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 illustratorartist 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!
By Colin Harris: INTRODUCTION: A follow-on to Tammy Coxen’s “Evolution of the Art Hugo Categories”. I am very grateful to Tammy and Meg Frank in particular for their input, and also to everyone who has contributed to the online debate for their ideas and comments.
In its earliest form, the Fan Artist category (first awarded in 1967) was defined purely by context – it was art that appeared in amateur magazines (later redefined into fanzines and semiprozines). But over the years there was a gradual expansion of that context, starting in 1974 with the addition of “other public display.” in 2014 “public display” was updated to “non-professional public display” and to specify that this included display at conventions. In 2019 (ratified in 2021) the definition was expanded further to include “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.”
Until recent years, none of the definitions of Fan Artist mentioned whether the work in question was paid for. The economic context of the work was implicit in the language defining, first, amateur magazines, and then, fanzines and semiprozines, where the art would be appearing. The later changes around public display made it clear however that “selling fan art at a convention did not make it a professional sale”.
Meanwhile, while the definition of Fan Artist has evolved over time, Professional Artist is still quite a narrow category that includes only illustrators and works published in a professional publication.
As Tammy pointed out, this adds up to a world where a person who makes their living by posting full resolution images of their media-inspired art on a print-on-demand shop would qualify as a Fan Artist, but not a Professional Artist. And conversely, if the language passed in 2024 were to be ratified, then a person who creates art for their local convention to use for free and sells the originals in the art show in the same year would NOT qualify as a Fan Artist but would qualify as a Professional Artist, even if none of that art sells. And neither of these really make sense, which is why there have been so many attempts to clarify these categories through the years.
Clearly, a relatively simple distinction has become very messy indeed. How do we untangle the mess? Perhaps it’s time to step back a bit …
THE ARTIST OR THE WORK. Here’s a fundamental question: is a Fan Artist someone who creates Fan Art, or is Fan Art something made by a Fan Artist? Similarly, is a Professional Artist someone who created Professional work, or is Professional work something made by a Professional Artist?
This might seem simple – but it gets to the heart of the matter. If we want to start from the work, then we need to focus our definition on the work. Do we then want to just define the work by economic context (was it for sale?) and where it was presented? Or is there something more fundamental about either the intent behind it, or the nature (aesthetics) of the work itself? Remember that in earlier days, the professional artist definition referred to “illustrator” while fan artist referred to “an artist or cartoonist”. And until the last decade, the list of Fan Artist Hugo winners remained full of “traditional” fan artists who were working for fanzines and convention publications: Teddy Harvia, Brad Foster, Sue Mason, Frank Wu and before that, Ian Gunn, Bill Rotsler, George Barr and various others.
It is only since 2013 that this has shifted, with more winners who are illustrating for semiprozines (rather than fanzines) or who are progressing towards professional careers. Many of the finalists produce work which is on the cusp between Fan and Pro categories; sometimes it’s just about visibility to the community and how they are perceived in a particular year. (Galen Dara won best Fan Artist in 2013 and was a finalist for Professional Artist in 2014 – I’m not sure how much their work or where it appeared actually changed between those years).
Conversely, there are still occasions where an established professional artist produces work which is clearly fan art. Lee Moyer won Best Fan Artist in 2022 for his “Small Gods” series which appears at conventions and online (https://www.smallgodseries.com/). And this seems like a tradition to hang on to – dating back to Jack Gaughan’s dual win in 1967 and more recently to cases where professional writers including Fred Pohl and John Scalzi have won the Hugo for Best Fan Writer.
It seems then, that we must allow for the question of intent, which may be reflected in the content and aesthetics of the work or the way it is published (or sold). The problem is that we also need a simple definition which will be intuitive to thousands of Hugo nominators, and we’re not getting that. Instead, we’re getting progressively more complex definitions which are just leading to progressively more dubious results (see above!).
We are in fact trying to maintain a bright white line between pro and fan art which no longer exists. Go back 50 years, and book / magazine covers vs. fanzine illos and cartoons was a genuine and simple proxy for this white line. In the age of the Internet, where pro and fan artists have equally polished websites, pros and fans both sell work at conventions, and where fans may be supporting themselves financially through e.g. Patreon, we are just tying ourselves in knots.
FAILURES OF DEFINITION – WHERE HUGOS GO WRONG. There’s a couple of routes by which Hugo categories become messy. One is the desire to have a Hugo for everything – because every part of the field should have a chance to be honoured. Of course this is understandable, given the prestige of the award and the recognition that goes with it; and when people advocate for an “overlooked” area they do it because they have a passion for that part of the genre.
The second route is the tendency for highly invested people to get lost in the detail when trying to come up with “clear” definitions, or to focus excessively on edge cases. Over-thinking is a real risk, and it’s easy to end up with a cumbersome definition in an attempt to address every edge case and scenario.
The third route is drift, which we’ve see in the Fan Artist definitions (thanks again Tammy!). Each change is small and made in response to perceived issues of the time, but over time the cumulative effect is to move away from the intent behind the award, or at least clutter it so much that it ceases to be intuitive.
So what makes a Good Hugo Category? I believe there are four over-riding considerations:
It should be compact in that it should bring together broadly similar works which can reasonably be compared on merit
It should be distinct in that it should be clearly separated from the other categories
It should be intuitive in that the average nominator should find it easy to identify whether works qualify or not.
It should have depth in that there needs to be enough good candidates to make a solid long list of 15 credible finalists.
Intuitiveness is essential. People who are directly involved in discussions about a category may spend a long time on considered analysis; vast majority of nominators don’t do that, especially if they don’t have ready access to the required information about a work (Was it for sale? Where was it first displayed? Why was it created?). Of course, we want to help the Administrators with clear guidance on what works should be eligible for a Hugo – but I believe the pendulum has swung too far in a number of the current category definitions. I plead for a return to simpler, more intuitive definitions and trust the nominators to act in line with the spirit of those definitions.
WHY ARE THE ARTIST CATEGORIES PARTICULARLY PROBLEMATIC? Building on the above, why then are the Artist categories (especially Fan Artist) particularly problematic? Simply because the natural proxies for identifying professional vs. fan contexts don’t work anymore or are too limiting.
By Alexis Gilliland
What I mean is that the original definition had a very intuitive proxy (was something for a book/magazine or a fanzine/convention) that covered most of the art fans saw. And of course, that distinction is still helpful – but it’s no longer enough because of all the other ways people display their art (as recognised by the evolving definition since 1974).
Proxies based simply on whether something is for sale don’t work for multiple reasons. Pros and fans both sell their work – including side by side in conventions. Fan artists like Sara Felix and Iain Clark create amazing art for conventions (for free) but then sell prints or even originals of those works. Professional artists create personal pieces which are not for sale, but that does not make them fan artists.
Relying on paywall access is also not useful. A fan artist may reasonably operate a Patreon. A professional artist may put high resolution copies of their art on their website.
The field is getting broader. The distribution channels are getting broader. The answer cannot be to make long and longer definitions, especially ones which clearly give rise to absurd options.
WHAT OUTCOMES DO WE WANT? Perhaps the best approach is to agree the outcome – what we want to achieve – and THEN use that to test any proposed definition. Here’s some suggested outcomes for starters …
A single artist (or collective) can produce both Pro and Fan art in the same year
Intent matters; fannish work is primarily work created for and made available to the community for free or for nominal cost
Intent matters: a professional artist remains a professional artist even if their work is not for sale, or is only shown at conventions, if it’s part of their professional body of work …
excepting that a (normally) professional artist can also produce fannish work and qualify for fan artist in the same year
Nominators should not need to know the economic circumstances of the artist to judge whether they are professional or fan.
It is a bad outcome if the typical bodies of work in pro and fan artists are essentially indistinguishable apart from their economic context, or rely on marginal considerations of where someone is in their career. (Per above: a good Hugo category is compact, distinct and intuitive!)
This last point is important. The Hugos recognise work. In some categories we recognise individual works like fictional stories; in others (Editor, Artist, Fan Writer) we recognise the person for the body of work they’ve produced in a year. It feels inherently dubious if we’re going to have two categories for essentially similar bodies of work.
It’s clear, however, that we do not even have consensus on what outcomes we want – the comments on Tammy’s article and related Facebook posts present polarised views from “anyone who is making art to sell should be a professional” to “anyone who only sells their art through direct sales within the community is a fan artist, even if it’s their main source of income.”
These divergent views are all valid – these are subjective matters – but they become problematic when the category definitions are pulled first one way and then the other by amendments. We will never satisfy everyone; but we need a majority consensus that can be clearly articulated to future nominators. It’s also important to acknowledge that there will ALWAYS be examples that don’t fit well with any definition; we need to accept that, as long as we are comfortable with the lists of finalists and winners. To paraphrase Voltaire, the perfect is the enemy of the good.
BEST PROFESSIONAL ARTIST. Current definition (October 2023): “An illustrator whose work has appeared in a professional publication in the field of science fiction or fantasy during the previous calendar year.”
This works in that the definition is simple and results in finalists who clearly belong there. The questions are whether the category should be broader to include other forms of visual art than illustration (almost certainly!) and whether it should also include more of the people who are making a professional living from their art without working for books and magazines. (The latter takes us back to the maze of what constitutes a professional sale, if it’s not the place it appears or the price tag.)
Artist Meg Frank suggests that professional art is distinguished by its client being a commercial entity, which seems helpful. In fact, this is a direct broadening of “appeared in a professional publication” to also cover work done for advertising, galleries and exhibitions.
Hence a new definition might be:
“An individual visual artist or visual artist collective creating work for sale or use by business or public sector entities in the field of science fiction or fantasy during the previous calendar year. These entities include, but are not limited to, publishers, advertisers, galleries and museums, but do not include direct-to-consumer sales, print-on-demand websites or similar.”
This would seem to offer several improvements:
Allows for artist collectives
Uses visual artist rather than illustrator, extending the category to 3D and other related art forms
Emphasises the commercial nature of the work and that it is being done for an organisation rather than direct sale. Includes public sector entities (and we assume here people will understand that this is not intended to include conventions!) because of artwork produced for NASA, the USPS etc.
Deliberately moves us away from the words professional publication which carry significant baggage in the Hugo vocabulary – also because we want to avoid any sense that professional vs. fan is somehow related to quality of the work
Avoids considerations of the channel through which the work was presented, whether it was actually for public purchase, and how the artist makes a living.
Note that this would generally put much semiprozine art into the professional category, but this does not seem unreasonable given that most semiprozines are closer to professional magazines than fanzines both in appearance and being for sale.
BEST FAN ARTIST. There are several options for the Fan Artist category, and I have chosen to set out principles rather than specific wording here to avoid the “but what about …” comments. We need to agree on the principles and outcomes we want first, THEN worry about the detailed wording!
Option A – “Everything Is Eligible Somewhere”
This option maintains the status quo where Pro and Fan Artist are complementary categories which essentially cover the whole field. The definition probably refers to work produced for free distribution or direct sale within the community, placing Etsy shops, Patreons and convention sales firmly in the Fan Artist category. The lack of an intermediary, commercial client who commissions or buys and then uses the work is what stops it being professional.
Option B – “It’s A Fan Category”
With this option Fan Artist sits alongside Fan Writer, Fanzine, and Fancast as awards given to works created by and for fans and fandom. The definition would emphasise that the work is essentially created for and gifted to the community. Nominees would revert to being people creating art mainly for Fanzines, Webzines and Conventions, as was typically the case up to 2013. The category would be clearly and narrowly defined. The two potential issues would be (1) would the category still have enough depth to be credible (2) the many artists who produce work and merchandise for personal sale (sometimes making a living from it) on the convention circuit or Internet would not longer fall in either category.
Option C – “It’s Like SemiProzine”
If you think Option A is too vague and Option B too exclusive, this may be the option for you. Why not have three Awards: Best Professional Artist, Best Semi-Professional Artist and Best Fan Artist. Best Semi-Professional Artist would be the category for all those people who are producing work for direct sale to the community or online, but not for commercial and business clients. This covers an ever-growing number of artists. This would however leave the question of whether the narrower Fan Artist category would still have sufficient depth.
