By Kevin Black: I have been following the discussion of the Hugo Award artist categories here by Tammy Coxen and Colin Harris closely, as well as the Facebook discussion threads on JOF. I am not a fan artist, although my spouse is–I do, however, amend code professionally, as senior counsel for a chamber of a state legislative body in the U.S. I have become convinced that it is important to reject ratification of the “F.18–Cleaning up the Art Categories” amendment which the business meeting in Glasgow passed forward to Seattle, but that there is a significant problem which needs addressing, which is the retitling of the Best Professional Artist Hugo category to Best Artist in the Field of Professional Illustration. It is time to solve the Fan vs. Pro Artist conundrum by cutting the Gordian Knot. The amendment which I recommend is set forth in full below, followed by explanation.
End the False Binary
Moved, to amend the WSFS constitution as follows:
3.3.13: Best Professional Artist in the Field of Professional Illustration. An illustrator artist whose illustrative work has appeared in a professional publication in the field of science fiction or fantasy has appeared in a professional publication during the previous calendar year.
3.3.18: Best Fan Artist. An artist or cartoonist whose work related to science fiction, fantasy, or science fiction or fantasy fandom has appeared through publication in semiprozines or fanzines or through other public, non-professional, display (including at a convention or conventions, posting on the internet, in online or print-on-demand shops, or in another setting not requiring a fee to see the image in full-resolution) during the previous calendar year (including in semiprozine or fanzines, at a convention or conventions, posting on the internet, or in online or print-on-demand shops where the benefit from direct sales inure to the artist or the artist’s business instead of to a second party to whom the artist has sold or licensed their work).
3.10.2 In the Best Professional Artist in the Field of Professional Illustration category, the acceptance should include citations of at least three (3) works first published in the eligible year.
Explanation: Recent fan scholarship reveals remarkable stability in the Hugo Award categories of Best Professional Artist (awarded since 1955, first published description in 1968) and Best Fan Artist (awarded since 1967, first published description in 1972), until recent turbulence and Glasgow’s approval of “F.18–Cleaning up the Art Categories” for ratification in Seattle has threatened to overthrow the community’s understanding of what these categories are, and what work and artists should be recognized in each category. This amendment takes a measured approach by respecting the code we have and the community’s long-held understanding of the scope of the categories, while finding opportunities to more carefully and respectfully describe the differences between the artist categories.
The wellspring of angst, I argue, is the title of the Best Professional Artist category, which commits a multitude of sins:
- It creates a false dichotomy between professional artists and fan artists, implying we should be able to defensibly sort artists into one category or another. But “professional” and “fan” are not opposites (or we would not allow artists to qualify in the same year in both categories). It should be obvious and understood that artists making fan art may operate and conduct themselves as professionals, and may produce work which is of professional quality.
- It’s misleading.The Best Professional Artist category has been limited by its description to illustrators since 1975, but art is not limited to illustration, and professional artists exist who are not professional illustrators.
- It’s insulting. By labeling only one form of art as “professional,” it implies that professional illustration is the only form of art the community values, and has the feeling of casting shade. Because one opposite of professional is unprofessional.
So, we should rename the category to reflect what it is actually for, Best Artist in the Field of Professional Illustration. I differ from some other commenters by believing that it makes evident and eminent sense to continue this community’s 70-year tradition of honoring professional illustration, based on its singular importance to our genre. Nor would it be fair or sporting to expect the artists producing fan art, which we equally revere with its own Hugo Award, to compete against beloved professional illustrators whose work receives mass market distribution and is attached to products and IP that we love. The amendment makes a small change to the category description by repositioning “has appeared in a professional publication” to make it clearer that genre illustrations may be counted for award consideration if they appear in a range of professional publications, including not just novels and magazines but other things like game cards and postage stamps.
No change is made to the Best Fan Artist category title, which respects our community’s tradition of recognizing and esteem for fan work. The changes made to the description in this category are almost entirely nonsubstantive and for the purpose of cleaning up convoluted language. The few substantive additions specify that the work must relate to “science fiction, fantasy, or science fiction or fantasy fandom,” and that if the work is for sale in an online or print-on-demand shop, the benefit from direct sales must inure to the artist or the artist’s business instead of to a second party to whom the artist has sold or licensed their work.
