to host awards instead.
Michael Payne, who has worked on the Webcartoonists' Choice Awards for several years, sent a nomination form containing “a smiley” to the new awards; a move that has been taken as a sign of approval by all involved with the Webcomic List Awards.
What Award Categories Are There?
A committee was formed in August 2008 to discuss how the nomination process would work, what award categories would be included and how the awards would be organised in general. A lengthy nomination and voting process was run on the forum in which members debated which categories would be workable and which would not. The list was eventually narrowed down to:
- Best Comic;
- Best New Comic (limited to comics established between November 2008 and November 2009 inclusive);
- Best Writing;
- Best Colour Art;
- Best Black & White Art;
- Best Non-Traditional Art;
- Most Improved Comic;
- Best Gag-a-day Comic;
- Best Longform Comic;
- Best Lead Character;
- Best Supporting Character; and
- The Innovation Award.
Although there was a lengthy debate on the merits of including a category for Best Comic in a Non-English Language, it was decided that although a category of that sort was a good idea it was unfortunately an unworkable one due to the awards' limited resources.
How do Nominations Work?
Nominations are limited to people who are actively involved in the webcomic community; be it as a writer, artist, reviewer, critic or a maintainer of a “community site”. The idea being that placing such a limit on nominations will reduce the effect a big name comic's popularity could have on the awards and thus put a greater focus on merit over ballot box stuffing.
For reasons of avoiding bias, any comic a judge, webcomic list staff member, or awards committee member is involved in is automatically barred from the awards. A full list of judges and committee members is available from the Awards page of the Webcomic List website. Self-nominations will be disregarded.
How to Nominate a Comic
Nominations are made by completing a form on the website. Three comics can be nominated for each award; ranked as the first, second and third choice. The five comics receiving the most votes in each category when nominations close will be submitted to the category's judges, who will then decide on the winner.
When Will the Results be Announced?
Nominations opened on the first of November and close on the 16th of December 2009. The results will be announced on 24th of January 2010 in comic form, like the Webcartoonists' Choice Awards has traditionally done. Where possible, each category will be illustrated by a different member of the committee.
The Webcomic List Awards are a way of showing appreciation to the hard-working members of the web comic community in a way that embraces the central theme of the community: comics on the web. Although they were originally put together because the Webcartoonists' Choice Awards were not running, they are a separate set of awards and with any luck they will be just as long-running.
Zoe Kirk-Robinson - Zoë Kirk-Robinson is a freelance writer/artist specialising in legal writing, internet technology and creative writing. She holds a ...
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