At the end of the day, I go back to an earlier point. The boundaries between these categories are no longer simple things with easy proxies. Certainly, we need clearly articulated definitions, but let’s keep them simple and intuitive, and trust voters to understand and nominate based on the spirit of those definitions rather than tortuous legalese!
By Tammy Coxen: The Worldcon has been trying to define how to categorize and recognize artwork of various kinds since the 1950s. In 2024 the latest attempt to do so received first passage at Glasgow. Immediately upon passage many fan artists began objecting to the wording as passed, once again debating how these categories should or should not be defined. This document was created to inform that debate and show how we have arrived at the category definitions that we have now. And as long as it is (and it is LONG) it STILL does not cover all the attempts that have been made to adjust these categories through the years. Prior to 2018 it only includes amendments that actually made their way into the constitution. From 2018 on, it also includes proposals that did not actually pass, because these provide needed context for understanding the most recent decisions.
SUMMARY & THOUGHTS. In its earliest iterations, the Fan Artist category (first awarded in 1967) is about context — it’s art that appears in amateur magazines (later redefined into fanzines and semiprozines). But over the years there’s a gradual expansion of that context. The earliest of these came in 1974 with the addition of “other public display.” Sadly, there are no detailed business meeting minutes to say why that was added (although there is speculation, see below). But it has certainly contributed to the muddiness of the category over the years, as the options for “other public display” grew.
Until relatively recently, none of the definitions of Fan Artist made any mention of whether the work in question had been paid for. The economic context of the work was implicit in the language defining, first, amateur magazines, and then, fanzines and semiprozines, where the art would be appearing. But in 2014 language was added to change “public display” to “non-professional public display” and to specify that this included display at conventions, with the argument being made that “selling fan art at a convention did not make it a professional sale”. So there is precedent to say that art “for sale” is not necessarily disqualified as Fan Art.
In 2019 (ratified in 2021) the definition was expanded further to include “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.” For some, the inclusion of print-on-demand shops seems contradictory to “non-professional public display,” but others see this as no different than purchasing fan art in the context of a convention.
At the same time that the possibilities for public display were expanding (both definitionally and due to the Internet), the very definition of the phrase “Fan Art” was also changing – at least in the wider community. Outside of Worldcon and related fandom, the term “Fan Art” is akin to “fanfic” – art created in response to or inspired by a particular show, movie or written work.
And while the definition of Fan Artist has changed a lot over the decades, the Professional Artist category remained the same, retaining a narrow definition that includes only illustrators and works that are published in a professional publication.
All of this adds up to a world where, currently, a person who makes their living by posting full resolution images of their media-inspired art on a print-on-demand shop would qualify as a Fan Artist, but not a Professional Artist. And conversely, if the language passed in 2024 were to be ratified, then a person who creates art for their local convention to use for free and sells the originals in the art show in the same year would NOT qualify as a Fan Artist but would qualify as a Professional Artist, even if none of that art sells. And neither of these really make sense, which is why there have been so many attempts to clarify these categories through the years.
The thinking has been that Fan Art is a little like porn – you just know it when you see it. But given the existence of completely different definitions of the term “Fan Art,” this approach is definitely not working. Until we as a community agree on what Fan Art is, we won’t be able to agree on how to define it.
The lines have also gotten blurry about what it means to be a Professional Artist, now that we live in a world where individuals have the means to display their own work publicly and formal “publication” of art is no longer desirable or necessary for many who earn their living through art. And how do services such as Patreon fit in when considering if someone is a Professional Artist or not?
In my deep dive through the history of the categories, it seems clear that the change proposed and passed in 2024 was primarily about expanding the Professional Artist category, and really didn’t take into account the impact on, and particularly context of, the Fan Artist category. In particular, there’s a mismatch between the idea that Fan Art is only free and the historical precedent that selling Fan Art is not necessarily disqualifying.
I don’t claim to have the answers, but I’m hoping that this document will shed some light on how we got where we are, so that maybe we can figure out where we should go next!
HOW TO READ THIS DOCUMENT. I used (Fan) or (Pro) or (Both) next to the dates so it’s clear what I’m talking about when. (Context) is used when there is something not related to creating a new definition, but which is relevant. Category definition text in bold & italic was passed, ratified and used. Category definition text only in bold was introduced and may have received first passage, but has not yet been ratified or put into use.
By ATom
1953-1968 (Pro) – In the Beginning
The Hugos launch with two categories for art in 1953: Best Cover Artist and Best Interior Illustrator. Starting in 1955, the second time the Hugos were awarded, there was the single Best Professional Artist category which has continued to the present day except for Loncon in 1957 (which awarded only magazine Hugos) and Solacon in 1958 which called the category Outstanding Artist.
1967 (Fan) – Let There Be Fan Artist Hugos
Best Fan Artist is introduced, with no definition. Jack Gaughan won both Best Fan Artist and Best Pro Artist that year.
1968-2024 (Pro) – Refining the Definition
There are a variety of similar definitions in use during this time. I do not have exact start or end dates for them.
In 1968, the definition of Best Professional Artist was: “A professional artist whose work was presented in some form in the science fiction or fantasy field during the previous calendar year.”
By 1975, two changes had been introduced. It now specifies “illustrator” rather than artist, and puts the professional part on the publication rather than the individual. “An illustrator whose work has appeared in the field of professionally published science fiction or fantasy during the previous calendar year.”
By 1995, another change had been made, replacing “the field of professionally published SFF” with “a professional publication.” “An illustrator whose work has appeared in a professional publication in the field of science fiction or fantasy during the previous calendar year.”
While a couple of proposals were made to change the definition of Professional Artist (see below), none of them passed before 2024, and the 1995 definition remained in place until then.
1972 (Fan) – First Definition
First published definition of Best Fan Artist. “An artist or cartoonist whose work has appeared, during the previous calendar year, in magazines of the type defined under Article 2.08. Anyone whose name appears on the final ballot for a given year under the Professional Artist category will not be eligible for the Fan Artist award for that year.” 2:08 defined Best Amateur Magazine: “Any generally available non-professional magazine devoted to science fiction, fantasy, or related subjects, which has published four or more issues, at least one appearing in the previous calendar year.”
1974 (Fan) – Adding “Other Public Display”
The definition was updated to make work outside of those defined on the Amateur Magazines Hugo category eligible by adding the words “or through other public display.” So the definition became: “An artist or cartoonist whose work has appeared, during the previous calendar year, in magazines of the type defined under Article 2.08, or through other public display. Anyone whose name appears on the final ballot for a given year under the Professional Artist category will not be eligible for the Fan Artist award for that year.”
Sadly, I can’t find any minutes to say why that was added, or what they meant by it. However, Mike Glyer was an active fan at the time and offers this speculation:
“Tim Kirk mounted an exhibit of paintings he’d done for his masters degree at the 1972 Westercon. Although Kirk did illos for leading fanzines like Science Fiction Review, so had eligible work, I know we discussed at the time that people weren’t going to unsee this impressive unpublished work, and it seemed silly for it to have to be disregarded. (As if people would.) That could have lent impetus to the rules change.
1984 (Fan) – Adapting to Semiprozine
Best Amateur Magazine was split up into Best Fanzine and Best Semiprozine, and the Fan Artist category definition was adapted to match. “An artist or cartoonist whose work has appeared through publication in semiprozines or fanzines or through other public display during the previous calendar year. Anyone whose name appears on the final ballot for a given year under the Professional Artist category will not be eligible for the Fan Artist award for that year.”
By Marc Schirmeister
1990-1996 (Best Original Artwork Hugo) – Trying Another Way
A Hugo for Best Original Artwork was given as a special committee award in 1990. It was then added as a regular Hugo Award and awarded from 1992-1996. In 1995, an amendment to remove the category received first passage, and in 1996 it was ratified. The definition text was: “Any original piece of Science Fiction or Fantasy artwork first published during the previous calendar year.”
Commentary from Fancyclopedia:
The category was intended to honor individual pieces of art, whether or not published and whether or not cover art. (Best Professional Artist and Best Fan Artist honor the artist for a body of work, not an individual piece.)
The category ultimately failed for two reasons: First, there were too many potential, worthy, nominees and the nomination votes received tended to be wide and flat with many pieces each getting only a few nominations. As a consequence, which pieces that actually got onto the final ballot tended to be due mostly to chance. (Additionally, a category which requires few votes to put a work onto the final ballot is very sensitive to a group of friends getting together and bloc voting.) Secondly, in the pre-WWW era, it was difficult to give most Hugo voters an opportunity to see what they were voting for, since the art tended to be widely scattered in where it appeared.
2007-2008 (Fan) – Removing Restrictions
In 2007 an amendment was introduced to remove the restriction about not being able to appear on the ballot as both a fan and a pro. The proposal commentary includes: “This restriction goes against the basic model underlying fandom — that being a pro is not an attribute of a person that takes them outside of fandom, nor is fandom some sort of junior league that fan artists graduate from to become pro artists. Just as we don’t stop pros from running as fan writers, if that’s what they’re doing (and, in some cases, winning the Hugo for Best Fan Writer and a fiction Hugo in the same year), we should not impose that restriction on fan vs pro artists. If people are doing both (and there have been, and still are artists who are doing both kinds of work), then they should be eligible in both categories.”
The amendment is adopted with no debate in either year. The Fan Artist category definition is now “An artist or cartoonist whose work has appeared through publication in semiprozines or fanzines or through other public display during the previous calendar year.”
By Marc Schirmeister
2013 – 2014 (Fan) – Broadening and Defining
In 2013 the first proposal was submitted to the business meeting to expand the Fan Artist category to include other kinds of art by adding “working in any visual or performance medium.” This was not adopted, but other additions to the definition were. This included specifying that “other public display” had to be non-professional, and specifically calling out conventions as an example. This addition was made by Colin Harris who wanted the amendment to be clear that “selling fan art at a convention did not make it a professional sale.” Read more of the discussion here starting on page 6 here.
The 2013 amendment was ratified in 2014. The category definition was updated to: “An artist or cartoonist whose work has appeared through publication in semiprozines or fanzines or through other public, nonprofessional display (including at a convention or conventions), during the previous calendar year.”
2017 (Both) – Creating HASC
The Hugo Awards Study Committee (HASC) was created, and one of its remits was to look at the Art Categories. In fact, the original proposal by Nicholas Whyte and Kathryn Duval was for a committee that would look only at the Art categories, but this was broadened out to cover the Hugos as a whole.
2017 (Context) – Disqualifying Sculpture
Tomek Radziewicz, a sculptor, received enough nominations to be a finalist for Best Professional Artist, but was declared ineligible because, as a sculptor, his work did not appear in a professional publication. Nicholas Whyte was the administrator that year, and stands by his decision as being in accordance with the rules, but saw this as evidence that the categories were not working as intended and something should be done.
2018 (Both) – Attempting a Radical Rethinking
HASC brought a proposal to the business meeting. However, even among the committee it was heavily debated, and a second competing proposal was considered but not introduced.
The proposed new definitions were:
Best Professional Artist. An artist who has produced work related to science fiction or fantasy which has been published or publicly displayed for the first time during the previous calendar year, and which does not qualify as Fan Art under the Best Fan Artist category definition.
Best Fan Artist. An artist who has produced work related to science fiction or fantasy which has appeared in fanzines or other public, non-professional display for the first time during the previous calendar year, and for which the rights to reproduce that artwork have been given without direct compensation to one or more non-commercial publications or for use at or by non-profit science fiction or fantasy conventions. Art which has been made available for reproduction only for the purpose of advertising the artist or their work, including art provided to a convention by a Guest of Honor, is not eligible as fan art.
The commentary attached to the proposal really gets at why we’re STILL having this conversation now.
Historical Context
Fan Artist originally meant people who had their art published in fanzines and/or convention publications. Sometimes the originals of that art may also have been sold (typically in convention art shows), and some of it was produced by people who made their living selling SF/Fantasy art professionally but who also donated the right to use art to fannish causes – but only the donated artwork, and not the sold artwork, was considered for the eligibility of the fan artwork.
