Comments on: Harvey Awards Criticism

By: Eric Reynolds

Eric Reynolds — Fri, 20 Jun 2008 16:51:57 +0000

Kim Thompson used to more aggressively distribute ballots and attempt to ‘get out the vote’ but the result would often be a Fanta-dominated ballot which just resulted in cries of us fixing things or whatever, when really Kim was just doing what he hoped every publisher would do. So he stopped. Damned if you do, damned if you don’t.

By: Nat Gertler

Nat Gertler — Fri, 20 Jun 2008 16:41:16 +0000

It may just be that “comics” is too broad a swath for awards to be meaningful any more (to the extent that they ever were.) If you think about, say, the Oscars, except for a few special categories, they’re limited to English language theatrical films. There’s what, 300 or so of those released per year? That’s less than a month’s worth of product in the direct market. Comics are ever more about narrowcasting, about finding a niche, and there are too many things, too disparate. Winning an Ignatz, which is based on a more narrow slice of comicsdom, may say more about a comic and how well it hits its intended audience than winning a Harvey or an Eisner would.

Really, I’m not sure that the criteria exist (or should exist) for comparing an issue of King Cat Comix to the latest Alex Ross in any serious way.

By: Jason Richards

Jason Richards — Fri, 20 Jun 2008 13:48:19 +0000

Here’s another one for the conspiracy theorists out there…

We were quite stunned to see our little blog (meanwhilecomics.com) listed as a nominee and wondered who gave us the nod. Today, it was pointed out to me that nominations supposedly closed on March 21. Our blog did not even begin until April 7.

By: Johanna

Johanna — Fri, 20 Jun 2008 12:11:19 +0000

So how do you get more pros to participate? I know effort was made to encourage as many publishers as possible to distribute ballots.

By: Eric Reynolds

Eric Reynolds — Fri, 20 Jun 2008 02:31:46 +0000

That’s a pretty good point.

By: Nat Gertler

Nat Gertler — Fri, 20 Jun 2008 02:05:31 +0000

There’s also the basic situation that in this crowded marketplace, many things cannot get nominated because those eligible to nominate things simply haven’t read them. With ever more material coming out, in a broad range, it’s hard to stay well-read on it all. (Lately, I’ve avoided even the final round of voting in most awards, because the effect of that final round is “here’s five things – vote for the one you’ve read.”)

By: Eric Reynolds

Eric Reynolds — Thu, 19 Jun 2008 23:22:48 +0000

It’s hard not to be ambivalent about the Harvey Awards, and I say that as a nominee! I don’t mean to impugn them for the sake of it, but really, it’s painfully obvious from year to year that the voting gets skewed rather easily by whichever company gets out the vote — whether it be Fantagraphics or Marvel or Disney. If the vast majority of pros can’t be bothered to participate in the nominating process, how can we expect the industry at large to take them seriously? This seems rather obvious to me, if unfortunate. The Harvey Awards have the potential to be the most democratic of all the major comics awards, but over the decade have generally ended up being the most skewed because of a lack of participation. That said, it’s an honor to be nominated or win any award named after Harvey Kurtzman, and the Harveys have some proud history. But they’ve clearly become marginalized over the last decade.