The Best Fan Artist amendments leave the scope of the category essentially unchanged since the last amendments to it were ratified in 2021, and arguably since “or other public display” was added to the description in 1974. Fan art itself has changed in the past 50 years, which has had an impact on what kind of artists get recognition in the category, but the category itself really hasn’t. The only period in which the category was limited to fanzine art was 1972-1974. Professional illustrators were recognized as fan artists all the way back in the 1970s and 80s. Fan art, understood as the kind of genre art appealing to fans which is commonly (but not exclusively) found at SFF conventions, is more prominent and important than ever–as reflected by the ability of some artists to reportedly make money producing it! Meanwhile art donated to fanzines and conventions continues to exist alongside these creations, and continues to receive Hugo Award recognition. This is no time to try to roll back the clock or put the genie back in the bottle. It will be easy to think of technically eligible artwork which does not feel like fan art to you–in which case, don’t nominate it! Don’t vote for it if it becomes a finalist! Ultimately it is the community, and not the business meeting or Hugo Administrator, which should continue to decide what merits the title of Best Fan Art.
These amendments maintain the Hugo Award artist category framework, which has worked for this community 98% of the time, while making a few small changes and one big change in retitling the Best Professional Artist category. They should end the reductive fan vs. pro artist debates. Free your mind from the pro vs. fan artist binary!
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Yeah, this doesn’t work, either.
Vince Villefranca is a pro who’s done a lot of really excellent work, including Hugo bases. He was hired as, and paid as, a pro, and certainly would be a good choice to nominate for best pro artist. Your amendment cuts out all 3D artists, so Vince’s bronzes would be out of that category. Instead, he’d be in the fan category exclusively.
Some artists do excellent work, but are slow. In the current field which is dominated by digital dust jackets, publishing 3 covers a year is extremely rare. There are some artists who don’t even produce 3 works in a year. For example, Matt Mrowka makes his living as a tattoo artist, and creates about one painting a year. His paintings are marvelous, but his output on traditional canvas is slow. He’s too busy with using skin as a canvas.
Semiprozines are paying markets and should be removed from the fan category.
We don’t need Hugos for everything. Fan Hugos should be awarded to work that supports fandom. Pro Hugos should be for excellence in the field.
@Lisa–My amendment doesn’t cut out 3D artists, who have never been eligible in the Best Professional artist category, which is for “An illustrator whose work has appeared in a professional publication in the field of science fiction or fantasy during the previous calendar year.” Vince is eligible in the Best Fan Artist category. What is the problem? (Apart from the fact that the category is titled Best Professional Artist, and not Best Artist in the Field of Professional Illustration, as it should be.)
I don’t know why 3.2.10 has the rule requiring citations of citations at least three works in the eligible year from Best Professional Artist finalists–I didn’t put it there, I just didn’t strike it out. The F.18 amendment would expand this restriction to fan artists as well, which I agree would be a poor choice for the reasons you describe. Similarly, the language regarding semiprozines is in the current Best Fan Artist definition. I would tend to agree that the work I’ve seen in Clarkesworld and Uncanny is professional illustration and would have no problem striking “semiprozine” from the Best Fan Artist definition, but not knowing the full history of semiprozines I refrained from doing so (F.18 doesn’t strike it out either). If there is community consensus, I would add the semiprozine strikeout. I would support striking the “3 works in the eligible year” rule, although since it is unrelated to these scope issues, I would recommend dong it through a separate amendment proposal.
The idea that fan art has to be amateurish, or produced by an artist who does not conduct themselves as a professional, is a brain worm of the fan vs. pro artist duality. The question isn’t whether Vince Villefranca’s 3D bronze work on display at science fiction conventions is “too good” to be considered fan art, it’s whether his work is the best of the year.
But as you and I have gone round and round about, “Fan Art” means very different things to different people. Your proposal does a good job of laying out your definition of Fan Art. But it’s never going to satisfy the people for whom the words have entirely different meaning.
If we want to basically keep what we have, your language does a good job of making the categories clearer. This is basically what Colin proposed as “Option A – Everything Is Eligible Somewhere.”
But that means it won’t satisfy anyone who wants to expand Pro and/or narrow Fan, and clearly there’s a vocal contingent behind those approaches. Maybe this is a place where a broader advisory vote would be useful (like the ones for the indie film BDPs this year). Because I think we really don’t know how most Worldcon members/Hugo voters feel about these categories.
Do semiprozines generally pay professional rates for covers and other illustrations?