A person can be both a professional artist (for work being sold), and a fan artist (for work for which the right to reproduce is donated elsewhere for free). In past history, Jack Gaughan won both of the art Hugo Awards in the same year, for work in a year in which he both did a great deal of professional art (magazine and book covers and interior art) and fan art (many dozens of sketches that he donated to fanzines for them to use as interior art).
In recent years, Fan Artist nominations have spread to include artists whose material is visible on the web without direct payment to view. This has been welcomed by some as an expansion of the field but decried by others as not meeting the historical expectations of fan art – that the right to reproduce the art (and often, but not necessarily, the physical artwork) be donated for free to someone else, for use in the other person’s fan publications (including websites).
Philosophical Context:
Hugo voters want to recognize artists who create speculative art which mirrors, complements, and inspires the stories we read and watch.
Hugo voters want to recognize artists who make special charitable contributions of art for the furtherance of fannish activities such as fanzines and conventions.
Hugo voters have decided that these are two distinct forms of art, and have created two categories to recognize those forms of art.
Additional Commentary:
These two artist categories are not mutually exclusive, and it is possible for one artist to be eligible for both Professional and Fan categories in any given year.
No attempt will be made to define “professional artist” as opposed to “nonprofessional artist”. If works do not meet the eligibility requirements for Fan Art, then they are considered to be Professional Art.
Eligible work includes art in physical or digital form, including illustration, painting, book and magazine covers, photography, three-dimensional work such as sculpture, jewelry, mixed media work, and costumes, and other visual artwork such as website graphics, animated gifs, and game art.
“Public display” includes art shows, dealer tables, panel presentations, other convention display, websites, and any other type of display that is generally available to the public.
“Without direct compensation” means that the artist has not been compensated for the art in question, but does not disqualify them on the basis of compensation otherwise received (such as a discounted or free membership at the convention given on the basis of having served on multiple panels in line with standard policy for that convention).
Artwork which has been “given for free to one or more non-commercial publications” includes artwork which has been made freely available for use via a Creative Commons (or similar) license: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Creative_Commons_license.
This proposal was heavily debated in the business meeting, and ultimately referred back to a new committee which (spoiler) failed to act. I will not attempt to summarize the debate here, but I recommend you read it for yourself starting on page 22. https://www.wsfs.org/wp-content/uploads/2018/09/2018-WSFS-Minutes.pdf
Ariela Housman was nominated as Best Fan Artist. One of the works she submitted to the Hugo Voter’s Packet was not allowed to appear because it was only exhibited online and not published or exhibited at a convention, as the definition requires. In her Hugo eligibility post for that year, she expresses frustration that “you can make a living entirely for years by selling your SF art directly to other people and still not be considered a Professional Artist” under the Hugo definitions. From my read, this blog post drives a lot of the direction of the changes made over the next few years, so it’s worth reviewing in its entirety. “2018 Hugo Eligibility Post: Best Fan Artist” — Geek Calligraphy.
2019 (Fan) – Defining Public Display
Ariela Housman and her business partner Terri Ash submitted an amendment to define “public, non-professional display” in the Fan Artist category by adding “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.” An attempt was made to refer this to the HASC but failed. With little discussion on the actual amendment the motion passed and got sent on for ratification.
2019 (Both) – Passing it Back to HASC
The new committee created in 2018 to work on the art categories did not meet or submit a report. The topic was referred back to HASC by the 2019 Business Meeting.
2021 (Fan) – Debating Public Display
The 2019 ratification came up for amendment (due to ConNZealand in 2020 passing all business forward). Discussion against the amendment included:
The addition of “in online or print-on-demand shops” means art that is for sale. Just because you can see it for free doesn’t make it fan art. Saying that art that is for sale is eligible for the fan art Hugo Award goes against the spirit of what fan art is.
The traditional definition of fan art is art that is made available for fannish activities, such as fanzines and conventions. All art is professional. It’s making it available for use for fannish activity that makes it fan art and, thus, a fan artist.
Discussion in favor of the amendment included:
Fan art has always appeared in convention art shows, where it has always been for sale. You could see it at a convention, but if you wanted to keep it you had to pay. The same rule for art on the internet is fine and keeping with the spirit of fan art,
Fan art online, which is made by fans for fans to celebrate fannish things, needs to be celebrated with the Fan Artist Hugo Award.
The amendment ultimately passed, and the new definition was: “An artist or cartoonist whose work 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.”
2022 (Both) – Trying Again to Radically Rethink
The HASC submitted another amendment to resolve these categories. Having failed to define “fan” first and pro in opposition to that, they now tried to do it the other way around.
Best Professional Artist. One or more collaborators on a body of work first displayed during the previous calendar year and created as i) work for hire, ii) on paid commission, or iii) for sale (either directly or via a paywall-like structure).
Best Fan Artist. One or more collaborators on a body of work first displayed during the previous calendar year in a fashion that did not qualify for Best Professional Artist, i.e., neither work for hire, nor commissioned for pay, nor for sale.
In the commentary HASC says:
There was also a clear consensus that the pool of potential nominees in the Best Professional Artist category needs to be widened – the current definition effectively restricts eligibility to illustrators of magazines and book covers – but in a way that does not risk potential Best Fan Artist nominees discovering that they have been deemed to be professional by a quirk of the rules. Much fannish art is sold, after all.
The subcommittee discussed this dilemma at some length, and also touched on the inclusion of art other than images in Best Professional Artist, the requirement for artists to provide proof of eligibility to administrators (which under current rules applies to Best Professional Artist but not Best Fan Artist), and whether or not groups of artists should be eligible.
Ultimately the subcommittee decided that eligibility for both categories should be decided by the existence (or not) of a qualifying body of work by the creators in the previous year – i.e., someone who has produced sufficient professional art should be eligible in Best Professional Artist, and someone who has produced sufficient fannish art should be eligible in Best Fan Artist.
An attempt was made to amend the proposal to remove the words “for sale.” This was then, and remains today, at the heart of the matter. For example, both of these people were speaking on behalf of artists who sell their artwork, but one thought that should give them the right to be considered Professional Artists and the other thought that sales should not be considered germane to whether the art is Fan Art.
Ms. Ash then spoke in favor of F.6 and said the artist categories have been so fundamentally devoted to publishing for so long that the community of those considered professional artists is very small and does not reflect the current state of science fiction and fantasy art as it is currently exhibited, produced, and sold. She said “sold” was the operative word. Fan artists are not necessarily making fanzine covers or convention souvenir book covers. They are putting their work out in the world to sell it and make money. That means that they should be given the grace to have their art considered as professional, just like someone who has had the luck to get noticed by a publisher and have their work on a book cover or a magazine cover. DAW, for example, isn’t coming to the art show to find new people, and it is much harder to break into that market than it’s ever been.
Lisa Hertel (she/they) objected to the “for sale” portion of the motion. She supports herself as an artist, but even non-professional artists come to art shows and put their work up for sale. Their prices may not be very high; they certainly are not making a living by it. Even Ms. Hertel, a professional artist, isn’t making a living by her art.
The amendment to remove “for sale” failed, with the discussion including people noting that it would make obviously professional artists like Phil Foglio or John Picacio eligible for Fan Artist. After additional discussion (starting on page 70 here) the proposal was referred to a new committee (the HASC having been disbanded that same year). That committee has not done any work as of this writing.
2022 (Context) – Defining Pro vs Fan Everywhere
In addition to the proposal to define Pro vs Fan in the Hugo categories, the HASC also put forth a proposal to better define what is meant by the term professional globally, though this proposal was not supported by the majority of the HASC members and was proposed to the Business Meeting without their consent. The constitution already defined the concept of a “Professional Publication” since it was used in other existing categories, like Professional Artist. The existing description was:
A Professional Publication is one which meets at least one of the following two criteria: (1) it provided at least a quarter the income of any one person or, (2) was owned or published by any entity which provided at least a quarter the income of any of its staff and/or owner.
The proposal was to change that to:
A professional publication is a publication produced by professional activity. Any category including language pertaining to non-professional or professional activity will be understood to use the definitions in 3.2.X and 3.2.Y.
3.2.X: Professional activity shall be that which was undertaken with the expectation of sale or other direct profit (by the creator or any co-creators), or which can only be accessed after a payment is made (other than incidental fees, e.g., convention membership fees).
3.2.Y: Non-professional activity shall be that which was not undertaken with the expectation of sale or other direct profit (by the creator or any co-creators), and which can be accessed in a full and final version without any payment.
3.2.Z: All activity shall be considered either Professional or Non-Professional. In cases where there is some doubt as to which category applies to a given work or activity, the will of the nominators should be considered, as should the greater need to protect fan (non-professional) activity against professional activity than the reverse.
The proposal was referred to the new committee looking at the Artist categories with the following instructions:
(a) to consider NOT defining fan vs. pro based on an expectation that an item would be for sale or not for sale, but perhaps based on first usage or presentation;
(b) to consider whether a global definition of fan vs. pro is necessary or whether it is preferable to have a category-by-category definition;
(c) to consider that things have multiple uses over their life, such as fan art or fan writing, and later sales do not disqualify them from being fannish; things can be both fan and pro;
(d) to consider the distinction between collecting money for expenses related to the work vs. for the benefit of the creator, and
(e) to ensure that all activity be defined either fan and/or pro (i.e., all works be defined as fan, or pro, or both fan and pro, but that no work should be considered neither).
This section of the minutes also includes the following, which feels like an important point.
Kent Bloom made a motion against referring F5 to the F.6 committee. He said that many things had changed in the science fiction community since 1983, when we first started debating fan versus pro. Mr. Bloom felt that the internet has made the definition of fan vs. pro obsolete, and that things like Patreon had rendered it impossible to decide if someone was an amateur or professional (in terms of monetary remuneration). He thought we should wait a few years and see what comes out of the new artwork definition.
As previously noted, the committee tasked with both of these 2022 proposals did not do any work or submit a report.
2022 (Fan) – Old Words, New Meaning – Fan Art vs Fan Art
In the discussion about the 2022 proposal, for the first time in the recorded discussion a new issue gets raised. For many people, the term “Fan Art” has a specific meaning that is entirely different from the historic Hugo definition.
Diana Castillo (she/her) spoke in favor. She felt the previous speaker had an old understanding of what fan art is. Fan artists bring their own passion, but they have the reality of needing to pay their rent, food, supplies, etc. Eliminating the “for sale” acknowledges these realities and brings this motion into reality and makes it so that someone who might be creating fan art of their favorite show can offer prints for sale and still be seen as a fan artist and not be lumped into the professional artist category. She urged passage of the amendment.
Alex Acks (they/them) said this is a definition problem. Speaking as a millennial, they said their understanding of fan artist is “I make art of other people’s intellectual property (‘IP’).” But if we are shifting more to that focus on the understanding that fan art is art that you are making of somebody else’s IP, you are getting into a very sticky place because fan artists and fan writers of that definition live in a space where they are not supposed to be making money off it and can be sued or killed by the “Mouse assassins”. They added that it is dangerous to focus on people making money off others’ IP due to patent/trademark laws.
2024 (Both) – Rerunning 2022
A group of people including Terri Ash submitted an amendment with the same language which had come out of the HASC in 2022. Following discussion, it is amended to specify that it concerns artwork (rather than just work) and in the field of science fiction or fantasy. The amendment was passed on for ratification with the text below:
Best Professional Artist. One or more collaborators on a body of artwork in the field of science fiction or fantasy first displayed during the previous calendar year and created as i) work for hire, ii) on paid commission, or iii) for sale (either directly or via a paywall-like structure).
Best Fan Artist. One or more collaborators on a body of artwork in the field of science fiction or fantasy first displayed during the previous calendar year in a fashion that did not qualify for Best Professional Artist, i.e., neither work for hire, nor commissioned for pay, nor for sale.
The commentary continues the themes of the 2022, but also adds in an acknowledgement that the definition of “fan art” has changed in the public eye.
