http://www.ccawards.com/phpBB2/viewtopic.php?t=154

And wow, I'm a little thrown off. Compared to last year, there's not much variety. There's a handful of comics that dominate the awards this year. Drunk Duck comics aren't represented, at least from my glance over the list. In fact, I don't think any of my nominations are represented. Kind of a bummer. :-/

I'd agree with you, Fork. There are two main reasons why DD comics aren't nominated:

1. They're not hosted by other sites. The WCCAs tend to be dominated by comics from one of the five major webcomic hosting sites: Keenspot, ModernTales (and its offshoot Webcomic Nation), Dayfree Press, Dumbrella, and young upstart Blank Label. Any comics not picked up by these five companies will be thought of as "independent" and subsequently not voted for as much. (And of course, the comics on the five companies' sites get a lot more views than those that don't.)

2. They're hosted on DrunkDuck. Whether we like to admit it or not, our name is synonymous for "I'm just starting out and don't have enough talent to be picked up by a big-time site and/or don't have enought money to pay for my own bandwidth." People tend to associate our name with a lot of amateur work. And there is a lot of amateur work on DD. There's some really great comics on DD, too, but the way many high-up-there webcomic muckety-mucks think, the bad stuff on here buries the good stuff.

People tend to go with who they read a lot, not somebody that was suggested to them. Which is why the same God dang comics seem to be nominated year in and year out. I am a little disappointed.

~IJ

Well I don't really go in for award things generally, but they're nice and recognition is always good.

From my quick scan there I noticed Gunnerkrig court a couple of times, that’s a fine comic that has a mirror on Drunk Duck. Alpha Shade and The Devils Panties are there too; neither is on DD now, but both used to mirror here.

I don’t really think a DD association would negatively affect a comic’s chances, I doubt anyone really cares about hosting when they actually evaluate a comic, especially for an award thingo… I find popularity is always the major factor in determining success. Usually it’s the only factor; That’s where having a big comic hosting site behind you could help.

I'll admit. I was a little disappointed too. Not much variety when I know there is a plethora of excellent comics out there to choose from.

.: MisterSpook :.

I was happy to see Gunnerkrigg Court there. Also The Perry Bible Fellowship. I can't believe White Ninja comics is there though, for "Outstanding Comedic Comic" no less. Ugh...

Personally I find this contest biased. It's done by voting, so therefore the comic with the most readers is always going to win. Bleh.

Oh, but Return of Exile is also there.

The only other option is a jury evaluated contest, and to do that you'd have to find several people willing to read literally hundreds of webcomics.

The webcomic's field is insanely broad. How can "Slither and Friends" be compared to "Alpha Shade"? The audience, the look, the format are all completely different.

Sure, they make a few dozen categories, but even they seem in some ways to be too broad. "Best use of color" is an arbitrary assessment and doesn't take into account genre or intent. You wouldn't color a strip like an epic saga. You wouldn't color a comedy like a tragedy.

But they're trying and it gives webcomics some attention. In the end it's a good thing, but I imagine it's not something many people take too seriously.

That was ironic right? ^_^

Penny Arcade, PVP, etc aren't on this year though. :wink:

Yeah, these awards, like most awards rarely recognise quality. What they’re good for is the exposure they give the comics that receive them. So established comics with a huge popularity base should be excluded- like Mega Tokyo. What’s the point of it being there? I’m not sure but I think the aforementioned PVP and Penny Arcade may have requested that they don’t get nominated…

Good on the comics that do “win” in their categories! If they need the recognition and it gives them a boost and helps them go places then I hope they get the most out of it. If the awards can help talented, hard working people who just need that extra bit to get to the next level, then they’re doing a bloody good job. :-D

Of course it's ironic.

However I was pointing out in some way that's it's not exactly a contest where they look for new up-and-coming creators.

Anyway, most all of the comics chosen are pretty darn good. And it's nice to see that the big name comics (well, all except for megatokyo) aren't on here.

I have said for a while that if you ever wanted to make a webcomic awards system that DIDN'T rely on popularity that you would have to have a juried panel.

The jury would have to be experts in the field and would necessarily have to withdraw from competition. This in itself would be a problem because any professional jury would have to include members of Modern Tales and Keenspot and wherever...which will lead to accusations of bias.

To avoid crap comics from submitting their comics on a whim you'd have to charge an admission fee to have your comic evaluated, with part of the fee going to the judges and part going to the awards (and a ceremony? Hmmm...) themselves.

An administration fee would lead to cries of "elitism" and "exclusion" of nonprofessional comics.


