2022 Dwayne McDuffie Award for Diversity in Comics

Ripple Effects, about the life of a superhero with an invisible and incurable disease, is the winner of the 2022 Dwayne McDuffie Award for Diversity. The book, written by Jordan Hart with art by Bruno Chiroleu, was published by Fanbase Press in 2021.

The Dwayne McDuffie award celebrates diversity in comics and comic creative teams, and honors the memory of Dwayne McDuffie. McDuffie was a comics writer and co-creator of Milestone Media, which featured superheroes of varying genders, sexualities, race, and ethnicity. He died in 2011 at the age of 49. The award is given to comics that continue his legacy of featuring diversity as well as telling a compelling story.

The other finalists were:

  • Blackward – Writer & Artist: Lawrence Lindell
  • Clock Striker – Writer: Frederick L. Jones, Artist: Issaka Galadima
  • The Man in the McIntosh Suit – Writer & Artist: Rina Ayuyang
  • Young Men in Love: A Queer Romance Anthology – Writers: Various, Artists: Various

The full blurb for Ripple Effects says:

In a world that is no stranger to superheroes, George Gibson is invulnerable to physical harm but fights every day to stay alive.  Suffering from an acute case of type 1 diabetes, his invincibility is offset by a defective pancreas that must be monitored and treated daily.  This incurable disease makes George’s body both his greatest strength and his eternal weakness.  

What sets this series apart is a positive, person-first representation about life with a chronic disease . . . which just so happens to also include superhuman abilities.  But, Ripple Effects isn’t just a story about a character with an incurable disease. It’s also a thrilling and relevant superhero tale that touches on the difficulty of finding a work/life balance, the class struggles and economic inequality experienced by many in our nation, and the desire to help others during trying times.

The judging committee is led Marv Wolfman, and includes nine other prominent comics and animation professionals who personally knew and worked with McDuffie and/or have demonstrated a commitment to his vision of excellence and inclusiveness both on the page and behind the scenes. The other members are Colleen Doran, Heidi MacDonald, Jamal Igle, Joseph Illidge, Nilah Magruder, Kevin Rubio, Geoffrey Thorne, Will J. Watkins, and Matt Wayne. 

2020 Dwayne McDuffie Award

They Called Us Enemy, George Takei’s graphic memoir about his internment as a child during World War II, is the winner of the 2020 Dwayne McDuffie Award for Diversity. The book, written with Justin Eisinger and Steven Scott, and illustrated by Harmony Becker, was published by IDW and Top Shelf Productions in 2019.

The other finalists were:

The award celebrates diversity in comics and comic creative teams, and honors the memory of Dwayne McDuffie. McDuffie was a comics writer and co-creator of Milestone Media, which featured superheroes of varying genders, sexualities, race, and ethnicity. He died in 2011 at the age of 49. The award is given to comics that continue his legacy of featuring diversity as well as telling a compelling story.

The announcement was made in February 2021. The award ceremony was postponed because of the pandemic. Despite periodically checking the official website and the site of the ceremony host, Long Beach Comic Con, neither of which have been updated, I missed the event.

Pixel Scroll 6/9/20 I Can’t Scroll Yet, I Haven’t Seen The Pixel Story.

(1) HENKIN OUT AS CHAIR OF SAN ANTONIO EVENT. Anime News Network reports “San Japan Chair Resigns After Claiming PoC Guests Aren’t Profitable”. But Henkin reportedly owns the for-profit corporation that owns San Japan, and still controls the event. (The committee’s full statement is on Facebook.)

Staff of the San Antonio-based convention San Japan announced on Saturday that chairman Dave Henkin will step down immediately following “hurtful and ignorant comments” he made on his private Twitter account. Henkin wrote in a private post that the reason the convention doesn’t book People of Color (PoC) guests is because the convention is often asked to book “sexual predators and popular asshole divas” and those guests bring more money.