The current definitions are extremely narrow and focused almost entirely on 2-D art. They also ignore the entire vibrant field of “science fiction art for sale” that is not appearing in a print (or web) publication. Those artists with careers in SFF art who do not or cannot or do not want to appear in a “publication” still deserve recognition for their professional achievements.
The definition of “Fan Artist” maintains the tradition in the Worldcon community of defining “fan” works as those which are created and freely offered to the community, regardless of whether they are derivative or original works. While this is an older usage of the word “fan” in context, we believe that keeping this spirit of community contribution alive is important.
The language also makes it clearer that it is possible for the same artist(s) to appear in both categories in the same year (as in Fan Writer and the written work categories), and that it is allowable for a collaboration to be nominated as a single nominee. We have also added a requirement for Fan Artists to have a portfolio in the same way as professional artists.
The newly proposed language not only makes it clearer what to nominate in each category, but also opens up the “Professional Artist” category to a whole new generation of artists who are creating amazing works, and cannot currently qualify in either category.
As the proposer, Terri Ash’s speech makes it clear that the motivation for the change is mostly about expanding the Professional Artist category. She makes the following points:
The current state of the Professional Artist and Fan Artist categories currently relegates most artists who sell their work to Fan Artist, because of the requirement for publication.
This is not the state of science fiction and fantasy art today. Convention art shows are filled with people who make their livelihood from selling their art in ways other than book covers. They are Professional Artists and deserve to be recognized in that category.
While we call it Best Artist, the award refers to a portfolio of work in a given year. Adding body of work language positions it more like Best Novel and not Best Author.
The body of work language also means that someone can qualify in both categories, providing they produced work that is donated to the fan community and thus qualifies as Fan Art.
In the debate that follows (summarized below), it’s clear that there’s a mismatch between the idea that Fan Art should be free, and the historical precedent that selling fan art is not necessarily disqualifying.
Points against:
Do we really want to put people like Sara Felix into the same category as Bob Eggleton?
There are many fan artists who make some proceeds from the sale of Fan Art after publication in a convention publication, but they’re not making money on it, it’s just defraying costs
If you offer something for sale every day of the year, but never sell anything, are you Professional Artist?
If I make tote bags with rockets on them and sell them in the art show for $40, does that make me a Professional Artist? It makes no sense.
Points in favor:
There are many kinds of art beyond just book covers, including things like 3-D art. The current Professional Artist definition doesn’t do enough to reflect the breadth of the field.
The “body of work” distinctions, as proposed, should be enough to protect Fan Artists from being pushed into the Professional Artist category.
This is closer to right than what we currently have, we’ve been trying to get it right forever. Don’t let the perfect be the enemy of the good.
Someone trying to sell art and not succeeding is still a Professional Artist, they’re just not good at it.
By Brad Foster
Appendix: Just The Fan Artist Text Through the Years
1967 – category established, but no official definition
1972 – “An artist or cartoonist whose work has appeared, during the previous calendar year, in magazines of the type defined under Article 2.08. Anyone whose name appears on the final ballot for a given year under the professional Artist category will not be eligible for the fan artist award for that year.”
1974 – “An artist or cartoonist whose work has appeared, during the previous calendar year, in magazines of the type defined under Article 2.08, or through other public display. Anyone whose name appears on the final ballot for a given year under the professional Artist category will not be eligible for the fan artist award for that year.”
1984 – “An artist or cartoonist whose work has appeared through publication in semiprozines or fanzines or through other public display during the previous calendar year. Anyone whose name appears on the final ballot for a given year under the professional Artist category will not be eligible for the fan artist award for that year.”
2008 – “An artist or cartoonist whose work has appeared through publication in semiprozines or fanzines or through other public display during the previous calendar year.”
2014 – “An artist or cartoonist whose work has appeared through publication in semiprozines or fanzines or through other public, nonprofessional display (including at a convention or conventions), during the previous calendar year.”
2018 (proposed, did not pass) – “An artist who has produced work related to science fiction or fantasy which has appeared in fanzines or other public, non-professional display for the first time during the previous calendar year, and for which the rights to reproduce that artwork have been given without direct compensation to one or more non-commercial publications or for use at or by non-profit science fiction or fantasy conventions. Art which has been made available for reproduction only for the purpose of advertising the artist or their work, including art provided to a convention by a Guest of Honor, is not eligible as fan art.”
2021 – “An artist or cartoonist whose work 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.”
2022 (proposed, did not pass) – “One or more collaborators on a body of work first displayed during the previous calendar year in a fashion that did not qualify for Best Professional Artist, i.e., neither work for hire, nor commissioned for pay, nor for sale.”
2024 (passed on to be ratified) – “One or more collaborators on a body of artwork in the field of science fiction or fantasy first displayed during the previous calendar year in a fashion that did not qualify for Best Professional Artist, i.e., neither work for hire, nor commissioned for pay, nor for sale.”
Byline & Acknowledgements. Compiled and written by Tammy Coxen, with feedback and editing assistance from Nicholas Whyte, Colin Harris, Lisa Hertel, Sara Felix and Mike Glyer. Special thanks to Gary Farber for providing the inspiration by posting some prior definitions in a comment on JOFs. Also, thanks to the editors and contributors to my primary research sites, Fancyclopedia 3, fanac.org and wsfs.org.
INTRODUCTION. The deadline to submit proposals to the Glasgow 2024 Business Meeting was July 10. The formal agenda will be out soon, but in the meantime the movers of 15 submitted items have provided copies for publication and discussion on File 770.
The fourth of these items proposes to redefine eligibility for the Best Professional Artist Hugo to encompass work done under three different compensation arrangements. It discards the current standard “appeared in a professional publication”. And the motion also redefines eligibility for Best Fan Artist to depend on work not done
The motion also provides for collaborators on a body of work to be treated as a single finalist.
SHORT TITLE: CLEANING UP THE ART CATEGORIES
Moved, to amend the WSFS constitution by adding and removing text as follows:
3.3.13: Best Professional Artist.An illustrator whose work has appeared in a professional publication in the field of science fiction or fantasy during the previous calendar year.One or more collaborators on a body of work first displayed during the previous calendar year and created as i) work for hire, ii) on paid commission, or iii) for sale (either directly or via a paywall-like structure).
3.3.17: Best Fan Artist. An artist or cartoonist whose work 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. One or more collaborators on a body of work first displayed during the previous calendar year in a fashion that did not qualify for Best Professional Artist – i.e., neither work for hire, nor commissioned for pay, nor for sale. Free copies of a publication in which an artist is published shall not constitute “pay” unless they are supplied with the expectation of resale by the artist.
3.10.2: In the Best Professional Artist category and Best Fan Artist categories, the acceptance should include citations of at least three (3) works that were first displayed in the eligible year.
SPONSORS: Terri Ash, Kate Secor, Kevin Sonney
DISCUSSION: The current definitions are extremely narrow and focused almost entirely on 2-D art. They also ignore the entire vibrant field of “science fiction art for sale” that is not appearing in a print (or web) publication. Those artists with careers in SFF art who do not or cannot or do not want to appear in a “publication” still deserve recognition for their professional achievements.
The definition of “Fan Artist” maintains the tradition in the Worldcon community of defining “fan” works as those which are created and freely offered to the community, regardless of whether they are derivative or original works. While this is an older usage of the word “fan” in context, we believe that keeping this spirit of community contribution alive is important.
The language also makes it clearer that it is possible for the same artist(s) to appear in both categories in the same year (as in Fan Writer and the written work categories), and that it is allowable for a collaboration to be nominated as a single nominee. We have also added a requirement for Fan Artists to have a portfolio in the same way as professional artists.
The newly proposed language not only makes it clearer what to nominate in each category, but also opens up the “Professional Artist” category to a whole new generation of artists who are creating amazing works, and cannot currently qualify in either category.
The official trailer for CBS All Access’ new half-hour animated comedy “Star Trek: Lower Decks” has arrived, and it’s putting an irreverent spin on the beloved franchise.
“We’re not really elite — we’re more like the cool, scrappy underdogs,” explains lower-deck Ensign Mariner in the trailer.
“We live on a spaceship, nobody is dying from a spear wound!” she exclaims in the midst of some onboard mayhem.
The 10-episode series, which has already been renewed for a second season, is the first animated “Star Trek” series in more than 45 years. “Star Trek: The Animated Series” had a brief run starting in 1973.
CBS All Access subscribers can watch the show each week on Thursdays starting Aug. 6 on the digital subscription video on-demand and live streaming service,
A confession: As a 9-year-old boy, I loved the Baby-Sitters Club books.
So deep is my remembered shame that even now, sitting at my keyboard at the age of 43, I’m blushing. I know that times have changed, that today boys can like whatever they like, are even applauded for it. But in the 1980s, when it seemed the only real options for me were “The Hobbit” or the Hardy Boys or Choose Your Own Adventure books, stories that as I recall all involved dragons and trap doors and motorcycle chases, sneaking home one of Ann Martin’s books about a group of 12-year-old girls from fictional Stoneybrook, Conn., felt like a crime. I mean, all of the covers were pastel.
It was a moment. I think I read the first 15 books in the series over the course of fourth grade; whatever was in my school’s library — and I certainly didn’t share my enthusiasm then with another soul.
My great immersion in the friendship of Kristy Thomas, Mary Anne Spier, Claudia Kishi and Stacey McGill (and Dawn, Mallory and Jessi — you know I couldn’t forget the later additions) is something I’ve had reason to revisit lately. That’s because my two daughters, 10 and 7, are now obsessives of the Sitter-verse. They have read the books, tracking down the out-of-print ones as e-books. They have devoured — like torn at each other’s hair to get at — Raina Telgemeier’s graphic novel reboot of the series, which debuted in color in 2015. And for the past year their bedtime routine involves listening to audio versions of the books, all 131 of which were recently produced by Audible. As if that weren’t enough, they have been counting down the days to a television adaptation streaming on Netflix beginning July 3 that will offer a modern-day update. Basically, I should have bought real estate in Stoneybrook….
As Walt Whitman put it, baseball has always had the “snap, go, fling” of the American atmosphere. And it has so many democratic ideas built into it. We take the idea of a level playing field for granted, as well as the idea that everyone should have a turn at bat. But as the daughter of Chinese immigrants, I’m aware of how strange these ideas can seem to people from other countries.
When you first decided to create this dystopian world, did you realize how much detailed imagining it would require? Did you already know a ton about AI and baseball, or did you learn a ton to write the book?
Do we ever know how much work a novel is going to be? Luckily, I like investigation of every sort, and I was able to study up on both technology and baseball as I wrote. Luckily, too, I live in Cambridge, Massachusetts, where I’m surrounded by expertise. The MIT Technology Review very generously allowed me to sit in on their EmTech conference twice. And I was able to consult with people like Ted Williams’s biographer, Bill Nowlin.
…The month of June saw the comics industry rocked by successive waves of predatory conduct allegations, amid similar reckonings around sexual harassment in the affiliated worlds of video games, twitch streaming, tabletop games,professional wrestling, and professional illustration. Some of the allegations, as with superstar writer Warren Ellis, were new. Others brought renewed scrutiny to lingering problems like the allegations against Dark Horse editor Scott Allie and DC writer Scott Lobdell. Most of the stories came from marginalized creators who’d previously been silent for fear of being blacklisted. In June, that wall of silence cracked, and what showed beneath was red and raw and deeply, viscerally angry.
“A huge reason why abusive, predatory, and discriminatory practices go unchecked in the comics industry is this: the impetus is always put on the victims to come forward,” Maï wrote in an email to The Daily Beast. “Victims are expected to speak out at great personal cost—at risk of losing jobs and damaging their financial livelihood, at detriment to their mental health and threats to their personal safety… For every story you hear, there is also an unimaginable amount more that are not heard.” (Stewart did not respond to The Daily Beast’s request for comment.)
(6) MEDIA BIRTHDAY.
