Oh I would love to draw one of those reward pages =3

I'll have plenty of time with not updating and all ^^

amanda
As for the judging/voting...I had to give that a lot of thought, so I apologize for a non-quick answer. I really think popular vote is the way to do it rather than a panel of judges. That mostly stems from me thinking the US Electoral College is unbelievably silly. I'm always happy to hear your opinions on the matter, though, so I'm not setting anything in stone until August 1 (when the nomination form is official).

Yes, popular vote.
Fairer, simpler and easier.

amanda
As for the judging/voting...I had to give that a lot of thought, so I apologize for a non-quick answer. I really think popular vote is the way to do it rather than a panel of judges. That mostly stems from me thinking the US Electoral College is unbelievably silly. I'm always happy to hear your opinions on the matter, though, so I'm not setting anything in stone until August 1 (when the nomination form is official).

I agree. That's how they did it last year. (But people will miss out if it is a single day. Should have at least a week open for voting, I think.) I *think* they took the top 3 or 5 nominated comics and listed them on the "ballot" for the final popular vote.

You could use radio buttons on that form to avoid write-ins. I think that last year they just used the DD comment system but hid the comments, so it was anonymous.

I'm not really talented at banner making, but I came up with a simple one that could be used -- 234 x 60 pixels to fit in with a standard "half banner" size. (I'm putting it on my page until someone makes a better one. :-P )

That's a great idea - and it's actually a little easier to code for radio buttons than text boxes. Woo!

I like your banner! I'll absolutely snag it for my site, too. And maybe signature? Thanks!

Nice graphic, Vickie! I'd use it... :)

Just found out 'bout this today... I loved the idea, and I'd love to help in any way possible! Maybe I could draw one award page, put the banners on my comics, my sig and stuff.

Hi, Allen - I was about to PQ you and try and sucker you into helping XD But you've found it on your own, so yay.

And Freakenburger, I'd love to have your help! We will end up needing lots of presenters since there will be...haha, lots of categories! Wheeeeee!

As for presenters, I'll probably have a list of categories and list of presenters, then use some sort of randomizer to assign categories. Unless someone has a decidedly strong feeling either way.

*Quick Edit: I've updated some info concerning rules, timelines, etc in the first post on the first page.

Aaaaaaand I have the updated sample ballot. I put it on my own site & took away the button that sends it, haha.
It's kinda long, but the only required field is the username one, so people don't have to fill out everything.
Ta-da!

I tried to streamline, add the requested categories, etc. Mlai, I couldn't figure out how to word your request to make it less vague. I like where you're going with it, though. I added some categories that might give some unfeature-able comics recognition, so maybe our bases are covered. Thoughts?

amanda
Thoughts?

I love it!

Just checked out the updated sample ballot. Outstanding. Can't wait for this to happen.

And I want to add my name to the list of presenters.

Great! I'm glad to have you aboard, JGib. ^.^

This is very exciting...to tell the truth, I didn't expect such a response!

Ooh. Looks nice. If protagonist and antagonist have to specify both character and comic, their text boxes should be longer.

The text boxes are short for aesthetics, but you have up to 30 characters in all the boxes. The prot/ant have 50 chars. ^.^ It's deceiving!

amanda
The text boxes are short for aesthetics, but you have up to 30 characters in all the boxes. The prot/ant have 50 chars. ^.^ It's deceiving!

How about two boxes for those.
One for the comic name, one for the character?
(If you do that, be sure to label each.)

usedbooks

Iba
Some comic's jokes and gags don't contain anything but an image or are single panel strips and hence rely on the art to make the humour. It's broader than just writing.

Writing is not the "text" in a comic. It's the planning of the comic. If a comic is done in a team effort, the writer passes the idea to the artist. The humor is in that original idea, and the "writer" not the "artist" should get the accolades for it. Hence "humor" is in the writing. ;)

-- However, I *think* we are talking about two different things... I interpreted your suggestion not as genre but in terms of any comic evoking good laughs -- whatever their genre. The word "humor" threw me off, since I don't think of that word in connection to a type of comic. (I think more like movie/TV terminology for genres: drama, horror, comedy, etc.)

As a comic type/genre category, "Random Humor," "Gag Strip," or "Comedy" would describe it well.

Thinking about different things all around. I was referring to writing as not the planning of a comic, but rather the plot or progression of story which is slightly different. A single panel comic to me contains very little to no writing, however a storyline comic does. I also would never think to use the term comedy to describe a comic's purpose. To me that's just talking about content which is not always the same as purpose.

Anyway, that's more or less beside the point. As I said earlier, I fully endorse using the same categories as the DD search engine. There's no point in reinventing the wheel and doing work over again.

I can toss my name out there as a potential presenter. I should have some down time before school gets up and going again that I can do extra work in.

Looking good, amanda! I have one more suggestion (getting sick of me yet?). Maybe have separate awards for storyline and dialogue? They are very different things, imo, and both deserve recognition.

And a nitpicky-suggestion (sorry ^_^; ), maybe change "Best Custom Page Design" to "Best Website Design" just to avoid any confusion between a "comic" page and a "web" page.

Bocaj
How about two boxes for those.
One for the comic name, one for the character?
(If you do that, be sure to label each.)

I think that's a good idea. People might read over the instructions, so two boxes would help emphasize entering two things. ;)

amanda
As for the judging/voting...I had to give that a lot of thought, so I apologize for a non-quick answer. I really think popular vote is the way to do it rather than a panel of judges.

