Hugo Awards add Graphic Novel Category
When The Watchmen won the 1988 Hugo Award for Best Novel, horrified science fiction purists saw to it that graphic material be excluded from consideration. Until now that has remained the case but next year, the World Science Fiction convention will be adding the Hugo Award for Best Graphic Story to the ballot "to honor works in which illustrations are integral to the movement of the plot, whether or not text is present. The special Hugo, to be called Best Graphic Story, will cover any science fiction or fantasy narrative in graphic form appearing for the first time in 2008. It may potentially be ratified as an annual award at the WSFS Business meeting at the convention."
Material to be considered will be any science fiction or fantasy narrative in graphic form appearing for the first time in 2008. Those who purchased memberships to this year’s World Con, held in Denver, and next year’s, will be eligible to nominate works whern the process begins next spring while only those holding 2009 memberships will be eligible to vote for the winner.
The 2009 World Con will be Anticipation, held in Montreal from August 6-10 with guests of honor including Neil Gaiman, Élisabeth Vonarburg, Ralph Bakshi, Taral Wayne, Tom Doherty, David Hartwell, and Julie Czerneda.
"Watchmen" did not win the "Best Novel" Hugo. John (Guidry) and Justin (Winston) declared – among the many bad decisions they made – declared that it was not eligible. (When i asked John why not, he said "It's a comic book" I pointed out that it met the Higo Rules definition of a novel, and John said "It's a comicbook")A "Best Other Forms" Hugo was created, specifically to give a Hugo to "Watchmen" (though i don't know if any of the NOLaCon people would admit it).I consider John & Justin friends, but they were *so* wrong about almost everything they did in 1988…
As Mike Webber said, Watchmen did not win the 1988 Hugo Award for Best Novel. (That was won by David Brin's The Uplift War. As you can see by the official results, it won an award in a special category for Other Form added using the same Additional Category rule that Anticipation is using to add Best Graphic Story to the 2009 Hugo Award ballot.Incidentally, for the past few years, works such as Watchmen were eligible — but in Best Related Book, rather than in one of the written-fiction categories. Shaun Tan's graphic novel The Arrival was nominated in this category this year, for instance. I wrote about the proposal to add Best Graphic Story as a permanent category in more detail on my LiveJournal.