Comic strip finalists announced for Weblogs Award

Comments ⁹

1. Corey Pandolph

   Seriously? This is the best we can nominate? From all of the Internet? Where are the Scary Go Rounds? The Achewoods? The Gills and Wapsi Squares?

   Not to say many of the listed comics aren’t brimming with merit, but this lineup just seems a bit weak in the diversity of the web dept.

   And just checking the voting so far: Garfield without Garfield is winning? A comic that’s basically a photoshop cut and paste of an already established comic?!

   Why? Why should the rest of us try and write original material â?? Toil over our work in hopes of the proper recognition â?? when all we need do is ape someone else’s work in a campy, yet endearing manner?

   The supposed old and tired newspaper comics die to give way to way to the NEW old and tired; Re-hashed with fancy pixels for the web.

   For shame, for shame!

   FOR SHAME.

2. Alan Jones

   wow.

   As Corey said, “Seriously?” This seems to negate the legitimacy of such a contest.

   Not to knock the existing finalists, but how can somewhere around 20,000 web comics possibly be narrowed down to ten?

   Are the reviewers web comics-savvy peers or experts — it looks like they’re a group of volunteers (who don’t necessarily represent a properly broad enough demographic of web comic readers) but it’s not clear about the criteria they used or any other legitimizing mechanisms (maybe I have not looked deep enough on the site).

   The reviewers looked “…through the thousands and thousands of nominations to come up with the best slate of finalists we’ve ever had.”

   I just don’t see how that’s possible even with JUST the comics, let alone the body of web content represented by the categories.

   Comments may already be flying across the wires on industry-related blogs: “List of Finalists Show Judges Aren’t Aware of What’s Actually Out There” or such.

3. Mike Peterson

   Come on, Ted — Write ’em a letter!

4. T.J. Hill

   I think a syndicated “in print” strip (along the lines of Dilbert, but maybe not so a newly syndicated strip) that is also running on the web should not be in the mix. The category should be reserved for true web cartoonists.

5. Wiley Miller

   “Garfield without Garfield is winning? A comic thatâ??s basically a photoshop cut and paste of an already established comic?!”

   That’s like nominating an Elvis impersonator for a Grammy, isn’t it? It may be fun, but it’s not creative.

6. Bearman

   While not clear, I think how the list is determined is that someone first has to nominate a site and then it is determined in each category by the Technorati score.

   So if the above mentioned webtoons aren’t registered under Technorati, it appears they wouldn’t be counted.

7. Dave Kellett

   Let’s be honest: The fact is, these (and a great many other) awards don’t mean diddly. Hence, no one really cares, nor is there any great uproar among webcartoonists.

   There are only *two* awards that matter in non-editorial cartooning: The Reuben and the Eisner.

   And since the Eisner only gives out awards to “long-story-form” webcomics, and since the Reuben won’t include a webcomics category until there’s a generational change in the NCS…there’s really no award of gravitas for webcomics.

   Which is fine by me, in all honesty. Most webcomics work, my own included, has a few more decades of workin’ before they should even be considered for either award.

   (…If even then!)

8. Tony Piro

   These awards may not mean “diddly,” but they sure are nice for a beginning cartoonist like myself. The traffic one gets from being a finalist is just a drop in the bucket for xkcd, Dilbert, or most of you guys. But for me it’s a great opportunity that I’m extremely thankful for (even though my comic probably doesn’t deserve this recognition in comparison to the other finalists and the other great webcomics, like Achewood, that somehow weren’t named finalists).

9. A. Joyce

   Why isn’t Bob Scott’s “Myron” nominated? It’s by far the best comic on the web.