Web Cartoonists' Choice Awards Explained

Web Cartoonists' Choice Awards
Year:2001
Year2:2008
Website:http://ccawards.com/

The Web Cartoonists' Choice Awards (WCCA) were annual awards in which established webcartoonists nominated and selected outstanding webcomics. The awards were held between 2001 and 2008, were mentioned in a New York Times column on webcomics in 2005,[1] and have been mentioned as a tool for librarians.[2]

History

The WCCA represent a form of peer recognition, with voting rights granted only to creators working on online webcomics.[3] Winners of awards receive an individualized web banner for their site,[1] although MegaCon announced in 2007 that a live presentation would be made for the first time.[4] In 2003, 2005 and 2006 the awards were presented in an online ceremony depicted in comic strip form and involving a number of creators.[3]

The WCCA were started by Scott Maddix and Mark Mekkes in 2000,[3] with the first awards made in 2001. Mekkes noted his motivation as being to "create a webcomic award process that would do the most to help the webcomic community and encourage creators to strive toward greatness."[3] Mekkes set up a committee to run the awards, initially known as the Cartoonists' Choice Awards, assuming the position of chairman, a role he was still holding in 2007.[3] A press release on The Dreamland Chronicles' nomination described the committee as "an independent organization dedicated to the promotion and recognition of online comics and their creators."[5]

Other problems have included the award ceremony being delayed due to "technical difficulties". In 2006 it was not ready until five days after the winners had been announced.[6] [7]

Eric Monster Millikin romance comics controversy

In 2006, voters chose Eric Millikin's horror/romance comic Eric Monster Millikin (then called Fetus-X) as one of the top five finalists for the "Outstanding Romance Comic" award; however, it was disqualified by the awards' executive committee. The WCCA committee wrote that "Foetus-X's [sic] nomination for "Outstanding Romance Comic" does not comply with the Outstanding Romance Comic category's genre criteria"[8] of "addressing issues of love and romance in their stories, settings and characters."[9] Fetus-X was disqualified despite the awards committee's position that "We never want to limit the voters choices in any way. ... It's been very important that we not 'water down' these awards by controlling the results ..."[10]

This move was roundly criticized, with Comixtalk publisher Xaviar Xerexes saying "throwing out the Fetus X nomination a few years ago was a mistake, the WCCAs by definition are supposed to be based on votes and there should not have been any kind of 'veto' like the executive committee enacted."[11] Websnark blogger Eric Burns complained that "if you're going to ask Webcartoonists to nominate who they think is the best in given categories, and then you drop their nominations because you don't agree with them ... then what exactly's the point?"[12]

In 2007, Millikin's comic was again nominated for "Outstanding Romantic Comic," but was not disqualified by the executive committee.[13] In 2008, the executive committee went to the lengths of removing the romance comics award and all other genre award categories in an attempt to avoid further controversy.[14]

Winners of major awards

YearBest comicBest writingBest art
2001Boxjam's DoodleCool Cat StudiosChopping Block
2002MegatokyoMegatokyoChopping Block
2003Nowhere GirlDemonology 101Mac Hall
2004Count Your SheepPenny ArcadeMac Hall
2005Scary Go RoundNarbonicCopper
2006The Perry Bible FellowshipWhispered ApologiesA Lesson is Learned but the Damage is Irreversible
2007The Perry Bible FellowshipWhispered ApologiesLackadaisy
2008Girl GeniusGirl GeniusLackadaisy
The WCCA had numerous categories. The comic strip that received the most awards is Mac Hall with nine, followed by Chopping Block and The Perry Bible Fellowship with eight each, then Penny Arcade and Count Your Sheep with seven each.