July 12, 1961 — Voyage to the Bottom of the Sea premiered. It was produced and directed by Irwin Allen off the screenplay by him and Charles Bennett. It starred Walter Pidgeon and Robert Sterling with a supporting cast of Peter Lorre, Joan Fontaine, Barbara Eden, Michael Ansara, and Frankie Avalon. It was produced for about one and a half million dollars, and certainly made its costs back at the box office. Critics weren’t terribly fond of it but audiences really liked as it made over eight million dollars over its summer and early autumn run. Audience reviewers at Rotten Tomatoes currently give it an anemic 39% rating.
(7) TODAY’S BIRTHDAYS.
[Compiled by Cat Eldridge and John Hertz.]
Born July 12, 1865 – Lucy Perkins. Best known as author of children’s books, e.g. Dutch Twins and two dozen sequels; sold 2 million copies all told. Illustrated Aesop, Anderson, Grimm, Robin Hood; here is her cover for Edith Harrison’s Moon Princess; here for Julia Brown’s Enchanted Peacock; here (line drawing and text) is her own “Queen of Spring”. (Died 1937) [JH]
Born July 12, 1912 – Joseph Mugnaini. Thirty covers, twenty interiors, particularly for Bradbury. Here and here are two versions of his cover for Fahrenheit 451.Here is a Bradbury issue of The Magazine of Fantasy and Science Fiction.Here is an etching for The Martian Chronicles. Here is a cover for Hal Clement’s Mission of Gravity. Five artbooks. (Died 1992) [JH]
Born July 12, 1923 — James Gunn, 97. Writer, editor, scholar, and anthologist. Winner at ConStellation of a Hugo for Best Related Work for Isaac Asimov: The Foundations of Science Fiction. His New Encyclopedia of Science Fiction Is quite excellent from an historical context now. I’ve not read his SF novel, The Immortals, so would be interested in knowing how it is. And let’s not overlook The Road to Science Fiction, his series of rather excellent anthologies covering all of SF. (CE)
Born July 12, 1933 — Donald E. Westlake. Though he specialized in crime fiction, he did dip into the genre on occasion such as with Transylvania Station which you think as a Clue-style novel he wrote with his wife Abby. On the horror end of things was Anarchaos. And he wrote a lot of genre short fiction, some fifty pieces by my count. (Died 2008.) (CE)
Born July 12, 1939 – Mike Hodel. Host for a decade and a half of Hour 25 on radio, locally on Station KPFK. Harlan Ellison, who succeeded him for a year, called it “a forum for writers and fans, publishers and readers…. he brought serious thinkers and noble madmen to the microphone”, Angry Candy p. xxi (1988). Two short stories in Fantasy Book. Reviews in Transmissions and Weird Tales. Interviewed Philip K. Dick in The Missouri Review (note Vincent Di Fate cover). (Died 1986) [JH]
Born July 12, 1944 – Helene Flanders. Vancouver, British Columbia, fan. Edited the club’s BCSFAzine issues 57 (March 1978) to 71 (May 1979). Fancyclopedia 3 says she was found murdered in her apartment, augh. (Died 1982) [JH]
Born July 12, 1947 – Hiroshi Amata, 73. Author, critic; translator particularly of classic fantasy, The Ship of Ishtar, The Night Land; student of natural history (Birds of the World and Fish of the World, collections of 19th Century paintings, have been translated into English). Two dozen books. So far his 12-volume Tales of the Imperial Capital, Tokyo from an occultist perspective, has not been done in English; 5 million copies sold in Japan; here is a cover for Vol. 2 by Yoshitaka Amano, Artist Guest of Honor at the 65th Worldcon. [JH]
Born July 12, 1947 — Carl Lundgren, 73. He co-founded ASFA (Association of Science Fiction & Fantasy Artists of America), and won 4 Chesleys, including Artistic Achievement. At the tender age of eighteen, he was co-chairman of the first media SF convention, The Detroit Triple Fan Fair which featured comics, movies and various things of a SF nature. At Chicon IV, he was nominated for Best Professional Artist but lost out to Michael Whelan. (CE)
Born July 12, 1961 — Scott Nimerfro. He had an impressive production list of genre films and series, to wit Tales From The Crypt, Trekkies, X-Men, Perversions Of Science, The Gates, Pushing Daisies, and the Once Upon A Time series which he produced three seasons of. He has one genre acting credit in “Let the Punishment Fit the Crime“ story of Tales From The Crypt in which he was Fouser. (Died 2016.) (CE)
Born July 12, 1968 — Sara Griffiths, 52. She appeared as Ray in the Seventh Doctor story “Delta and the Bannermen”. She was being considered as a companion to the Doctor, a role however taken by Sophie Aldred as Ace. (CE)
Born July 12, 1971 – Michelle Welch, 49. Five novels and a collection of flash fiction introducing her Gbahn characters; four novels of elementals (one each) under another name. Editor of two podcast anthologies. Collects stringed instruments, which she sometimes plays. Still working on a Big Fat Historical Fantasy set during the English Civil War; last year’s NaNoWriMo (nat’l novel writing month) helped some. Website here. [JH]
Born July 12, 1976 — Gwenda Bond, 44. Writer, critic, editor. She’s written a prequel to the Stranger Things series, Suspicious Minds, and I’m very fond of the two novels (The Lost Legacy and The Sphinx’s Secret) so far in her Supernormal Sleuthing Service which she wrote with her husband Christopher Rowe. And she penned the Dear Aunt Gwenda section of Lady Churchill’s Rosebud Wristlet that Small Beer Press published in the early part of this millennium. (CE)
(8) COMICS SECTION.
Saturday Morning Breakfast Cereal’s”Teleporter” — Is it a joke?
… Not only is America in dire straits–“I do believe you’ve laid a curse on North America,” John Adams says, “a second flood, a simple famine, plagues of locusts everywhere,”–they’re dealing with many of the same problems we are right now.
They’re plagued with diseases (“The children all have dysentery, and little Tom keeps turning blue,” Abigail says. “Little Abbey has the measles, and I’m coming down with flu…they say we may get smallpox”) and shortages (sewing pins and saltpeter instead of toilet paper and PPE.)
There are lines that could have been spoken today, like Benjamin Franklin’s saying, “Never has a nation been more recklessly mismanaged,” and there are parallels in the people. We have Ruth Bader Ginsburg, whose health we’re praying for, and they had Caesar Rodney, a Congressman from Delaware who was dragged back to Congress from his deathbed to provide a deciding vote.
In 1776, they’re also dealing with critical issues of what they want their country to be and issues of racial justice that are threatening to tear the country apart and may even stop America from being born: “Now you’re calling our black slaves Americans?” the delegate from North Carolina asks John Adams, and Adams replies, “They’re people and they’re here. If there’s any other requirement, I never heard it.” “They are not people,” North Carolina says. “They are property.” “No, sir,” Jefferson says, “they are people who are being treated as property.”
And here we are, 244 years later, having that same conversation. On the Fourth two people painted over a “Black Lives Matter” sign on a street, proclaiming, “The narrative of police brutality, the narrative of oppression, the narrative of racism, it’s a lie,” and two days ago when Joe Biden said in his Fourth of July message that all people are created equal, the spokesman for the Republican Party accused him of trying to destroy the Declaration of Independence. “It says ‘All MEN are created equal,’” she said huffily….
(10) DOOM PATROL! [Item by Daniel Dern.] Five episodes in (out of a listed nine), Season Two of DC’s live-action Doom Patrol is (for me) one of the best comics-based TV series ever, with plot and character elements spanning the source comic series’ decades and creators. This season we’ve had (more) episodes including both Flex Mentallo and Danny The Street.
The show will make more sense if you’ve seen the first season.
If you want to be frugal, and can shim in modest binging, wait until Season 2 Episode 9 comes out — new episodes drop each Thursday, so, mmm, (according to IMDB), August 6, and try the DCUniverse 1-week free trial, or a month for $7.99, or HBO Max, a free week or a $14.99 month.
Note: DCUniverse is available via the web, and as an Android and iOS app. I watched DP Season 1 on my iPad; having (finally) added the app to my Amazon Fire Stick, I’ve been watching Season 2 on the TV — even more fun!
(11) MY MOUNT TBR HAS A PECULIAR PERIL. [Item by Daniel Dern.] The first few paragraphs of Laird Hunt’s review of Jeff Vandermeer’s A Peculiar Peril — “Jeff VanderMeer’s Young Adult Novel Is a Madcap Magical Mash-Up” – (if you can’t get to it, here’s Ian Mond’s review from Locus Online) were so compelling that I stopped reading the review … and have online-reserved a copy from my local public library, which, thankfully, re-opened about two weeks ago for by-appointment contactless pick-ups of reserve requests. (Items are in paper bags. Yes, brown, but not delivered in the dead of night 🙂
Picture a 200-foot-long death machine built to crush everything in its path — powered by pulped earthworms, defended by demi-mages and captained by the gently stoned 19th-century French novelist Jules Verne — and you will have glimpsed just the tiniest portion of the madcap magical mash-up that is Jeff VanderMeer’s first full-throated sally into epic young adult fiction, for readers 12 and up. Overuse has made combinatory comparisons risible, but VanderMeer’s highly allusive maximalist tome requires them. So: “A Peculiar Peril” is equal parts “The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe,” “Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix,” “Jonathan Strange & Mr. Norrell,” Matt Groening’s “Futurama,” “Mary Poppins” (or is it “Chitty Chitty Bang Bang”?), “Curse of Chucky,” “Alice in Wonderland” and David Lynch’s hallucinatory adaptation of “Dune.”…
(12) DOLITTLE DOES ENOUGH. [Item by Daniel Dern.] Between advance reviews and the “has dragon” reveal, I declined to pay’n’go to see the recent (Dr.) Dolittle live-action (well, presumably lotsa CGI and other animation) movie (with Robert Downey Jr as the good doctor, Tom Holland voicing Jip the Dog, Emma Thompson voicing Polynesia the parrot, along with other well-known names), but this was one of the first items on my library reserve list to make it to my brown paper bag pickup, and, having watched it, I enjoyed it enough that I don’t regret it, but don’t feel that if you haven’t yet seen it, you need to.
I like that this was not done as an “origin” movie. I liked the Rube Goldberg steampunk gadgetry (or should that be steampunk Rube Goldberg gadgetry) and various other flourishes. The dragon was legitimized as a plot element, but (thankfully) didn’t go all Game-of-Thrones-firestormy. And could easily enough been something other or less than a dragon. At least they didn’t try to shimmy in some dragon-with-the-flagon patter, although perhaps that would have been a nice touch, although, admittedly, lost or going right by 99% of the audience. (Here, perhaps only past a modest 25%?)
Ants do it. Lobsters do it. Even equatorial mandrills do it. Why don’t many Americans do it: Wear masks and keep a wise social distance from each other?
Scientific American reports this week how several animals seem to know how to take precautions and keep their distance so they’re less likely to be infected by a peer.
Spiny lobsters, for example — and really, aren’t they all? — can apparently sniff out infection in the urine of another lobster, and don’t get too close to them.
University of Florida researchers discovered this when a virus spread among spiny lobsters in the Florida Keys. As Dana M. Hawley and Julia C. Buck write in Scientific American, “Despite how unnatural it may feel to us, social distancing is very much a part of the natural world.”
A 2018 study at the University of Bristol found that when ant colonies are exposed to a virus, ants keep their distance. Forager ants, who are out and about to scrounge up plant saps and insect eggs, stay outside of the colony, so they don’t risk infecting the queen ant and her nurses. Reproduction can safely proceed.
Fandom is generous, and that includes its artists. The Fan categories of the Hugo Awards celebrate the generosity that goes along with an incredible amount of work, just for the fun of it. In the past, I haven’t looked closely at the Fan categories, because who has time to look at everything? Turns out I’ve missed a lot of interesting things, so this year I’m making sure to look at those often-overlooked categories and cast my vote…
[Thanks to Cat Eldridge, Andrew Porter, JJ, Daniel Dern, John Hertz, Michael Toman, Chip Hitchcock, Martin Morse Wooster, John King Tarpinian, Lise Andreasen, and Mike Kennedy for some of these stories. Title credit goes to File 770 contributing editor of the day Kip W.]
