2010 Hugo Nominees - Graphic Story round-up

This was a tough one to decide on. Overall, I’d say it’s the weakest set of nominees except maybe “Dramatic Presentation, short form,” and I do get the idea that Hugo nominators as a whole aren’t too widely read in the world of comics. For both its two years, the category has been dominated by two specific webcomics and writers/properties from the wider sf world.

I’m going to contradict myself right off the bat. I’ve said several times that I like that the Hugos give more attention to webcomics than a lot of awards programs…but I’m going to immediately toss the two webcomics out of contention. Schlock Mercenary didn’t do it for me, and Phil Foglio is a sentimental favorite, but Girl Genius felt like it was in a holding pattern last year.

The three other collections are stronger entries, but each has its flaws. Captain Britain suffers from the minutiae of obscure continuity and inconsistencies in the art. Gaiman’s Batman has some beautiful moments, but again, not my favorite art, and not much of an overall story. Fables had beautiful art, but it’s in the awkward position of dealing with the aftermath of a truly epic story. All three are great, none is perfect.

In the end, I voted for Cornell’s Captain Britain, though Willingham and Gaiman were very close behind. I think sentimental reasons were the tie-breaker – I have more of a history with Captain Britain, and I really like Cornell.

Tomorrow, short fiction. Wednesday, novellas, Thursday, drama! Friday, novels.

2010 Hugo nominee, graphic fiction: Schlock Mercenary: The Longshoreman of the Apocalypse Written and Illustrated by Howard Tayler

Like Girl Genius, this is another webcomic. Unlike Girl Genius, this is much more of a daily comic strip (there used to be these things called “newspapers” that originated the concept. I hear they still publish a few for nostalgia purposes). This is the one nominee that I really wanted to pass on. Not that I thought I wouldn’t like it, but just because it’s so hard to compare to the other works, and also because I was so far behind. I had to read 365 strips to catch up, some of them quite wordy; I think this took longer than some of the Hugo-nominated novels this year. And, I didn’t even consider reading the nine years worth of previous strips, which means that I didn’t know the characters and world nearly as much as I’d like to.

What I did get out of it is that our main characters are mercenaries led by Captain Kaff Tagon, and including mad scientist Kevyn Andreyasn, a snarky floating AI called Ennesby, and the titular Schlock, a violent and blobby alien (?). In this volume, they escort an aid shipment to Credomar, where the delicacy of the local political situation frustrates the mercenaries to no end. It’s a more cynical and militaristic Star Trek. Much of the humor comes from sci-fi in-jokes. The rest of the humor comes from characters deadpanning in the face of over-the-top action sequences or their own callousness.

The cartooning is very simplistic, and even though some of the other nominees had occasional artistic inconsistencies, they’re all still miles ahead of this. The plot seems pretty thin as well; it feels quite padded. However, my biggest problem is how one-note the characters are. They’re all variations on a theme: no-nonsense, cut-through-the-bs military types who are a bit unstable. It got old fast. I also got the impression that Tayler had much more sympathy for the mercenaries’ violent attitudes than for anyone else. I’m all for black humor, but watching the mercenaries gleefully attack a world of aid-recipients was…a little unpleasant?

It is hard to compare the daily strip to collected volumes, especially when you’re reading it in big bunches rather than daily, but I could name a lot of examples that are funnier, better looking, or even have better sf concepts.

Still, I won’t say that I wouldn’t have enjoyed this more had I been prepared and followed the characters longer. But, I’m pretty confident that it wouldn’t be getting my Hugo vote. The whole series is available for free here, so you can decide for yourself.

2010 Hugo nominee, graphic fiction: Girl Genius, Volume 9: "Agatha Heterodyne and the Heirs of the Storm" by Kaja and Phil Foglio

As I mentioned before, the Hugo voters seem to differ somewhat in their views from the voters of the big comics awards like the Eisners. This is only the second year that the graphic fiction category has existed, but based on these two sets of nominees, it looks like the Hugo pool leans heavily on high profile Vertigo series (Fables), properties from creators already well-known in the sf community (Cornell and Gaiman), and webcomics. I think the high profile of the latter category actually speaks in favor of Hugo nominators, as webcomics have huge circulation but often seem to be undervalued by comics tastemakers.