So the only choice is to evaluate based on popularity. And you have to make it all encompassing to give it validity. That means you have to include every comic from any location, evaluated by thousands of webcomic readers. The end result will be the most popular comics in that category.

If you try to make it so the big comics like PVP, Penny Arcade, Megatokyo or whomever else are excluded, then where will the line be? Will people suddenly have to report their unique visitors to qualify UNDER the level? Will someone who gets 10,000 views a day be excluded, but the guy who gets 9,999 be allowed in?

It would make the popularity contest that are webcomic awards a bigger farce than they are already accused of being.

I say it's time for DD Awards!

EEN did a pretty good job with that, back in the day.

.: SpANG! :.

Oooh, cool idea. Never heard of this before. I'm anxious to see who wins.

.: KC3T LV :.

I think I can field this one with a little transcript of a conversation I played silent party to at the AnimeCon in Chicago just this May.

Alpha Shade: So Barb, of Talismen: Return of the Exile fame, what do you expect in terms of daily patronage from your vast hordes of internet fans? I do believe that we break into the realm of perhaps... oh, dare I say, 9,000+ unique visitors a day. Mahrem.

Barb: My dear fellow, that is indeed a substantial amount. I can only boast perhaps half as much on a good day. The burden of popularity can be sooo trying.

MisterSpook: You know, I'm impressed when I hit 30.

Alpha Shade : Gadzooks man! 30,000?

MisterSpook: Er... 30. You know. 10 x 3.

Alpha Shade: By the good graces of God, man! How do you continue to exist!

Barb: He fades before our very eyes! LOOK!

MisterSpook: The ghosts of my past are coming back to haunt me!!! nooo...ooo....oo...

MisterSpook fades from existence.

Fin

Getting back on track though. I think there needs to be some fine tuning on the criteria for a potential nominee. Look at Perry Bible Fellowship. I LOVE it. But it hasn't updated in years. And given the current rules, what's to keep him from being re-nominated (like Dinosaur Comics) again and again. I think a non-consecutive rule so that each other year would have a different grouping of nominations.

My problem isn't the voting I guess. I'd just like to see fresh new faces for the nomination process (which is done by committee anyway).

LAST MINUTE EDIT: I should mention that neither the Alpha Shade guys nor Barb were as high fallootin as that, but I did feel severely out of my league. :D

.: MisterSpook :.

And on another note, I see only one person that I'd actually say deserves an award.

Thats http://www.qwantz.com/

Penny Arcade is nominated for gaming comic.

Mister Spook, I feel your pain, brother. I've met webcomic artists that get hits like that and it seems there's an attitude that comes with it. No names mentioned. Although I gotta say, Jennie Breeden of The Devil's Panties is a sweet, genuine girl from what I can tell. She's even gone out of her way through e-mail to help me with scanning advice. And looking more closely, I think she is the one nomination I made that actually showed up on the list. Mister Spook, maybe it'll make you feel better to know you're in a slightly higher league than me in terms of hits. But I keep doing this because I love it; recognition would be nice and readers keep me going but I'm coming to realize there just isn't a big audience for a talking fork.

The WCCA's have to be based on popularity. However, that's not all she wrote. Last year, after only having it online for like 6 months, Detective Fork got nominated in the Anthropomorphic category. (Didn't win; Dinosaur Comics did and I see no way around that.) The point is, I asked for readers to vote for me in that category if they felt Detective Fork was deserving (while leaving notes for others if I voted for them for something) and I had enough votes to get nominated. It is possible to get on there, even for a little guy who gets most of his readers on Duck; you have to promote it, though, especially if you don't have a huge readership. My comic didn't get nominated this year but I suspect it's because I had a dormant period of about two months, haven't been keeping up with my column and I'm way behind on reading other Drunk Duck comics, even my favorites like Slither, Penis, Pinky and others. All that's really killed my readership although I do appreciate the faithful forkers who still come by.

I prefer being just a member of the D-list webcomic artists. I take a certain amount of pride of being the little guy. It makes me feel awesome, since I'm doing things some other people won't dare do.

I always refer back to an article in wizard about PVP. It said, even the matrix isn't safe from parody by the pvp crew. I've seen the matrix parodied ten thousand times. I made spiderman a closeted, violant, and ultimately just another homosexual in my comic. He can't do that, he would get sued out his ass. But me? I could have spiderman blow cocks and cut children, and no one bats an eye. I laugh my ass off at it, as does Kyupol and a few other people. I'm not trying to entertain anyone but myself. If other people like it great, if other people hate me, even better. Fuck fame, I want infamy god dammit.