the "most special drunk duck member"

Weren't there a "The Friendliest DD'er" category last year?

AWCramer
Is there any differentiation between comic strips and comic books??

Yes. A comic strip is a set of panels, for example three panels. Generally comic strips have a quick joke and tend to be shorter than a page. These are meant to replicate newspaper comics, since those comics tend to be short and small for the sake of space for other comics.

Comic pages suggest a comic book, where you have one full page full of content. These are longer and tend to have more panel in each image. These also tend to have an overarching story rather than a quick joke (though comic strips can have an overarching story and comic pages can have quick jokes, I'm speaking overall). Also, strips tend to be a continuous thing while comic book suggests a beginning/middle/end (though the series may continue, the story/book itself does not).

So, long story short, strip is a short and sweet bit of comic while pages tend to be longer. Story differences can happen in both as well along with story structure.

lba
I'll also second the gay/lesbian genre. I've been poking through the listings and it looks like the number of comics we have that feature gay/lesbian/other sexual preference themes has grown and they're not all yaoi and yuri. Some of them fit in other categories, but most seem to be otherwise. Might have to come up with a better name than gay/lesian/other sexual preference though.

But in the end most of the LGBT comics can also be defined as "romance," "action," etc, which I'm sure the authors want to be recognized for more than just for being an LGBT comic...

Yeah. We went over that and I think the consensus here is to not have a GLBT category. I've changed my mind on the subject myself after looking through a few of the comics that it would apply to.

Catya
Weren't there a "The Friendliest DD'er" category last year?

Exactly! I know there's a difference between 'Friendly' and 'Supportive', but is it a great enough difference to require individual categoys??

I'm starting to think maybe not. \:

Hey all, I've only been on DD for about a month or so, so forgive me if this question seems newb-ish, but when will we be able to submit our comic for the awards?

dcole
Hey all, I've only been on DD for about a month or so, so forgive me if this question seems newb-ish, but when will we be able to submit our comic for the awards?

You're automatically in the running. Everyone is eligible so long as they've updated within the set time period and the comic is hosted on DD. To be a finalist for an award the comic has to be popularly elected.

Infinite Canvas award? It would go to a comic that makes good use of being on the internet, giant pages, animation, strange panel layout, easter eggs, interactivity etc.

I also think charecter awards aimed at strip comics would be a good thing since protaganist and antagonist don't really apply to strips.

Funniest single panel comic
Explains itself.

How about a charecter design award? It would go to the comic that may not have deep charecters or well drawn charecters, but charecters who (usually) aren't human and look awesome.

The list of categories has been updated with your suggestions. Looks like the general consensus was NOT to have a GLBT category, so I did not include one. I added a few categories at the end that were suggestions.

Bff, I'm not sure how we'd go about judging for the Infinite Canvas idea. Can you cite a couple of examples of comics that use this method?

Best Couple would be a separate, new category, I think. It would go with other character awards (like best protagonist) and shouldn't have to be from a romance comic, imo.

amanda
Bff, I'm not sure how we'd go about judging for the Infinite Canvas idea. Can you cite a couple of examples of comics that use this method?

Go for it often involves animation
Hard boiled detecitvce's choose your own adventure concept
Also comics that don't stick to a certin layout, something that consistently has the same page format would be out, something that changes from one panel to 30 panels would be in. Love curse is an example of this
It would be judged on the comic that makes the best use out of being an online comic, something that couldn't function on paper but also something that doesn't just seem gimicky.
The criteria is that it uses creative ways to tell a story or joke that are mostly only able to be done on the internet as well as being able to be a good comic without the use of these methods.

Also I agree with usedbooks on the best couple thing, a couple may not necasairily be from a romance comic. The couple could be from a sci-fi comic, a humour comic, or any genre.

DrLuck

AWCramer
Is there any differentiation between comic strips and comic books??

Yes. A comic strip is a set of panels, for example three panels. Generally comic strips have a quick joke and tend to be shorter than a page. These are meant to replicate newspaper comics, since those comics tend to be short and small for the sake of space for other comics.

Comic pages suggest a comic book, where you have one full page full of content. These are longer and tend to have more panel in each image. These also tend to have an overarching story rather than a quick joke (though comic strips can have an overarching story and comic pages can have quick jokes, I'm speaking overall). Also, strips tend to be a continuous thing while comic book suggests a beginning/middle/end (though the series may continue, the story/book itself does not).

So, long story short, strip is a short and sweet bit of comic while pages tend to be longer. Story differences can happen in both as well along with story structure.