Phil Foglio has a couple of fan-art Hugos under his belt from way back in the ‘70s, and Girl Genius, by he and his wife Kaja, was one of the first self-published comics to embrace the webcomics model with great success. So, it’s not a surprise that Girl Genius is a mainstay in this category (it won the first year). It’s also very easy to see why Girl Genius has a huge following and active sf fanbase from the content itself: the character cartooning is lively and expressive with strong storytelling, the designs are fantastic, and the setting is very interesting. Girl Genius is set in an alternate nineteenth-century Europe where certain people have a “spark” that enables them to become mad scientists and create giant destructive machines. This has turned the Europe of this super-industrial revolution into a shattered war-zone full of giant robots. The titular “girl genius,” Agatha Heterodyne eventually discovers that she has a hidden “spark” and a special destiny. It’s all very steampunk, though the Foglios prefer the much cooler term “Gaslamp fantasy.”

This volume and the previous Hugo-winning volume both take place in a sentient castle that Agatha has inherited. Both volumes involve a lot of traipsing around the huge building while disarming of boobytraps, discovering secrets, and repelling invasions. The innovation of this volume in particular is that it puts both of Agatha’s love interests in the castle with her, which creates lots of comic and character opportunities, and, when a chromatic illness is introduced, adds a race-against-time element with some added drama. For these reasons, I liked this volume better than the previous one.

That said, I don’t think volume 8 should have won last year (I probably would have voted for Fables), and I’m not sure this superior volume should win this year either. The plot has stalled out a bit in the castle, after a series of very fast-paced entries through the first seven volumes. Also, as much as I can see why the series is so beloved, I’ve never been as big a fan. There’s a lot to admire here, and Phil and Kaja Foglio have great ideas and a lot of experience. It’s purely a matter of personal taste, but the mix of comedy and drama has never quite worked for me. I want the series to either be sillier or more serious. Still, I don’t think there’s any question that it’s the best “gaslamp fantasy” comic that America has produced in the past few years, and, in a year when Steampunk reigns supreme, that counts for a lot.

2010 Hugo nominee, graphic fiction: Fables Vol 12: The Dark Ages Written by Bill Willingham; Pencilled by Mark Buckingham (Vertigo)

Fables has been the hot comic out of DC’s Vertigo press for the past ten years. It is to the 00s what Sandman was to the 90s in many ways. Still, I got kind of sick of it and dropped it around issue #40. It’s still going though; it’s nearing issue #100, and this volume collects #76-82.

The basic concept of Fables is that all of the characters from various literary/folklore traditions are real: Snow White, the Big Bad Wolf, Sinbad, Pinocchio, Mr. Toad, Boy Blue, etc. They once lived in different fairy tale worlds, but they were pushed out by a massive invasion by a force they call The Adversary. For most of the twentieth century they’ve lived incognito as refugees in Manhattan. Writer Bill Willingham comes up with some fun twists here: Prince Charming is a bit of a philanderer (having had relationships with Snow White, Cinderella, and Sleeping Beauty). Non-human characters have to be kept on a special farm. The Big Bad Wolf is trying to reform. etc. The set-up really is great, and I was quite taken with it at first. However, I dropped the series as it became more and more involved in the over-arching story of war with the Adversary (I also found the reveal of the Adversary’s identity, which I won’t spoil here, rather disappointing). This volume takes place in the aftermath of said war, but things haven’t changed all that much from when I dropped off.

The central focus in this volume is on the instability caused by the removal of the Adversary from power, and there are several parallel plotlines that deal with the war’s aftermath. There are threats of new warlords arising and a new powerful enemy appears from the Adversary’s former dominion, the amnesty of a former enemy is becoming a hot issue in Fabletown, and the fables must bury their war heroes while the war wounded are still struggling to survive (there are some major character deaths here and in the previous story). I saw some clear parallels to the aftermath of the Iraq War, though Willingham (a vocal conservative) avoids anything too pointed. There’s also a reference to our old friend Fritz Leiber in the form of Freddy and Mouse, analogues of his fantasy anti-heroes Fafhrd and the Gray Mouser.

The art is fantastic here. Regular series artist Mark Buckingham is excellent. He works in the fairly straightforward Vertigo house style, but there’s just a touch of cartoonish whimsy in his characters, maybe even a bit of Disney. Indie legend Mike Allred also does a fine issue at the beginning of this collection. There’s a lot to like here, and I’d highly recommend this series to fantasy fans looking to dip their toes into a mature, but fun, urban fantasy comic. I don’t think I’ll be jumping back on; for me, the idea wore out its freshness for me long ago. But it wouldn’t surprise me to see this as a perennial nominee in this category.