“Show up by the hundreds with cash to PoC, then I’ll book them,” Henkin wrote on Thursday. He later followed with a public apology on his Facebook account the same day.

San Japan wrote that the committee will select guests “by a combination of fan submissions, staff recommendations, and formal recommendations made by an equity committee.”

…”Our staffing, programming, and community programs will begin an immediate and comprehensive review of acceptance criteria and any possible biases that exist as barriers to entry to the convention,” the convention staff stated. “Please do not hold the stupidity of one man against the work of countless POC and LGBTQ+ individuals who have worked for over a decade to make this a model conference. We look forward to the opportunity to prove ourselves during our next convention.”

San Japan’s convention board will function without a chairman for the time being and make decisions based on committee…

(2) IT’S IN THE CAN. Just like in a Hallmark Channel Christmas Special, you can have a Doctor for Christmas.Entertainment Weekly has some rare good news: Doctor Who star Mandip Gill confirms next holiday episode has been shot: ‘We were lucky'”.

Thanks to the pandemic, the immediate future of many shows is in doubt. But Doctor Who star Mandip Gill confirms that the annual special holiday season episode of the time travel series, titled “Revolution of the Daleks,” has already been shot. “I can confirm that,” says Gill, who plays companion Yasmin Khan on the Jodie Whittaker-starring show. “There is a festive episode. We happened to be quite lucky and fit it in, so that will be exciting.”

(3) EXCELLENT TRAILER. Warner Bros. dropped a teaser trailer for Bill & Ted Face the Music.

Whoa. The wait is finally over, dudes! Keanu Reeves and Alex Winter star in the first official trailer for Bill & Ted Face the Music! Watch now! And remember: be excellent to each other. Directed by Dean Parisot with returning franchise writers Chris Matheson and Ed Solomon, the film will continue to track the time-traveling exploits of William “Bill” S. Preston Esq. and Theodore “Ted” Logan. Yet to fulfill their rock and roll destiny, the now middle aged best friends set out on a new adventure when a visitor from the future warns them that only their song can save life as we know it. Along the way, they will be helped by their daughters, a new batch of historical figures, and a few music legends — to seek the song that will set their world right and bring harmony in the universe.

(4) RARE ACCOMPLISHMENT. N’dea Yancey-Breas’s article “NASA Astronaut From Historic Spacewalk Becomes First Woman to Reach Deepest Part of Ocean” in USA Today, tells how Kathryn Sullivan, who was the first woman to walk in space in 1984, became the first woman to both walk in space and travel to the bottom of the Challenger Trench, the deepest part of the ocean.

…She traveled to the deepest point in the ocean, located in the Western Pacific Ocean, on a submersible called the Limiting Factor piloted by Victor Vescovo of Caladan Oceanic before returning to its mothership the Pressure Drop. Vescovo, who has also piloted the Limiting Factor on a recent dive to the Titanic, became the fourth person to reach Challenger Deep last year.

(5) CAPER CRUSADERS. In “Future Crime: Top 5 Crime Movies In Futuristic Settings” on Criminal Element, Drew Murray, whose new novel is about a murder at a Midwestern Comic Con, discusses five sf movies involving crime and criminals. Number two on the list is —

2. Inception (2010)

Who doesn’t love a professional thief? What if instead of stealing your material possessions they want to take knowledge from your mind?

Leonardo DiCaprio is that cat burglar, slipping into your subconscious while you sleep. In Inception he’s given the ultimate challenge: to plant an idea inside the target’s mind without them knowing. This ingenious concept launches an excellent heist movie set against a mind-bending backdrop that is stunning and surreal, like a Dali painting brought to life.

There’s an excellent supporting cast here with Tom Hardy, Joseph-Gordon Levitt, and Ellen Page, forming the motley crew that every great heist needs. There’s innovative action, using multiple physical dimensions as well as time itself. Sure, it can be confusing if you think too deeply about it, so don’t. Buckle yourself in and just enjoy the ride.