LOL I know the difference between the "strip" and "page" but what I wanted to know is that is there a separate set of awards for strips and a separate set of awards for pages...
Seems odd to have a strip competing against a page... it's like pitting a short story against a novel... know what I mean?

AWCramer
LOL I know the difference between the "strip" and "page" but what I wanted to know is that is there a separate set of awards for strips and a separate set of awards for pages...
Seems odd to have a strip competing against a page... it's like pitting a short story against a novel... know what I mean?

Not a separate *set* of awards, but some awards will be more applicable to one or the other, and there's planned (I think ) to be separate overall strip and overall story awards.

Oh, sorry - I totally meant for Romance and Best Couple to be separate. I just didn't put the spaces in XD Ooops.

Do we have enough strips for a single panel award? I can only think of two and currently one of them is disqualified. I'm not against it if we have enough of them though.

usedbooks
Not a separate *set* of awards, but some awards will be more applicable to one or the other, and there's planned (I think ) to be separate overall strip and overall story awards.

There should be separate ones. That was what we agreed on after last years awards as I recall.

lba

usedbooks
Not a separate *set* of awards, but some awards will be more applicable to one or the other, and there's planned (I think ) to be separate overall strip and overall story awards.

There should be separate ones. That was what we agreed on after last years awards as I recall.

Really? I remember discussing it before coming up with categories last year and deciding it wouldn't work out well. Doing "double categories" I mean. Like best fantasy strip and best fantasy story and all the other things. It was just kinda weird to have two defining things for a category.

Maybe I'm thinking of something else. I remember it being suggested that we separate comics based on color vs. B&W for all categories or based on update schedules. Or other such divisions. -- In any case, I personally cast my vote against any of those kinds of splittings. (Not that it matters too much to me personally, but it would double or nearly the number of categories and reduce the number of eligible comics in each category. That could be very aggravating for judges and for voters.)

Maybe I missed something. Was there a sense of unfairness toward strips or stories last year?

I just find it kinda weird to have strips in the same categories for pages... its like Garfield competing with Uncanny X-Men for an award. Or like Emmys vs Oscars

usedbooks

lba

usedbooks
Not a separate *set* of awards, but some awards will be more applicable to one or the other, and there's planned (I think ) to be separate overall strip and overall story awards.

There should be separate ones. That was what we agreed on after last years awards as I recall.

Really? I remember discussing it before coming up with categories last year and deciding it wouldn't work out well. Doing "double categories" I mean. Like best fantasy strip and best fantasy story and all the other things. It was just kinda weird to have two defining things for a category.

Oh crud. I should have phrased that better. I meant that I remembered there being a agreement for separate "overall best comic" categories, not separate categories for every subject.

So, let's do a wrap up of the outstanding issues we have right now:

+ means people have been supportive of the idea
- means a negative reception of the idea
* means not many people have given their opinion

These categories have been proposed to be nixed:
~Autobiographical*
~Western*

New proposed categories:
~best use of an overall medium (also proposed as Best media use)*
~best new comic (details need to be ironed out, may not be logistically possible) + in theory
~best completed comic*
~best line art*
~most unique art style*
~most improved art*
~Best gay/lesbian comic -
~best all ages comic +
~best 3D art/ best 3d comic *
~most (10) supportive reader(s) + but most agree that 10 is too high a number.
~friendliest DDer *
~Funniest (Best?) single panel comic *
~Best character design *
~Best infinite canvas comic *

Other:
~Best dialogue and best writing as separate categories?*
~Best dialogue separated into "best witty dialogue" and "best drama dialogue"*
~Change best stick figure comic award to "Best use of simplified art" to incorporate other simple styles?*

alright, now to give my 2 cents on all that

These categories have been proposed to be nixed:
~Autobiographical - Keep it, but we need to make sure the nominees actually fit the comic.
~Western - Lose it. How many western comics are here on DD? I'm not sure we have enough nominees. Plus western comics fold easily into other categories.