(1) POKER. Terri Ash and Ariela
Housman of Geek Calligraphy say they will put out an online fanzine at
the end of the year “to provide a publication venue for fan art that is
otherwise excluded from the Fan Artist Hugo award eligibility criteria”: “Announcing
the Launch of The Very Official Dead Dog Art Zine”
Well, we’re putting our money where our mouths are. It’s important to us that there be as much access to Hugo Award eligibility as possible. That means both fixing the constitution (the root problem) and also providing an outlet for people while the amendment is ratified.
The only submission criteria for the Very Official Dead Dog Art Zine is that you follow our submission template. That’s it. The entire point of this zine is that everyone’s art is worthy of inclusion. There is no jury, no one will tell you that your art isn’t good enough. You made it. That’s enough for us.
In 2019 the Hugo Committee ruled that, for the purposes of the Best Fan Artist category, art that has only been displayed online does not meet the requirements of this definition.
However! Fanzines that only exist online still count. (Don’t think too hard about this logic, it goes nowhere.) By publishing this zine at the very end of the year, we are offering a last rules-compliant venue for potential fan artists to display work they finished too late to display anywhere else.
Dublin 2019 Hugo Administrator Nicholas Whyte declined to comment when I asked him whether the above statement is an accurate corollary to the ruling he gave them about what could be allowed in last year’s Hugo Voter Packet, i.e., that art from an online fanzine would have satisfied his interpretation of the rules.
(2) WHAT DO THESE NUMBERS MEAN? This week two different
writers have posted Hugo statistics showing the male/female ratio of nominees
over the course of the award’s history. The Fantasy Inn created a
animated graphic about the Best Novel category.
Some extra talking points:
Men have had 80% or more of a given year's nominees on 42 different occasions. For women, this has happened just twice: this past year, and in 2011.
Men have had the majority of the nominees on 57 occasions. Women have had the majority just 7 times.
When I heard people were apparently upset about the gender balance of this year’s Hugo winners, I thought I could give the records a quick eyeball and fill the empty abyss of daily existence for a short time establish once and for all whether or not this year was particularly atypical. If there’s one thing known about human nature, it is that concrete numbers resolve all arguments.
When
questioned about the purpose of his post, James Davis Nicoll said, “Actually, I just like counting stuff. I don’t know why people
read agendas into a presentation of numerical data.”
For myself I’d say — I read all six novels on the Hugo ballot. There wasn’t one I thought didn’t belong. The field was surprisingly strong. And the book I expected to like the least (before I’d read any of them) is the one I ended up voting in first place. Does this ballot need to be defended?
(3) DINO ROCK. The third Jurassic World movie is scheduled
for a 2021 release. Meantime, Director
Colin Trevorrow is keeping up interest. He’s unveiling another short dinosaur
adventure September 15 on FX.
BATTLE AT BIG ROCK A Jurassic World Short Film Sunday September 15 on FX
Time erodes. Time erodes author reputations. When new books stop appearing, old readers forget a once favorite author and new readers may never encounter writers who were once well known.
It’s fortunate that we live in something of a golden age of reprints, whether physical books or ebooks. This is also the golden age of finding long-out-of-print books via online used book services. Now authors perhaps unjustly forgotten can reach new readers. I’ve been reminded of a few such authors; let me share a few of them with you.
(5) A THEORY ABOUT SFF FANS. After rereading John W. Campbell Jr.’s The Moon is Hell! James Wallace Harris asked himself, “Why Read Outdated Science Fiction?” Bear in mind this answer comes from the fan who writes the Classics of Science Fiction blog.
…Reading “The Moon is Hell!” showed me I didn’t care about science. Nor did I care about Campbell’s growing bad reputation. The story is everything. That’s what it comes down to. I’m also in a Facebook group that’s discussing “In the Walls of Eryx” by H. P. Lovecraft, another outdated story about intelligent life on Venus by another shunned writer. Again, it’s the story stupid.
We don’t read for facts. We don’t care about literary standing or the author’s morality. Few readers compare the books in their collection to find the best one to read next. We select books on random whims. If the story grabs us we keep reading. Readers are simple creatures of habit. I could clear a shelf of my books without looking at the titles and it wouldn’t matter, because I’ve got plenty more to randomly grab.
(6) TODAY’S BIRTHDAYS.
[Compiled by Cat Eldridge.]
Born September 11, 1856 — Richard Ganthony. Playwright of A Message from Mars: A Story Founded on the Popular Play by Richard Ganthony which is a genre version of Dicken’s A Christmas Carol. Really, it is. Published in 1912, it was filmed twice, both times as A Message from Mars (1913 and 1921) and I’m assuming as silent movies given their dates. It would be novelized by Lester Lurgan. (Died 1924.)
Born September 11, 1928 — Earl Holliman, 91. He’s in the cook in Forbidden Planet and he shares a scene with Robbie the Robot. A few short years later, he’s Conrad in Visit to a Small Planet though it’ll be nearly fifteen before his next genre role as Harry Donner in the Six Million Dollar Man’s Wine, Women and War TV film. He shows up as Frank Domino in the Night Man series, an adaption of a Malibu Comics’ Ultraverse character. What the Frell is that publisher?!? Surprisingly he’s done no other genre series beyond being in the original Twilight Zone series premiere as Mick Ferris in the “Where Is Everybody?” episode.
Born September 11, 1929 — Björn Nyberg. A Swedish writer known largely for his Conan stories which given that he wrote just one non-Conan story makes sense. His first book in the series was The Return of Conan which was revised for publication by L. Sprague de Camp. Likewise, they later did Conan the Avenger, Conan the Victorious, Conan the Swordsman and Sagas of Conan. The latter two are available on iBooks and Kindle. (Died 2004.)
Born September 11, 1930 — Jean-Claude Forest. Forest became famous when he created Barbarella, which was originally published in France in V Magazine in 1962. In 1967 it was adapted by Terry Southern and Roger Vadim and made into 1968 film of that name, with him acting as design consultant. It was considered an adult comic by the standards of the time. (Died 1998.)
Born September 11, 1934 — Ian Abercrombie. He played a most excellent and proper Alfred Pennyworth on Birds of Prey, a Professor Crumbs in Wizards of Waverly Place, was Wiseman in Army of Darkness and Palpatine in Star Wars: The Clone Wars. (Died 2012.)
Born September 11, 1941 — Kirby McCauley. Literary agent and editor, who as the former who represented authors such as Stephen King, George R.R. Martin and Roger Zelazny. And McCauley chaired the first World Fantasy Convention, an event he conceived with T. E. D. Klein and several others. As Editor, his works include Night Chills: Stories of Suspense,Frights, Frights 2, and Night Chills. (Died 2014.)
Born September 11, 1952 — Sharon Lee, 67. She is the co-author with Steve Miller of the Liaden universe novels and stories which are quite excellent reading. They won Edward E. Smith Memorial Award for Imaginative Fiction in 2012.
Born September 11, 1960 — William Tienken. Mike has an obituary here. (Died 2014.)
Born September 11, 1965 — Catriona (Cat) Sparks, 54. Winner of an astounding thirteen Ditmar Awards for writing, editing and artwork, her most recent in 2014 when her short story “Scarp” was awarded a Ditmar for Best Short Story and The Bride Price a Ditmar for Best Collected Work. She has just one novel to date, Lotus Blue, but has an amazing amount of short stories which are quite stellar. Lotus Blue and The Bride Price are both available on iBooks and Kindle. Off to buy both now.
(8) 91 PIECES OF ART ON THE WALL. …Take one
down and write a big check…. Lots of
great-looking artwork and all for sale. IX Gallery calls the exhibition
— “Amaitzing:
Don Maitz”.
IX Gallery is pleased to bring forth a veritable cornucopia of Maitz for your purchasing pleasure!
This is my Harlan Ellison story: I saw & met him in 1978 at the World Science Fiction Convention in Phoenix AZ over the Labor Day weekend. It was IguanaCon II, the 36th Worldcon, and Harlan was the Guest of Honor.
Harlan had boasted that he could write anywhere, any time — so the con organizers put up a clear plastic tent in the lobby of the Hyatt Regency, gave him a table, a chair, a manual typewriter, and a ream of paper… and there he sat, for much of three or four days, banging out a short story while fans went about their way. The result was “Count the Clock that Tells the Time”.
Forty years ago a landmark moment in Star Trek’s history arrived, in the form of Star Trek: The Motion Picture. It’s an important chapter in the series’ survival, the turning point from canceled cult classic to enduring icon of science fiction. But there is a reason we remember The Motion Picture’s place in history more than we remember The Motion Picture: It’s boring as all hell.
As fans across America prepare to revisitTMP this month in celebratory screenings ahead of its actual 40th birthday this December, what they’re about to re-experience is a moment in history that is perhaps best remembered as such than for what it actually is. The Motion Picture’s existence is paradoxical. It’s both an important moment to be remembered, and a movie so cosmically overwrought and forgettable that to contemplate seeing it again in the dark environment of a movie theater once more is to challenge your eyelids to an existential test of endurance.
Geologists have begun the process of moving a museum’s 150-tonne “mountain” of fossils, rocks and dinosaur bones to a new climate-controlled home.
The vast hoard, ranging from mammoth tusks to meteorites, has been collected by the Sedgwick Museum in Cambridge since it was founded in 1728.
It includes exhibits from Charles Darwin’s Beagle voyage and Scott’s British Antarctic Expedition of 1913.
Museum director Liz Hide said it had “enormous potential” for researchers.
The two-year move involves transferring about two million specimens from the university’s Atlas Building to the £2m Colin Forbes collection centre in west Cambridge.
…The Sedgwick Museum is considered one of the largest and most historically important centres for rocks, minerals and fossils in the world, attracting global research teams.
It boasts giant Jurassic ammonites, intact ichthyosaur fossils and mammoth tusks unearthed locally – with some pieces thought to be more than 200 million years old.
Of course, the BBC uses the opportunity to pun out an obsolete measurement:
…Museum conservator Sarah Wallace-Johnson said the climate would be controlled to prevent rust and corrosion, as “rocks are surprisingly sensitive things”.
“We’re moving about 15,000 drawers of rocks – with an average weight of 10 kilos each – it is literally moving a mountain,” she said.
“Each column of drawers alone is about 300 kilos (47 stones).”
When Avenue Victor Hugo Books met the end of its nearly 30-year run on Boston’s Newbury Street, the building’s monthly rent had been raised from $12,000 to $25,000, and Diesel Jeans was slated to move in.
That was 2004. The redolent, woody fragrance of cedar and oak, emanating from millions of crusty pages in a dusty atmosphere — held dearly by those who valued the space as a literary haven — faded away.
Fifteen years later, the store is newly located in a bucolic red barn in Lee, beside a white farmhouse where owner Vincent McCaffrey now lives with his wife, Thais Coburn, and their daughter and son-in-law. After moving to Lee three years ago, McCaffrey and Colburn decided to revive the erudite escape.
It’s a reincarnation of the Back Bay shop, with the same wistfulness and feeling of being homesick, yet not knowing what for. But in New Hampshire, the barn is rent-free and has its own parking. There’s also little-to-no traffic on the quiet country road.
Avenue Victor Hugo opened in 1975, following McCaffrey’s ventures selling books from a pushcart and working as a desk clerk at a city hotel….
Scientists have discovered the earliest direct evidence of milk consumption by humans.
The team identified milk protein entombed in calcified dental plaque (calculus) on the teeth of prehistoric farmers from Britain.
It shows that humans were consuming dairy products as early as 6,000 years ago – despite being lactose intolerant.
This could suggest they processed the raw milk into cheese, yoghurt or some other fermented product.
This would have reduced its lactose content, making it more palatable.
The team members scraped samples of plaque off the teeth, separated the different components within it and analysed them using mass spectrometry.
They detected a milk protein called beta-lactoglobulin (BLG) in the tartar of seven individuals spanning early to middle Neolithic times.