(6) TODAY’S THING TO WORRY ABOUT. Kevin Polowy, in the Yahoo! Entertainment story, “Looney Tunes’ Strips Elmer Fudd of Trademark Guns To Acclaim–And Controversy” — says that in the new Looney Tunes show on HBO Max Elmer Fudd no longer has a gun, although the show’s writers say that Fudd continues to violently attack Bugs Bunny without using a firearm.

…”We’re not doing guns, but we can do cartoony violence — TNT, the Acme stuff. All that was kind of grandfathered in,” executive producer Peter Browngardt told the New York Times. While Fudd’s disarming is drawing the bulk of media attention, his fellow legacy gunslinger Yosemite Sam has also lost his trusty firearms since the new series launched late last month.

Unsurprisingly, the decision has been met with equal parts accolades and scorn in a country still fiercely divided on gun issues.

“You can’t take away his gun!” Joe Piscopo, the Saturday Night Live comedian-turned-radio host said on Fox News. “Drop an anvil on his head, it’ll be fine. Explode some dynamite, that’ll be fine….”

One of the show’s animators fired back – so to speak: “Looney Tunes Cartoons Artist Addresses Backlash Over Elmer Fudd Gun Ban” at ComicBook.com.

“Do you guys SERIOUSLY care whether or not Elmer Fudd has a gun in our shorts? You know how many gags we can do with guns? Fairly few,” Michael Ruocco, an animator on New Looney Tunes and Looney Tunes Cartoonstweeted Sunday. “And the best were already done by the old guys. It’s limiting. It was never about the gun, it was about Elmer’s flawed, challenged masculinity.”

(7) TODAY IN HISTORY.

  • June 9, 1870 –One hundred and fifty years ago, Jules Verne’s Twenty Thousand Leagues Under the Seas: A World Tour Underwater was published in Paris as Vingt mille lieues sous les mers: Tour du monde sous-marin. The novel was first translated into English in 1873 by Reverend Lewis Page Mercier,  but it was rife with errors and the Reverend cut a quarter of the text. In 1962 Anthony Bonner published a fresh, essentially complete translation of Verne’s masterwork. This edition also included a special introduction written by Ray Bradbury.  The novel has seen several adaptions to film including Walt Disney’s 20,000 Leagues Under the Sea and the Fifties SF anthology series Tales of Tomorrow adaptation. Captain Nemo gets borrowed by film makers and used in a number of other video and text fictions, always played by a Caucasian actor even though he’s East Indian in the novel. He’s got a lead role in Alan Moore’s League of Extraordinary Gentlemen which was as you made into a film. The film does not use a Caucasian In this role, instead employs Naseeruddin Shah, an Indian actor. 

(8) TODAY’S BIRTHDAYS.

[Compiled by Cat Eldridge and John Hertz.]