New proposed categories:
~best use of an overall medium - Don't really understand this one yet.
~best new comic (details need to be ironed out)- I'm still for it.
~best completed comic - for it.
~best line art- Against it. Just because I don't think there's a need to get that specific. If we're getting to that level of specificity then it'd only be fair to include a "best shading" award and "best anatomy" award and a host of other awards that wouldn't be all that interesting because they're so technical.
~most unique art style - I like this idea, but it may overlap with other proposed categories discussed below.
~most improved art - I like this idea, although I wonder if its too much since we already have a "most improved comic" award
~Best gay/lesbian comic - Against it for a lot of reasons others already mentioned
~best all ages comic - This is a great idea.
~best 3D art/ best 3d comic - It seems only fair to include this category (best 3d art), I've seen a couple people on the forum that do poser comics so I know there's at least enough to have some good nominees.
~most (10) supportive reader(s) - like it, but we should bring the number down to at least 5
~Funniest (Best?) single panel comic - Best single panel comic is an ok idea. I'm not sure its 100% necessary since single panel comics are almost entirely humor comics and that has its own category already.
~Best character design - Great idea.
~Best infinite canvas comic - Needs to be renamed, i think, just cause the term "infinite canvas" is unfamiliar to most people. I proposed earlier a broader "Most Creative comic". with the description that it's rewarding the "most innovative use of comics as a medium." People would have to read the description, but I think it sums up well what this idea is all about. There should be an award for those that push the envelope on what comics can do.

Other:
~Best dialogue and best writing as separate categories? - Agreed, we definitely need a "best writing award". Doing this rewards well written comics that have little to no dialogue. The only question (for me) is whether or not we need the "Best Dialogue" one.
~Best dialogue separated into "best witty dialogue" and "best drama dialogue" - This is getting a little too specific.
~Change best stick figure comic award to "Best use of simplified art" to incorporate other simple styles? - "best use of simplified art" is a fantastic idea for a category, I don't think it necessarily has to replace best stick figure comic though (it could, if we're worried about category glut, but it does HAVE to).

Actually, now that I think of it, discussing all this in a single thread is pretty clumsy. We should think about using separate threads for each issue, and reserving this space for the approved master list of categories and definitions.

How about a "Best Sociological Comic" or "Best social analysis comic", maybe someone can come up with a more exciting name. I thought about "lifestyle", but that sounds kind of icky, maybe because it's a brand of condom. Anyway, that would cover comics that specifically feature storylines centered on sexual orientation as a social issue as well as ones that center on body image/weight acceptance, gender issues, race issues, etc.

Plus, these comics, don't necessarily fit into other categories. I think this should actually replace "Slice of Life" since that category is rather redundant http://www.answers.com/slice-of-life since we have autobiographical (which I think shouldn't be nixed, though it should be made very clear what does and does not qualify).

Yeah, gay and lesbian comic seems a bit ridiculous.
Sort of patronising, like if we made a category for best black person comic or best comic by a woman.
Also, what counts as a gay comic?
If one of the main characters in Harkovast is revealed to be gay, could I win an extra award? Or is that not enough gay to qualify? How gay does a "gay" comic need to be?

harkovast
Yeah, gay and lesbian comic seems a bit ridiculous.
Sort of patronising, like if we made a category for best black person comic or best comic by a woman.
Also, what counts as a gay comic?
If one of the main characters in Harkovast is revealed to be gay, could I win an extra award? Or is that not enough gay to qualify? How gay does a "gay" comic need to be?

I think it means like, a comic that revolves mostly around a gay/lesbian relationship between two characters (or more, if you want to go that far)

Like Plastic, for instance.
Or uh...crap...any Yaoi/Yuri comic.

Still seems a bit patronising to me.
As if being gay defines someone completely, or the inclusion of gay people in a story makes gayness the total focus of it.
But since it is a category I dont really expect to contest then I suppose people can add it if they want.

Been years since i forsake drunkduck, kinda liking my stay here...
Now i guess i'm gonna do more comics here.

Exzachly
~Best infinite canvas comic - Needs to be renamed, i think, just cause the term "infinite canvas" is unfamiliar to most people. I proposed earlier a broader "Most Creative comic". with the description that it's rewarding the "most innovative use of comics as a medium." People would have to read the description, but I think it sums up well what this idea is all about. There should be an award for those that push the envelope on what comics can do.

"Best use of web medium" perhaps? I defiantly agree that this is a must have award since this is a website that publishes comics on the internet.

i agree about not having youi/yuri comic subcatagories, that can fall under romance.

agree about having a catagory for website design and presentation.

great categories! how about:

For Writing category
Best Quote - 1 phrase or 1 sentence
Best Word - new term or most repeated word
Best Tagline - comics description

For Comics Characters
Best Sci-Fi Character
Best Superhero Character
Best Abstract Character
Best Humor Character
Best Parody Character
Best Fantasy Character
Best Real Life Character
Best Adventure Character
Best Noir Character
Best Political Character
Best Spiritual Character
Best Mystery Character
Best Horror Character
Best Romance Character
Best Tribute Character
Best War Character

For Members
Most Loyal DD member - 24/7 lurker/commenter/defender ha-ha!
Ageless Forum-er - oldest forum member
Honorary DD Award - not necessarily a dead artist/writer...lol

Happy voting! :)