Some Graphic Clarification?
ENTRY #30
0810.16


I always try to keep up with what happens at each year's WSFS Business Meeting, even if I am unable to attend that year's Worldcon. This year was no different, and thanks to the Internet, I could learn what happened just a few hours after each day's session concluded.

I suppose the big thing that happened this year was the initial passage of a Best Graphic Story category for the Hugo Awards. I suspected that sooner or later, someone was going to propose such a category. After Nolacon 2 came up with the rather creative "Best Other Forms" category in 1988 just to give the graphic novel Watchmen a Hugo, I suspect that it was inevitable.

Since Anticipation has elected to use its "Additional Category" prerogative to conduct a trial run of the proposed category next year, there is just one little thing that probably needs to be cleared up before the nominating ballots are sent out. If a storyline from an ongoing title is deemed worthy of being nominated for this new category, I assume that it will be treated the same way that a serialized work of fiction will be; that is, it will be eligible the year the final installment is published. But there is one other thing that the Hugo administrators for Anticipation need to consider, since this will probably set a precedent for future administrators should the category receive its second passage at the Anticipation Business Meeting.

In recent years, it has become common practice for a comic publisher to collect a storyline that was published over several issues into a single volume a few months after the concluding installment has been published. How will eligibility for the story be determined -- by the publication of the serialized version, or by the publication of the collected volume?

For example, let's take the case of DC Comics's Final Crisis, which is still being published. At the moment, I think the final issue will hit the comic stores, newsstands, et cetera, sometime in December. (This, of course, is subject to change, but for the sake of this argument, let's assume that the final issue will appear in 2008.) The collected volume of Final Crisis (and trust me, there will be one) will probably be published some time in the first part of 2009. When will it be eligible for Hugo consideration? For calendar year 2008, or for calendar year 2009?

Also, if a collected volume contains extras that weren't part of the serialized form, is that enough of a difference to consider it a separate work? As I said, I think the Hugo administrators should be thinking about this now, to reduce any possible confusion later.


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