…Genetic studies of ancient populations from across Eurasia show that lactase persistence only became common very recently, despite the consumption of milk products in the Neolithic. The mutation had started to appear by the Bronze Age, but even at this time, it was only present in 5-10% of Europeans
• “SS Venture” steamship filming miniature from King Kong (1933).
• “Dorothy Gale” scene specific screen used black and white gingham pinafore from The Wizard of Oz.
• 20th Century-Fox President Spyros Skouras’s Best Picture Academy Award for Gentleman’s Agreement.
• Orson Welles “Charles Foster Kane” coat from Citizen Kane.
• Marilyn Monroe “Clara” nightgown from A Ticket To Tomahawk.
• Property from the estate of Martin Landau including his Golden Globe awards for Mission: Impossible and Ed Wood.
• The very first Emmy Award for “Best Film Made for Television” ever presented.
• Original “Dragula” coffin dragster from The Munsters and Munster, Go Home!
• Original Type-2 Phaser Pistol used in the Star Trek: TOS episode “Plato’s Stepchildren” – from the collection of Nichelle Nichols.
(15) VIDEO OF THE DAY. In “One Unique Creature” on Vimeo, Frances
Haszard explores a mysterious hotel.
[Thanks to Andrew Porter, Chip Hitchcock, Mike Kennedy, Martin
Morse Wooster, John King Tarpinian, Chris Rose, JJ, Michael J. Walsh, and Cat
Eldridge for some of these stories. Title credit goes to File 770 contributing
editor of the day Ingvar.]
[Editor’s Note: Third in a series.Dublin
2019 has posted the 2019 WSFS
Business Meeting Agenda (July 25 update) [PDF
file] containing all the business submitted by the July 17 deadline. File 770
will post about some of the proposals and invite discussion.]
2019 Best Fan Artist nominee Ariela Housman, and Terri Ash,
respectively the artist and manager of Geek
Calligraphy, didn’t like the feedback they got from the Hugo
Administrators about their submissions to the Hugo Voter Packet. Their solution
is a rules change proposal that radically redefines the Best Fan Artist’s “public
display” requirement.
Proposed by:
Terri Ash & Ariela Housman
Commentary:
Public Display includes: art shows (SF/F convention or otherwise), Internet posts (including but not limited to: personal blog posts, twitter posts, tumblr posts, Facebook, someone else’s blog, etc), Etsy shops, print on demand shops (TeePublic, RedBubble, Threadless, etc), dealer tables, Artist Alley displays, the art hanging in a cafe somewhere, magazines, fanzines, online advertisements. Basically, if it exists in a way that doesn’t require you to pay to see the image in full resolution (not counting a watermark), it’s public.
Back in April, Ariela Housman’s Geek Calligraphy blog post “Hugo
Eligibility Revisited” explained the grievance that is at the root of this
proposal:
Voting will begin soon, and when the voter packet is distributed, you’ll see two of our pieces in there…
But where did “Lady Astronaut Nouveau” go?
So, funny story about that.
When we published our eligibility post in December, we included the above two works, plus “Lady Astronaut Nouveau” based on The Calculating Stars by Mary Robinette Kowal. The former two were created earlier in 2018 and shown in art shows at Confluence and ICON. We finished “Lady Astronaut Nouveau” late enough in the year that we didn’t have any more art shows booked in which we could show it. We put it all over the interwebs, though.
This is what the Hugo Awards Website gives as the criteria for the Best Fan Artist category (bolding ours):
The final category is also for people. Again note that the work by which artists should be judged is not limited to material published in fanzines. Material for semiprozines or material on public displays (such as in convention art shows) is also eligible. Fan artists can have work published in professional publications as well. You should not consider such professionally-published works when judging this award.
The internet is about as public as it gets, right? It was even included in Mary Robinette’s Pinterest Gallery for Lady Astronaut Fan Art.
Even I was surprised by the next development:
Apparently the Hugo Committee disagrees. Per the email I received from the committee member who contacted me prior to the announcement of the ballot:
The first two pieces clearly qualify, so that is fine. I’m afraid that the rules exclude pieces that have only been displayed online.
This, dear reader, is ridiculous.
Although the title of their rules proposal refers to “categories,” and it’s clear from the same blog post they were calling for people to support them “Because it is time and past to overhaul the Pro Artist / Fan Artist categories” – no corresponding proposal about the Pro Artist category is on the agenda.
We have blogged before about why we think that restricting the Professional Artist category to “professional publications” is outdated in an age when it is possible to make most if not all of one’s artistic income from online sales directly to customers. But there’s something extra odd and gatekeeper-y in telling a fan that their fan work doesn’t count until someone else – a zine or an art show head – gives it their stamp of approval.
(Also, art shows cost money to enter, adding an economic barrier-to-entry that I find particularly distasteful.)
If authors who publish online are real authors, then artists who post their work online are real artists.
If fan writers who write online are real fans, the artists who art online are real fans, too.
For Housman and Ash it’s all about a simple and direct effort to overturn an injustice – if you can see it online without paying, they feel that’s as much of a “public display” as an art show. There’s nothing wrong with that logic.
However, the rule as drafted will have other effects.
It will write into the black-letter rules that work shown online to
advertise works which can be purchased – Housman’s calligraphy is just one item
in that universe – is fan art.
Oddly enough, this is one of the reasons I’m working on a proposal to the WSFS Business committee about the art categories. I don’t think what we do is fan art. Even when the art is based from something we didn’t invent in our heads, it’s work produced for sale.
People at the Dublin 2019 business meeting need to look down the road and decide if free views of product offered for sale is the kind of thing they want this category to reward. If not, they shouldn’t vote for this proposal. If yes, then maybe all the category needs a new title that will correctly label the work it’s recognizing, which will encompass a whole realm of commercial art.
(1) MOST READ NOMINEES. Nicholas
Whyte blogs the numbers of people who report owning copies of the Hugo nominees
in various categories to see if it helps predict who will win: “Hugo
finalists – Goodreads/LibraryThing statistics”.
Once again I’m running the statistical ruler over the finalists for the Hugos – this year, more than ever. This has not often been a useful guide to which books will win; however I think it does show the extent to which they ave penetrated popular consciousness, at least to within an order of magnitude.
(2) TAKEN ABACK. Best Fan Artist Hugo nominee Ariela Housman (Geek Calligraphy) apparently is getting some official pushback about which of her items are qualifying work, as explained in “Hugo Eligibility Revisited”.
When we published our eligibility post in December, we included the above two works, plus “Lady Astronaut Nouveau” based on The Calculating Stars by Mary Robinette Kowal. The former two were created earlier in 2018 and shown in art shows at Confluence and ICON. We finished “Lady Astronaut Nouveau” late enough in the year that we didn’t have any more art shows booked in which we could show it. We put it all over the interwebs, though.
This is what the Hugo Awards Website gives as the criteria for the Best Fan Artist category (bolding ours):
The final category is also for people. Again note that the work by which artists should be judged is not limited to material published in fanzines. Material for semiprozines or material on public displays (such as in convention art shows) is also eligible. Fan artists can have work published in professional publications as well. You should not consider such professionally-published works when judging this award.
The internet is about as public as it gets, right? It was even included in Mary Robinette’s Pinterest Gallery for Lady Astronaut Fan Art.
Apparently the Hugo Committee disagrees. Per the email I received from the committee member who contacted me prior to the announcement of the ballot:
The first two pieces clearly qualify, so that is fine. I’m afraid that the rules exclude pieces that have only been displayed online.
This, dear reader, is ridiculous.
Hopefully, Hugo Administrator Nicholas Whyte will reconcile all this for us, especially since some of us are under the impression fan artists’ online work was included in the 2017 Hugo Voter Packet.
Co-creator Seth Rogen announced the news in a video teaser posted to his Twitter page. The simple, yet stylized video prominently displays the Preacher title card, followed by an explosion and the declaration, “The end is now.” Then, the title card returns to confirm that the show’s fourth season will mark the end of the series. The teaser also reveals that Preacher Season 4 will debut on Aug. 4.
(4) LUCKY NUMBER. Next
week’s Titan Comics releases include another adventure with the thirteenth Doctor Who. No, it’s not a Prisoner mashup.
DOCTOR WHO: THIRTEENTH DOCTOR #6 – The Thirteenth Doctor’s continue after the season finale, as Eisner nominee Jody Houser brings a fresh new Doctor Who story to fans old and new.
John and Bjo Trimble. For those of you who don’t know John & Bjo, I’m very excited you get to hear their story for the first time. In the late 1960s, they were fans of a little TV show called Star Trek, and when it was announced, during Star Trek’s second season, that the show would not be returning for a third, they sprang into action. John and Bjo knew that TV shows don’t go into syndication unless they have three seasons – that gives you enough episodes strip the show. In other words, you need enough episodes to run five nights a without repeating episodes too quickly. You needed volume. And two seasons was not enough.
In those pre-internet days, John and Bjo started the letter writing campaign that saved Star Trek. Thanks to John and Bjo Trimble, Star Trek had three seasons, which allowed it to be syndicated, which allowed it to catch on, find its audience and become the juggernaut that it is today.
(7) LEARNING A LOT. Cat
Rambo posted highlights from Catherine Lundoff’s online class, “So You Want To
Put Together An Anthology”. For more information about Rambo Academy for Wayward Writers Classes,
see the website at academy.catrambo.com
(8) POP YOU CAN HEAR IN
SPACE. Star Trek Nitpickers didn’t
find it hard to choose ten, for obvious reasons:
Top 10 funniest uses of pop music in The Orville. There were only 11, so I threw in a runner up. Also–lots of song factoids. This video serves as a loose recap for season one as well. I hope you’ll check out other songs by these great musicians!
(9) TODAY’S BIRTHDAYS.
[Compiled
by Cat Eldridge.]
Born April 8, 1887 — Hope Mirrlees. She is best known for the 1926 Lud-in-the-Mist, a fantasy novel apparently beloved by many. (I’m not one of them.) In 1970 an American reprint was published without the author’s permission, as part of the Ballantine Adult Fantasy series. (Died 1978.)
Born April 8, 1939 — Trina Schart Hyman. An illustrator of children’s books. She illustrated over 150 books, including fairy tales and Arthurian legends. She won the 1985 Caldecott Medal for U.S. picture book illustration, recognizing Saint George and the Dragon, retold by Margaret Hodges. Among the genre works she’s illustrated are Lloyd Alexander’s The Fortune-Tellers, Mark Twain’s A Connecticut Yankee in King Arthur’s Court and J. M. Barrie’s Peter Pan. (Died 2004.)
Born April 8, 1942 — Douglas Trumbull, 77. Let’s call him a film genius and leave it at that. He contributed to, or was fully responsible for, the special photographic effects of Close Encounters of the Third Kind, 2001: A Space Odyssey, Star Trek: The Motion Picture and Blade Runner, and directed the movies Silent Running and Brainstorm. And Trumbull was executive producer for Starlost.
Born April 8, 1943 — James Herbert. Writer whose work erased the boundaries between horror and sf and the supernatural in a manner that made for mighty fine popcorn reading. None of his work from his first two books, The Rats and The Fog, to his latter work such as Nobody True would be considered Hugo worthy in my opinion (you may of course disagree) but he’s always entertaining. I will note that in 2010 Herbert was greatly honored by receiving the World Horror Convention Grand Master Award which was presented to him by Stephen King. (Died 2013.)
Born April 8, 1966 — Robin Wright, 53. Buttercup! Need I say more? I think not. She next pops in in Robin William’s Toys as Gwen Tyler and I see she was in M. Night Shyamalan’s Unbreakable as Audrey Dunn. The animated Neil Gaiman Beowulf has her voicing Queen Wealtheow. Blade Runner 2049 is next for her where she has the role of Lieutenant Joshi. The DC Universe is where we finish off with her playing General Antiope in three films, to wit Justice League, Wonder Woman and Wonder Woman 1984.