  • Born June 9, 1911 – J. Francis McComas.  With Raymond Healy (1907-1997) edited the pioneering and still excellent anthology Adventures in Time and Space – and got Random House to publish it.  Thus although not having planted the crops, he knew to harvest: they also serve who only sit and edit.  With Anthony Boucher (1911-1969) founded The Magazine of Fantasy and Science Fiction, the best thing to happen among us since Astounding.  Half a dozen stories of his own.  Afterward his widow Annette (1911-1994) edited The Eureka Years; see it too.  (Died 1978) [JH]
  • Born June 9, 1925 – Leo R. Summers.  Twenty covers for Fantastic, eight for Amazing, six for Analog; almost six hundred interiors.  Here is a Fantastic cover; here is one for Analoghere is an interior for H.B. Fyfe’s “Star Chamber” from Amazing.  A fruitful career.  (Died 1985) [JH]
  • Born June 9, 1925 Keith Laumer. I remember his Bolo series fondly and read quite a bit of it. Can’t say which novels at this point though Bolo definitely and Last Command almost certainly. The Imperium and Retief series were also very enjoyable though the latter is the only one I’d re-read at this point. The usual suspects have decent though not complete ebooks listings for him, heavy on the Imperium and Retief series and they’ve just added a decent Bolo collection too. (Died 1993.) (CE)
  • Born June 9, 1930 Lin Carter. He is best known for his work in the 1970s as editor of the Ballantine Adult Fantasy series. As a writer, His first professional publication was the short story “Masters of the Metropolis”, co-written with Randall Garrett, in The Magazine of Fantasy and Science Fiction, April 1957. He would be a prolific writer, average as much as six novels a year. In addition, he was influential as a critic of the fantasy genre and an early historian of the genre. He wrote far too much to me to say I’ve sampled everything he did but I’m fond of his CastilloGreat Imperium and Zarkon series, all great popcorn literature! (Died 1988.) (CE)
  • Born June 9, 1934 Donald Duck, 86. He made his first appearance in “The Wise Little Hen” on June 9, 1934. In this cartoon, Donald and his friend, Peter Pig, lie their way out of helping the titular little hen tend to her corn. You can watch it here. (CE)
  • Born June 9, 1943 – Joe Haldeman.  Two dozen novels, eighty shorter stories; ninety published poems.  Seven Hugos, five Nebulas; three Rhyslings; Tiptree (as it then was); Skylark.  Edited Nebula Awards 17.  Pegasus Award for Best Space Opera Song.  SFWA (Science Fiction & Fantasy Writers of America) Grand Master.  Science Fiction Hall of Fame.  Guest of Honor at – among others – Windycon I and 20, Disclave 21, Beneluxcon 7, ConFiction the 48th Worldcon (1990).  His wide range has its virtues; he’s told how one story sold at a penny a word and five years later was adapted for television at five times as much; also “I don’t have to say Uh-oh, I’d better get back to that novel again; I can always write a poem or something.”  [JH]
  • Born June 9, 1949 – Drew Sanders.  Officer of LASFS (L.A. Science Fantasy Soc., oldest SF club in the world) and later of SCIFI (S. Cal. Inst. for Fan Interests – pronounced skiffy) when it incorporated separately.  First-rate costumer while married to Kathy Bushman; here they are as “Golden Apples of the Sun, Silver Apples of the Moon” in the Masquerade costume contest at Suncon the 35th Worldcon; he served as Masquerade Director himself, a huge task, e.g. at Nolacon II the 46th Worldcon (1988); here he is as the Joker, from Batman; he said, brilliantly, “the Masquerade is like a cross between kabuki and Little Theater”.  Part of the world of LASFS pastimes when that included LASFS Poker, which ran to games like Soft Shoe (because you could shuffle off to bluff a low).  Among few close friends of Bruce Pelz.  [JH]
  • Born June 9, 1949 George Kelley, 71. Notable collector and blogger with 30,000 books in his basement, which he points out include “many books NOT in the Library of Congress.” (OGH)
  • Born June 9, 1951 – Jim Glass.  LASFS Librarian in the days of our first Clubhouse; earned our service award, the Evans-Freehafer, 1978; trained his successor Sue Haseltine who earned the Evans-Freehafer herself, 1985; now that’s service.  Associate Technical Fellow at Rocketdyne; an idea man; a steady stream of visitors to his office asked him about propellants and nozzles and mining Lunar polar regolith and Mars.  He liked to quote Konstantin Tsiolkovsky (1857-1935), “The Earth is the cradle of humankind.  But one cannot stay in the cradle forever.”  This drawing by Angelo Dinallo was brought to his memorial.  (Died 2007) [JH] 
  • Born June 9, 1954 Gregory Maguire, 66. He is the author of Wicked: The Life and Times of the Wicked Witch of the West based off of course the Oz Mythos, Confessions of an Ugly Stepsister retelling the tale of Cinderella and Mirror, Mirror, a revisionist retelling of the Snow White tale which is really excellent. Well you get the idea. He’s damn good at this revisionist storytelling. (CE)
  • Born June 9, 1963 David Koepp, 57. Screenwriter for some of the most successful SF films ever done: Jurassic Park (co-written with Michael Crichton, which won the Best Dramatic Presentation Hugo at ConAdian), The Lost World: Jurassic Park, War of The Worlds and, yes, it made lots of money, Indiana Jones and the Kingdom of the Crystal Skull. (CE)
  • Born June 9, 1966 – Christian McGuire.  This amazing astounding fan chaired eight Loscons (three with Shaun Lyon, one with Cathy Johnson, one with Michelle Pincus, and one with Crys Pretzman), Westercon LXIII, Conucopia the 7th NASFiC (N. Am. SF Con, held when the Worldcon is overseas), and L.A.con IV the 64th Worldcon. He was also a founder of Gallifrey One and chaired, or co-chaired its first 12 years. In between, Fan Guest of Honor at Baycon 2002, Westercon 51, Capricon 29, Loscon 36. He has been a panelist on Kevin Standlee’s Match Game SF. He is still alive. [JH]
  • Born June 9, 1967 – Dave McCarty.   Having chaired three Capricons, he chaired a bid to hold the 70th Worldcon in Chicago; when the bid won, he chaired the con, by no means inevitable.  It was Chicon 7 (2012), which by our custom means the seventh Worldcon in the same town with continuity from the same community.  No one else has managed this, or come close; the nearest have been Noreascon IV (62nd Worldcon) and L.A.con IV (64th Worldcon).  Also served as Hugo Awards Administrator, and on the World SF Society’s Mark Protection Committee, among our least conspicuous and most demanding work.  Fan Guest of Honor at Capricon 38, Windycon 38.  [JH]

