After much reading, discovery and discussion we are very happy to announce our first shortlist of nominees for the Young People’s Comic Awards.
The nominees are (in alphabetical order by title):
Bad Machinery: The Case of The Fire Inside by John Allison
Published online at http://scarygoround.com, January 9th – June 28th 2012
Dinopopolous by Nick Edwards
Published by Blank Slate Publishing (Chalk Marks), October 2011
Gum Girl volume 1: Catastrophe Calling by Andi Watson
Published by Walker Books, March 2012
Hilda and the Midnight Giant by Luke Pearson
Published by Nobrow Press, November 2011
The Lost Boy by Kate Brown
Published in ‘The Phoenix’ by David Fickling Books, January 7th – 1st September 2012
Congratulations to all the creators and publishers of the nominated titles. We can’t wait to find out who the young people declare as the winner in November.
The award year for this year’s YPCA is 1st August 2011 to 31st July 2012. We realise that The Lost Boy concluded after this period. In selecting the nominees we, the Committee, have had to refine and define the rules of eligibility as we encountered different titles in different formats. In regards to serialised stories such as The Lost Boy we concluded that:
Serialisations can be nominated in the year the majority of the work was published in.
And also:
The Committee will not be able to shortlist the work as a collected edition if a serialisation was previously nominated.
The Committee discussed at some length the practicalities of nominating online work and work serialised across numerous issues of a weekly anthology title like The Phoenix for an award that will be judged by young people. Whilst it would be easier to send 5 books to each of the dozen participating schools our aim is to celebrate and promote amazing comics regardless of their format.
We’ll work closely with the authors and publishers of the nominated titles and the teachers to ensure that the young people can access and read online comics, or serialised comics presented across a number of issues or as a pdf file, in a way they can enjoy. When necessary we will provide schools with a Teachers Guide too.
We thought there is no guarantee there will be a print collection of The Lost Boy, so does it not deserve a nomination because it was serialised, even if it’s a fantastic story? If and when it is published as a book that very same story will still be considered a BCA Nominee (or possibly winner).
While we may not be able to give the school libraries a book to keep at the end of the process, the benefit will be that young people are discovering new comics and new ways of reading comics. Many of them may catch up with all the Bad Machinery stories online and discover other web comics through it. They may become fans of The Phoenix and discover other great stories in there. And more importantly they may learn that comics can be read anywhere, anyhow. That the world is full of comics in secret places. And they may figure out that if anyone can put a comic on the internet, then they can too.
Adam Cadwell.