Born April 8, 1967 — Cecilia Tan, 52. Editor, writer and founder of Circlet Press, which she says is the first press devoted primarily to erotic science fiction and fantasy. It has published well over a hundred digital book to date with such titles as Telepaths Don’t Need Safewords and Other Stories from the Erotic Edge of SF/Fantasy. (Wouldn’t Bester be surprised to learn that. I digress), Sex in the System: Stories of Erotic Futures, Technological Stimulation, and the Sensual Life of Machines and Genderflex: Sexy Stories on the Edge and In-Between. She was two series, Magic University and The Prince’s Boy.
Born April 8, 1968 — Patricia Arquette, 51. She made her genre debut as Kristen Parker in A Nightmare on Elm Street 3: Dream Warriors. That and the horror film Nightwatch in which she was Katherine are, I think, her only genre gigs other than a Tales from the Crypt episode called “Four-Sided Triangle” episode in which she was Mary Jo.
Born April 8, 1974 — Nnedi Okorafor, 45. Who Fears Death won the 2011 World Fantasy Award for Best Novel. Lagoon which is an Afrofututurist novel was followed by her amazing Binti trilogy. Binti which led it off that trilogy won both the 2016 Nebula Award and 2016 Hugo Award for best novella. Several of her works are being adapted for video, both in Africa and in North America.
Born April 8, 1980 — Katee Sackhoff, 39. Being noted here for playing Lieutenant Kara “Starbuck” Thrace on the rebooted Battlestar Galactica though I must confess I’ve only seen in her role as Deputy Sheriff Victoria “Vic” Moretti on Longmire. She also played Amunet Black, a recurring character who showed up on the fourth season of The Flash. To my pleasant surprise, I see her on Star Wars: The Clone Wars In a recurring role of voicing Bo-Katan Kryze.
Born April 8, 1981 — Taylor Kitsch, 38. The lead in John Carter, a film I’ll be damn if I can figure out how anything can have such great digital effects and such truly bad acting. No mind you he went on next to be Lt. Alex Hopper In Battleship, a film based on, yes, the board game. Earlier in his career is did play Gambit (Remy Etienne LeBeau) in X-Men Origins: Wolverine which, errr, wasn’t received well either.
It is striking how much fear shadows the novels: for all the sunshine and picnics, menace lurks behind every bush: like a skater on ice, Jansson is always aware of the murky darkness just inches below. Of her success Jansson wrote: “Daydreams, monsters and all the horrible symbols of the subconscious that stimulate me … I wonder if the nursery and the chamber of horrors are as far apart as people think.” As Huckerby observes, the novels “go to some very dark places” and they have tried to reflect this in their adaptation. “It is being billed as prime time drama for all the family,” Ostler says. “It’s not a kids’ show.”
(12) YOU’RE THE TOP! To
mix a metaphor, John Scalzi scaled Amazon’s Mt. Everest yesterday.
So, uhhhhh… Apparently I'm the most popular author on @amazon at the moment. Of, like, all of them. So I have that going for me, which is nice. pic.twitter.com/Zignf5IfE3
He also wrote a Twitter thread explaining that this good thing could not be improved by knocking other writers. Thread starts here.
1. Because that author/creator you're dumping on might be a friend, or someone I otherwise like and respect. It's not fun to have someone else dump on your friends, even (especially) when it's couched in praise for you.
George Mason University looks like any other big college campus with its tall buildings, student housing, and manicured green lawns – except for the robots.
…”We were amazed by the volume of orders that we had when we turned the service on,” Starship Technologies executive Ryan Tuohy says. “But what’s really touching is how the students on the campus have embraced the robots.”
Up to 1 billion birds die from building collisions each year in the United States, and according to a new study, bright lights in big cities are making the problem worse.
The study, published this month in the journal Frontiers in Ecology and the Environment, examined two-decades of satellite data and weather radar technology to determine which cities are the most dangerous for birds. The study focused on light pollution levels, because wherever birds can become attracted to and disoriented by lights, the more likely they are to crash into buildings.
The study found that the most fatal bird strikes are happening in Chicago. Houston and Dallas are the next cities to top the list as the most lethal. One of the study’s authors, Kyle Horton, a postdoctoral fellow at Cornell University, called the cities a “hotspot of migratory action,” adding, “they are sitting in this primary central corridor that most birds are moving through spring and fall.”
(15) RUBBER
WEAPONS CHECK. Somebody thinks Voyager’s photon
torpedo account was overdrawn. Because they counted. (A 2011 post.)
The enthusiasm of these scavengers is totally understandable. Deep-sea bottom feeders are immensely dependent upon “food falls,” in which deceased aquatic animals from above settle on the ocean floor. This typically involves whales, dolphins, sea lions, and large fish like tuna, sharks, and rays, but it can also involve stuff from the land, such as plant material, wood, and, as the new video shows, alligators dropped by scientists.
After a seasonal break, the Jacobite steam train (a.k.a. the train used as a stand-in for the actual Hogwarts Express in the Harry Potter films) is back in business, People reports. And no, you won’t have to pass through Platform 9 3/4 to get there.
The Jacobite steam train has been in operation for over 100 years. Known originally for its scenic views of the Scottish Highlands, the old rail line only got attached the Harry Potter-verse after it was featured as the Hogwarts Express in “Harry Potter and the Sorcerer’s Stone” and every other Potter film going forward.
The arsenal of instruments Ramin Djawadi has used to score Game of Thrones includes mournful strings, mighty horns, and the Armenian double-reed woodwind known as a duduk. During the series’ first five seasons, however, he left one common weapon untouched: the piano. Early on, the showrunners, David Benioff and D.B. Weiss, decided that the ivories were too delicate for the show;s brutal realms, where even weddings tend to involve some stabbing. They also banned the flute, for fear that Thrones would sound like a Renaissance fair.
(19) LIVE FROM NEW YORK. Kit Harington Saturday Night Live monologue is full of Game of Thrones jokes, and the sketch “Graphics Department” makes D and D jokes.
[Thanks to
JJ, John King Tarpinian, Cat Eldridge, Chip Hitchcock, Daniel Dern, Martin
Morse Wooster, Carl Slaughter, Mike Kennedy, Darren Garrison, and Andrew Porter
for some of these stories. Title credit goes to File 770 contributing editor of
the day Rob Thornton.]
The final Hugo Awards Study Committee Report is now online at the Worldcon 76 WSFS Business Meeting page along with the draft agenda for this year’s Business Meeting.
Committee chair Vincent Docherty says:
The committee got going much later than planned (entirely due to my own lack of time due to other commitments) but once we got started there was very energetic participation by the 20+ committee members. The report summarises the discussion and makes a number of recommendations, including four specific proposals which are on this year’s Business Meeting agenda (three updates to categories and continuation of the committee), as well as a number of topics for further discussion next year, assuming the committee is continued.
The committee welcomes feedback from interested fans. We’re aware of some online reaction to the specific proposals already, which might result in adjustments to the proposals when we get to the Business Meeting.
My thanks to the committee members for their work this year.
An excerpt from the overview of their recommendations —
…Understanding that the overall operation of the categories works well, the Committee found several places for improvement:
The Committee found that the present definitions in the Fan Artist/Professional Artist category were potentially problematic. The Fan Artist category was initially designed in 1967, seeking to honor those offering their artistic talents to the broader community of fandom for little or no compensation. Such contributions were often in the form of illustrations for fanzines and convention programs. In the last fifty years, however, the form that fandom has taken has changed, and the result is that the definition of Fan Artist was found to be outdated. This was given an extensive examination. The Committee also acknowledges that some further examination of the other fan/professional categories may be in order, and has proposed to carry forward at least one further change in this area.
The Committee found the term “Graphic Story” problematic. Just as “comic book” has come to be taken as including work not literally comic, “graphic story” has come to be taken as excluding work appearing in comic books or comic strips. The Committee proposes re-titling to “Best Graphic Story or Comic.”
The Committee feels that altering “Best Fancast” into a “Best Podcast” category and removing the restriction on eligible productions receiving money is desirable. Many podcasts generate income from either limited advertisements, tip jars, or other small streams of income. While these are often not sufficient to support someone making a living, the income can still be substantial. As also discussed in the context of the Fan/Professional Artist categories, the use of fixed income thresholds was also found to be problematic.
In addition to the Artist categories, the Committee gave some consideration to cases of category overlap and/or gaps in categories in general, and would propose to continue examining this both in the context of current and proposed awards. This arose, in particular, in discussions surrounding the future of Best Novel and the proposed Best Translated category.
The Committee also briefly considered several other questions, including how well the Hugo Awards have handled the digital/print divide and differences between how terms are used in an “industry” context in non-industry discourse (e.g. by Worldcon attendees/WSFS members who are giving the awards) and in the Hugo Award definitions themselves. Consideration of various such questions fed into the discussions on specific proposals.
The second question, ‘How well do the categories honor what we wish to honor?’, generated more questions for examination. Given the interaction of this question and the question of how many Hugo Awards should be awarded, most of these questions have been recommended for passage forward for further consideration in the next year. In particular:
A Best Translated category was proposed relatively late in the Committee’s deliberations. As a result, the Committee did not have the time to study this potential award in sufficient depth alongside the rest of its workload, and there were multiple ideas as to what form this category should take (e.g. whether it should be limited to novels, cover all written works) and, if recommended, whether the award in question should be a Hugo or a non-Hugo award given by Worldcons. In particular, the Committee proposes to examine whether such an award is presently feasible.
A potential reorganization of the Best Dramatic Presentation categories was considered, and has been proposed to be passed forward should the committee be continued. Multiple alternatives, including a possible addition of one (or more) categories and redefining the Long/Short division into a TV/Movie division, would be given consideration if the committee is reauthorized.
A readjustment of the Best Semiprozine and Best Editor categories has been proposed and will be considered if the Committee is reauthorized. In particular, the Committee feels that the nature of the internet may have reduced the advantage that professional magazines have over non-professional productions, and that allowing professional publications to compete in a “Best Magazine” category would allow them to once again be honored. The Committee also noted various complications with the Best Editor categories; several proposals, including a possible realignment into “Best Anthology” and “Best Imprint,” will be evaluated if we are authorized to do so….
The report advances three proposed changes, and recommends further study of four more:
Part II: Specific Proposals
(1) Proposed continuation of the Hugo Study Committee
(2) Proposed Changes to the Fancast Hugo Category (with slight changes to the Semiprozine and Fanzine categories to maintain consistency)
(3) Proposed Changes to the Professional Artist and Fan Artist Hugo Categories
(4) Proposed Changes to the Best Graphic Story Hugo Category
(5) Proposal Recommended for Further Study: Addition of a Best Translated Work Hugo Category
(6) Proposal Recommended for Further Study: Replacement of Semiprozine and Best Editor Hugo Categories with Professional Magazine, Anthology/Collection, and Publisher/Imprint
(7) Proposal Recommended for Further Study: Potential Alterations to Best Dramatic Presentation Hugo Categories
(8) Proposal Recommended for Further Study: Best Art Book and Alterations to Best Related Work
(9) Proposal Not Recommended for Further Consideration: Best Novel Split
Mansik Yang is the second Best Fan Artist Hugo finalist this year to tell the Worldcon 75 award administrators he did not publish any non-commercial work in 2016. As a result the artist has been removed from the ballot and replaced by Elizabeth Leggett.
Worldcon 75, in a statement on Facebook, commented: “We appreciate his bringing the matter to our attention, and regret that we were not able to clarify the situation sooner.”
Paper Hugo ballots, which were about to be dispatched, are now being reprinted and the online Hugo ballot is being updated. Voters who have already expressed preference votes for Mansik Yang will be individually informed of the change to the final ballot.
This change is in addition to the replacement of Alex Garner by Steve Stiles, announced last month. Both Yang and Garner were names on Vox Day’s Rabid Puppy slate. (The Measuring the Rabid Puppies Effect on the 2017 Hugo Ballot post has been updated accordingly.)
The revised final ballot for Best Fan Artist is therefore Ninni Aalto, Elizabeth Leggett, Vesa Lehtimäki, Likhain (M. Sereno), Spring Schoenhuth, and Steve Stiles.