(9) COMIC CREATORS SIDE WITH BLM. [Item by Olav Rokne.] Veteran comic book writer and editor Gail Simone has challenged fellow comic book writers to sell a piece of art from their collection, with money going to Black Lives Matter. Using the hashtag #ComicWritersChallenge, she’s inspired dozens of writers (including some very high profile creators) to participate. Some of the art that’s been up for auction is the sort of work that is literally never available. This includes such treasures as an original page from Crisis On Infinite Earths, the first page of Mike Grell’s run on Green Arrow, a piece by Greg Hildebrandt, a piece autographed by both Neil Gaiman and and Bryan Talbot, a page from Grant Morrison’s All-Star Superman and more. In one week, they’ve raised more than $200,000 for BLM. 

I wish I had the disposable income to keep bidding on the Bill Sienkiewicz piece. 

It’s worth reading the thread that started it all off. Thread starts here.  

There’s a spreadsheet tracking all the donations and bids: here. (Google Docs)

(10) MCDUFFIE AWARD TAKING NOMINATIONS. ComicsBeat says it’s time to “Send in your 2020 Dwayne McDuffie Award for Diversity in Comics nominations now”. Submissions will be taken until September 1.

The Dwayne McDuffie Award for Diversity in Comics is now officially accepting submissions for its sixth annual ceremony. Like so many other events, the McDuffie award has shaken off COVID delays, but continues nonetheless. The event will name one winner from five honored finalists, whose work resembles a commitment to excellence and inclusion on and off the page, much like the late Mr. McDuffie’s own efforts to produce entertainment that was representative of and created by a wide scope of human experience.

The Dwayne McDuffie Award’s motto, in his own words, is as follows: “From invisible to inevitable.”

Master of ceremonies, actor Phil LaMarr will announce the winner later this year via video. 

(11) YAKKITY-YAK. Cora Buhlert is back with a “Retro Review: “A God Named Kroo” by Henry Kuttner”.

…Warning: Spoilers beyond this point!

“A God Named Kroo” begins with Kroo, a minor village god in the Himalayas. Kroo has a problem, for his last worshipper died fifty years before. Ever since then, Kroo’s temple has lain abandoned, avoided by the villagers. Now the only follower that Kroo has is a yak, which wandered onto the temple grounds one day in search of food and now belongs to Kroo according to ancient tradition….