2010 Hugo nominee: Graphic Fiction: Captain Britain And MI13. Volume 3: Vampire State Written by Paul Cornell; Pencilled by Leonard Kirk (Marvel)

British writer Paul Cornell is probably best known for his work on the revived Dr. Who. He wrote three episodes, and all received Hugo nominations. Cornell has also done a lot of work at the fringes of the Marvel Universe. He's done several miniseries, but his best received work dealt with Marvel's British superheroes. He started with a miniseries on mutant Pete Wisdom from Marvel's adult imprint that emphasized the British Isles as a place of magic and fairies. He placed the mutant paranormal investigator in MI:13, a fiction British agency that deals with the weird. He then returned to MI:13 and the same themes with a new series starring Captain Britain (a superhero defined by comics legends Alan Moore and Chris Claremont). Joining Wisdom and Moore were the Black Knight, World War II heroine Spitfire, vampire hunter Blade, and a new character, Dr. Faiza Hussain. The series was an immense hit with critics and had many vocal fans, but sales were abysmally low throughout its run, and the book was cancelled after 15 issues and an annual.

This volume contains the third and final story: "Vampire State." Dracula (yes, he's a character in the Marvel Universe) decides to invade Britain to capture its magical resources, and he prepares a massive vampire army on the moon to do so. The MI: 13 team is ambushed, but they quickly put together a series of elaborate counter-measures. The battle involves a lot of twists and turns, betrayals and double crosses, and magical one-upmanship.

It's a very fun story, though it's not without its problems. Cornell seems willing to sacrifice the overall flow of the story in favor of dramatic issue-ending cliffhangers. One fake-out in particular seems just a bit too elaborate, and won't make any sense if you haven't read the previous storyline. Cornell's not afraid to delve into obscure continuity, and I'm not really sure if that's a flaw or a virtue. A lot of the story hangs on the obscure 1970s villain Baron Blood. My biggest complaint is with the art. Regular artist Leonard Kirk is fantastic, but he seems to have been running behind. Much of this volume is drawn by other artists, and these clearly inferior fill-in pages appear randomly.

The story begins with Dracula and Dr Doom meeting on the moon to discuss a possible alliance. If that sounds cool to you, you will probably enjoy this series. If not, it may not be for you, as it really relies on an understanding of superhero tropes and Marvel continuity. Personally, I don't think the series ever had time to hit its stride, so I'm not sure this is Hugo-worthy. I really do hope to see a lot more comics work from Paul Cornell though.

2010 Hugo nominee: Graphic Fiction: Batman: "Whatever Happened to the Caped Crusader?" Written by Neil Gaiman; Pencilled by Andy Kubert (DC Comics)

I hope you’re sitting down for this. Ready? In 2009, Batman died. He bit the big one. No more Bruce Wayne.

You okay?

Well, this being superhero comics, he didn’t actually, really, die. He just kind of died. Last I checked, Bruce Wayne was trapped in prehistoric time, and Dick Grayson, the original Robin, was Batman. And he’s coming back soon. So, Batman didn’t really die, but DC let Neil Gaiman write a send-off for him anyway, following in the footsteps of Alan Moore’s farewell to the Silver Age Superman, "Whatever Happened to the Man of Tomorrow?" (a classic from the late ‘80s). These comics are great because they get to do the one thing that superhero comics almost never get to do: end.

Gaiman sets the story at a surreal back alley funeral for Batman, attended by his allies and enemies. Different characters tell widely different versions of his life and death. The best, by far, comes from his trusted butler Alfred. As we know, Bruce Wayne’s parents were killed, and he started to dress up as a bat and beat up criminals. Alfred’s twist is that the colorful supervillains that Batman fights are Alfred’s friends, who commit kooky crimes to keep Batman busy and out of real trouble. Alfred himself plays Batman’s arch-enemy, the Joker. It’s such a perfect little twist on the mythos.

In the second half of the story (it was originally published as two issues – Batman #686 and Detective Comics #853), we learn exactly what is going on, and it does actually make some sense before Gaiman speeds us to a very appropriate and actually somewhat moving finale. This is a very thoughtful meditation on the nature of Batman’s mythology of the sort you would expect from Neil Gaiman. It is, however, short and rather abstract. It’s really a meditation to the exclusion of telling a single story. Also, the artist, Adam Kubert, is not my favorite.

So, it's a mixed bag, but I'd say it's worthwhile for Gaiman fans and essential for Batman fans.