I believe the original plan last year was to let nominations come in, then from the top 10 use judges to pick the top 5 from among them, rather than the straight top 5 being automatically turned over to final voting. It was to A: eliminate joke drives, like say 'powerup comics' organizing a drive to get nominated for everything, and B: give less popular comics a chance. More readers=more votes so if the whole process was done purely by popular vote, the most-read comics would come out on top and the less-read or newer comics wouldn't have a chance. I don't think that's how it ended up working out (I think the nominations had too clear of a divide- two or three comics that got tons of votes, and a ton of comics that got 1 or three votes)


I'd be careful with the 'current comics only' thing. It would be very easy to check when a comic last updated, just check the browse page or the author's profile, but if you want to include completed comics, or comics taking 'between book' rests, then someone is going to have to double-check all the comics to make sure that they HAVE updated in the last two months (or whatever), and if not, find out whether it's a 'legitimate' break or if the person is just waffly about updates. so it might add a bit of work - also I suspect that a lot of people are going to miss that requirement because they're not going to want to read the rules, they're just going to want to get nominating :)

By the way, I did plug the awards in my latest comic.

That two-box idea is a really good one - I'll definitely make that change.

I figured that most people wouldn't be bothered with reading guidelines before voting, so I had planned to weed out comics that obviously didn't match the category (like voting for Charby as the best Stick Figure comic or something) - might be a bit of extra legwork, but I have the time/patience/lack of life to do it ^.^ Though I certainly wouldn't turn help away =] Snagging the top 10 and having a few people scope them out to narrow the list would be awesome.

Anyone up for doing that? I'd love to have a couple extra people helping to narrow it down and keep it extra-fair. I certainly don't mind doing it alone, but you guys would have to really trust me 8D

I'll help however I can.

*Mostly cause I don't trust you >:-(



*denotes that the second line was a joke for the jokingly impaired

*shakes fist at JNP*

But yes - I'd love your help. I'll pester you when I have the top 10 counted up. Unless you want to count, too ^.^

Thanks for the plug, Bocaj! I highly encourage people to snag UsedBooks's banner and slap that on your own comic site for a while to generate interest.

As a statistician, I feel obligated to assist with any data work (It's usually 90% cleanup anyway).

Here's what my "behind the scenes" process will be:
1. Someone fills out the ballot.
2. The ballot is emailed to me when they hit the submit button.
3. I'll be manually entering the info into a spreadsheet.
4. Hurray for counting.
5. Make top 10 lists.
6. Get with any available judges - divy up categories, hop to it, etc.
7. Meet back with top five lists.
8. Profit!

I believe I can add people to be CC-ed on the ballots being sent to email if someone wants to verify my counting abilities. Won't hurt my feelings if no one volunteers for that, haha. It's going to be the least fun of the process since I'm not an advanced enough code monkey to auto-generate nice spreadsheets of data. *cry*

I can definitely help with the top 10 lists. I'm all for getting into things and helping out.

I'm thinking I might hold off on plugging and PR until the nomination sheet is finalized though. I'm not sure I want to send people to it half-complete since they'll be likely to ignore it and forget about it. At least if they're my readers they will.

amanda
It's going to be the least fun of the process since I'm not an advanced enough code monkey to auto-generate nice spreadsheets of data. *cry*

*raises hand and waves it frantically*

I'm an advanced code monkey that can take the raw spreadsheets and turn it into something useful!

Heh, okay, Iba. I'll add you as a CC to the emails. Wanna PQ me your email address?

And BlkKnight, you can scope out the source code if you like - I broke down and used a third party thing to send the results in an email - my current host didn't allow for PHP unless I upgraded. Bah. Dunno exactly what would need to be done with the results that are being generated to turn them into a spreadsheet short of manually entering. Ha, or even how to explain it properly.

If you need any PHP access and stuff I can hook you up on my server for this. Though I guess you already took care of everything.

I'll help out with the top 10 lists.

Plus I'll start plugging the awards on my comics when I update (As well as put Vickie's banner on the sites).

Shit, I didn't notice this. Amazing work, Amanda!

I didn't get to see the categories you posted, but taking the experience from last year's awards I would say we need less categories, not more. My suggestion is to take last year's categories and streamline them and change them a bit. Just to remind you they were:


Best fantasy - elves, dragons, mages and magic
Best sci-fi - spaceships, aliens, and technology
Best real life - realistic situations
Best horror- monsters, zombies, and scary stories
Best action - good action scenes (fighting, superheroes, space battles)
Best humor - funny stories
Best drama/noir - detective stories and hardboiled crime fiction

Best line art - distinguished drawing lines
Best color - using colors to impact the story
Best writing - fascinating characters and situations
Best pixel art - using limited pixels to create a comic (sprite comics)

Best comic book - using the whole comic to tell a story
Best comic strip - using 3-4 panels to tell a story

Taking as a template the main film genres I would suggest these categories:

Genres:
-------
Best Action/Adventure (This includes everything from elves to robots)
Best Comedy
Best Drama
Best Horror
*Best Original: Maybe? (Anything that doesn't fit in any of the others)

Art:
----
Best Line Art
Best Pixel Art
Best Color
Best Black and White (Including greyscale/shading)
Best Writing

General:
--------
Best Comic Book
Best Comic Strip