External links

Notes and References

  1. News: Sarah . Boxer . Comics Escape a Paper Box, and Electronic Questions Pop Out . Critic's Notebook . New York Times. 2005-08-17 . 2007-02-16. The fifth annual Web Cartoonists Choice Awards took place last month. The master of online ceremonies was a Web cartoon character and so were all the award presenters. Otherwise, it was much like the Oscars. There were too many award categories (26) and some commercial breaks, and all winners were rewarded with the Web equivalent of Hollywood fame: a live link to their sites..
  2. Book: Thorne. Amy. 25 Webcomics and Libraries. Robert G. Weiner. Elizabeth (FRW) Figa and Derek Parker Royal (forewords); Stephen Weiner (afterword). Graphic Novels and Comics in Libraries and Archives: Essays on Readers, Research, History and Cataloging. illustrated. 2010. McFarland. 978-0-7864-4302-4. 211. starting points: Eric Burns ... Websnark ... takes a populist approach ... Comixtalk ... a webcomics news source; Fleen ... a webcomics blog; Kidjutsu ... focuses on webcomics for kids ... Librarians can consult the Web Cartoonists' Choice Awards ... and the Eisner Awards.
  3. Web site: And the WCCA Goes To... An Interview with WCCA Chairman Mark Mekkes . https://web.archive.org/web/20070927040741/http://altertainment.net/wccas_interview. 2007-09-27 . 2007-02-16 . Xerexes . Xaviar . Xaviar Xerexes . February 2007 . Interview . Comixpedia . Xaviar Xerexes .
  4. Web site: MegaCon Convention . https://web.archive.org/web/20070203123559/http://www.megaconvention.com/programming.asp . 2007-02-03 . 2007-02-16 --> . MegaCon Convention . hosting the 6th annual Web Cartoonist Awards. After six years of growing, world-wide popularity, the WCCAs will, for the first time ever, be presenting the 2007 winners at a live ceremony..
  5. Web site: Scott Christian Sava's The Dreamland Chronicles Nominated For Awards . press release) . 2007-02-16 . Olsen . Kevin Noel . 2006-06-15 . .
  6. Web site: Master Of Ceremonies . https://web.archive.org/web/20071004223406/http://www.bolloxcomics.co.uk/oldnews.php?subaction=showfull&id=1153486290&archive=&start_from=&ucat=&. 2007-10-04 . 2007-02-16 . Bowley . Eddie . 2006-07-21 . blog post . bolloxcomics.co.uk . Eddie Bowley . Finally, 5 days after the winners were announced, the award ceremony of the Web Cartoonist's Choice Awards is now up. But, it is not even on the WCCA website. Ryan Estrada has taken it upon himself to put up the ceremony on his own site because apparently the person in control of the WCCA site is MIA..
  7. Web site: WCCA Ceremony is ON! . 2007-02-16 . Mekkes . Mark . 2006-07-21 . blog post . Comixpedia . Xavier Xerexes . Ryan Estrada has been kind enough to do an end run around our technical difficulties and has posted the ENTIRE ceremony on his own site..
  8. Web site: Final WCCA Voting Begins! . 2007-02-16 . Mekkes . Mark . 2006-07-21 . blog post . Comixpedia . Xavier Xerexes . after extensive review, it has been determined by the WCCA Committee that Foetus-X's nomination for "Outstanding Romance Comic" does not comply with the Outstanding Romance Comic category's genre criteria .
  9. Web site: Web Cartoonists' Choice Award Categories . 2007-10-21 . Web Cartoonist's Choice Awards . Web Cartoonist's Choice Awards Committee . Outstanding Romantic Comic - This award recognizes comics that reach a high level of quality in addressing issues of love and romance in their stories, settings and characters. .
  10. Web site: And the WCCA Goes To... An Interview with WCCA Chairman Mark Mekkes . 2007-10-21 . Xerexes . Xaviar . February 2007 . blog post . Comixpedia . Xavier Xerexes .
  11. Web site: Was Pulling the Genre Categories From the WCCAs A Good Idea? . 2010-01-09 . Xerexes . Xaviar . 2008-01-31 . blog post . Comixpedia . Xavier Xerexes .
  12. Web site: Eric: Oh, might as well finish the job. . 2010-01-09 . Burns . Eric . 2006-07-17 . blog post . Websnark . Eric Burns .
  13. Web site: 2007 Results . 2010-01-09 . blog post . Web Cartoonist's Choice Awards . Web Cartoonist's Choice Awards Committee . 2009-12-28 . https://web.archive.org/web/20091228172928/http://ccawards.com/2007.htm . dead .
  14. Web site: The 8th Annual WCCAs: An Interview with WCCA Chairman Frank "Damonk" Cormier . 2010-01-09 . Xerexes . Xaviar . 2008-01-31 . blog post . Comixpedia. Xavier Xerexes . the only time we’ve ever had controversy with categories is when it involved a genre category (your example of the Fetus-X/romance category being an excellent example). So by removing them, we hopefully remove the brunt of (if not all) risk of eligibility controversy....

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