(12) ONE FOR THE RECORDS. Mike Allen says, “The appearance the four of us just made on John Scalzi’s Whatever blog, ’The Big Idea: C. S. E. Cooney, Jessica P. Wick, Amanda J. McGee, Mike Allen’ …sets a new record for the ‘largest number of authors co-writing a single Big Idea piece,’” according to John.

(13) GAIMAN’S TAKE. Neil Gaiman fielded a question about the latest J.K. Rowling controversy.

(14) SCHRÖDINGER’S EGG. Randall Munroe illustrates what he found out from scientists in “Can You Boil an Egg Too Long?” at the New York Times. It’s all very earnest.

…If you boil an egg for five or 10 minutes, it becomes firm and cooked. If you boil it for hours, it becomes rubbery and overcooked. Beyond that, things get a little mysterious.

Eggs are full of coiled-up protein molecules. Heating the proteins makes them uncoil and link up with one another to form a three-dimensional lattice, transforming a runny raw egg into a firm, rubbery cooked egg. This scaffolding helps give baked goods their structure.

(15) ON THE EVE OF STAR TREK. Vintage Everyday posted a gallery of Jay Kay Klein’s masquerade photos from the 1966 Worldcon: “Science Fiction & Fantasy Costume Contestants Posing at the 24th World Science Fiction Convention in Cleveland, 1966”.

The three co-chairmen of that Worldcon each represented their city’s fandom; they were Ben Jason of Cleveland, Howard DeVore of Detroit, and Lou Tabakow of Cincinnati. The guest of honor was L. Sprague de Camp and the toastmaster was Isaac Asimov. Of special note: Gene Roddenberry premiered the pilot episode for his TV series Star Trek at Tricon.

This collection is primarily comprised of photographs taken by Jay Kay Klein has he documented Science Fiction & Fantasy fandom at the 24th World Science Fiction Convention in Cleveland, Ohio. The majority of images were taken by Klein while attending Science Fiction & Fantasy conventions and events….

(16) UP FROM THE RANKS. Fanac.org has posted an audio recording of the first segment of the “Fans Into Pros” panel at the 1978 Worldcon.

IguanaCon II, the 36th Worldcon, was held in Phoenix, Arizona in 1978. Guest of Honor Harlan Ellison, along with Robert Silverberg, Dick Lupoff and Ted White participated in a panel on “Fans Into Pros”. This audio recording (enhanced with more than 50 images) is Part 1 of that panel. It’s clear that the participants are old friends, with the combination of sharp wit and long familiarity. There are multilingual puns, sincere stories of friends that helped them become professionals, tales of writerly poverty, editorial benevolence and malevolence, and a ready acknowledgement (in detail!) of how fandom helped these writers become professionals in the field. Well worth listening to for both the content and the occasional conversational gymnastics. This recording courtesy of IguanaCon chairman Tim Kyger.

[Thanks to John King Tarpinian, Andrew Porter, Olav Rokne, Martin Morse Wooster, Chip Hitchcock, Michael Toman, Mike Kennedy, Todd Mason, Cat Eldridge, and John Hertz for some of these stories. Title credit goes to File 770 contributing editor of the day Patrick Morris Miller.]

2019 Dwayne McDuffie Award for Diversity in Comics

The winner of the 2019 Dwayne McDuffie Award for Diversity in Comics Award was announced at the Long Beach Convention Center on February 15:

  • Archival Quality — written by Ivy Noelle Weir and illustrated by Christina Stewart (Oni Press

The Oni Press synopsis for Archival Quality:

After losing her job at the library, Cel Walden starts working at the haunting Logan Museum as an archivist. But the job may not be the second chance she was hoping for, and she finds herself confronting her mental health, her relationships, and before long, her grasp on reality as she begins to dream of a young woman she’s never met, but feels strangely drawn to. Especially after she asks Cel for help.