@Tammy your work reveals that the “fan art” category was only limited to fanzine art from 1972-1974. Worldcon members repealed that restriction almost as soon as it was printed (in a time when there were more fanzines and fanzine readership). It would seem odd to say fan artists can’t compete against Vince Villefranca, but must compete against Lee Moyer.
Again, it’s not my definition of fan art, it’s the one in the WSFS Constitution, and the one the community has been using for years. F.18 wasn’t proposed by fanzine and semiprozine illustrators trying to lighten their competition for Hugo Awards, it was proposed by (or on behalf of) a thrice-nominated fan artist who felt slighted by exclusion from the category mislabeled as “Best Professional Artist.”
So if an artist posts images of their professional book covers on their personal blog, they can still campaign for a Fan Artist Hugo (and win) because after all their work is viewable for free online.
This is exactly the mess that people are trying to fix.
Removing the requirement that it be fanzine art does not indicate that there weren’t still commonly understood norms about what constituted fan art in the 1970s. The fact of the matter is that we don’t KNOW what “other public display” meant at the time. Our noble host has provided one possible example – posters displayed at a con. Maybe others who were around in the 70s could weigh in.
Just because something is in the WSFS constitution doesn’t mean that all or even a majority of Worldcon members/Hugo voters like it or agree with it. You know how few people are involved in WSFS governance and the business meeting. People have been trying to change the artist Hugo categories every few years for 50 years (my report is not exhaustive of all the pre-2018 attempts, just the ones that made it past the business meeting). So clearly people have been dissatisfied for a long time, and in other posts on this subject, it’s been very clear that different people have very different ideas about what Fan Art should mean.
You happen to agree with the one that’s currently in the constitution. Others do not. Your proposal is good for the people who agree. But that isn’t everyone. This debate has been filled with people saying “fan art is” and the ending of everyone’s sentence is different. But everyone believes very strongly that their definition is the correct one, and people are often shocked to realize anyone else would think differently.
@Colin, I agree with you that an artist’s original paintings that have been licensed as book covers shouldn’t count, just because the artist sells prints on their website or includes them in an online portfolio. I was thinking those wouldn’t could as “non-professional display,” but it would be clearer to just exclude work which has been sold or licensed for professional publication (or perhaps just exclude work that would qualify in any other category besides best related work).
It’s easy to add that without driving artists out of the best fan artist category because they display their art for sale, which is a very healthy thing for artists to do (and benefits those of use who want to buy their art too!).
This just means that professional artists will win every category. Because there’s no way a fan artist is going to be able to compete with someone like, say, Frank Frazetta, Michael Whealan, or Rowena. It’s an apples and oranges situation. And this doesn’t even begin to deal with the problem of AI art.
@Nancy, I think the community decided in 2008 when the business meeting ratified the amendment striking the prohibition against appearing on the professional and fan artist ballots in the same year that it wants to reward professionals for engaging in fan art more than it wants to reserve the annual fan art award for amateurs and hobbyists. FWIW, I think that’s right–the Hugo Award is for merit in fan art creation, not for participation. We all benefit from having a vibrant SFF art community independent from sale of illustrations to professional publications, so we should reward excellence in that endeavor, just as we should also continue to reward the professionally sold illustrations which include all the great space paintings and pulp covers that built this genre and inspired so many kids to become astronauts and scientists.
When I look at the ballot lists on Wikipedia, I still see names of winners and finalists who are known primarily for fanac. I think they are still competitive (much more so than they would be if they were herded into the current Best Professional Artist category for the alleged crime of selling their work).
When I as publishing [semi-prozine] Science Fiction Chronicle, I was paying $125 for first or second rights. Reprinted a lot of work by Powers, Emshwiller, Schoenherr, Lehr, Di Fate, many others. Ed Emshwiller refused my offers to reprint his works, but after he died, his widow Carol was more than happy to accept my payments for work which had not been seen in public for decades. Also, SFC covers were 8″x11″, whereas the originals were often the covers of tiny by comparison Ace Doubles.
Man, I love a good redline.
Kevin Black on September 3, 2024 at 7:37 am said:
.
It’s because of a concern that people were being nominated who hadn’t produced any work in the eligibility year, just because they were well-known artists, particularly those who had won in previous years.
@Kevin–why three though? I agree less than one would be disqualifying.
Kevin Black on September 4, 2024 at 11:12 am said:
I don’t know. You’d have to ask the proponents of the change. I don’t remember when it was added, though, so I can’t point you at the specific WSFS Business Meeting agenda where they submitted it.