As Cel attempts to learn more about the woman, she begins losing time, misplacing things, passing out—the job is becoming dangerous, but she can’t let go of this mysterious woman. Who is she? Why is she so fixated on Cel? And does Cel have the power to save her when she’s still trying to save herself?

The award celebrates diversity in comics and comic creative teams, and honors the memory of Dwayne McDuffie. McDuffie was a comics writer and co-creator of Milestone Media, which featured superheroes of varying genders, sexualities, race, and ethnicity. He died in 2011 at the age of 49. The award is given to comics that continue his legacy of featuring diversity as well as telling a compelling story.

The 2019 selection committee consisted of nine comics and animation professionals who personally knew and worked with Mr. McDuffie and/or have demonstrated a serious commitment to his vision of excellence and inclusiveness on the page and behind the scenes, Cheryl Lynn Eaton, Jennier de Guzman, Joan Hilty, Jamal Igle, Mikki Kendall, Heidi MacDonald, Kevin Rubio, Geoffrey Thorne, and Will J. Watkins.

Dwayne McDuffie Award for Diversity in Comics 2019 Finalists

The five finalists for the 2019 Dwayne McDuffie Award for Diversity in Comics Award were revealed February 7.

The award celebrates diversity in comics and comic creative teams, and honors the memory of Dwayne McDuffie. McDuffie was a comics writer and co-creator of Milestone Media, which featured superheroes of varying genders, sexualities, race, and ethnicity. He died in 2011 at the age of 49. The award is given to comics that continue his legacy of featuring diversity as well as telling a compelling story.

This year’s finalists are:

The 2019 selection committee consisted of nine comics and animation professionals who personally knew and worked with Mr. McDuffie and/or have demonstrated a serious commitment to his vision of excellence and inclusiveness on the page and behind the scenes, Cheryl Lynn Eaton, Jennier de Guzman, Joan Hilty, Jamal Igle, Mikki Kendall, Heidi MacDonald, Kevin Rubio, Geoffrey Thorne, and Will J. Watkins.

The winner will be announced at the Long Beach Convention Center on February 15, just ahead of the Long Beach Comic Expo weekend.

[Thanks to Mike Kennedy for the story.]

2018 Dwayne McDuffie Award for Diversity

Leon: Protector of the Playground, written and illustrated by Jamar Nicholas (Kids Love Comics) is the winner of the 2018 Dwayne McDuffie Award for Diversity.

The Dwayne McDuffie Award celebrates diversity in comics and comic creative teams.

The complete list of finalists was –

  • Chimera, written and illustrated by Tyler Ellis (Comicker)
  • Full Circle,written by Taneka Stotts, art by Christianne Goudreau (Published online)
  • Leon: Protector of the Playground, written and illustrated by Jamar Nicholas (Kids Love Comics)
  • The Once & Future Queen, written by Adam P. Knave & D.J. Kirkbride, art by Nick Brokenshire (Dark Horse)
  • Quince, written by Sebastian Kadlecik and Kit Steinkellner, art by Emma Steinkellner (Fanbase Press)

Nominees were chosen by the judging panel which included Mark D. Bright, Jennifer de Guzman,  Joan Hilty, Jamal Igle, Mikki Kendall, Kevin Rubio, Gail Simone, Will J. Watkins and Heidi MacDonald.a

Pixel Scroll 12/8/17 Is There A Hologram On My Shuttlecraft That Says ‘Dead Klingon Storage’?

(1) CHECK-IN. The 1954 Worldcon chair Les Cole and Esther Cole, who live in the vicinity of the Ventura, CA fires answered Rich Lynch’s query about how they are doing —

Thanks for asking. Les and I and doggies are OK. Fire went passed us. The air is heavy, so we stay indoors. Much of southern California is rough.

(2) HERBERT MAY BE HONORED BY HOMETOWN. Metro Parks Tacoma Public Information Manager Michael Thompson says a recommendation to name a local peninsula “Dune Peninsula at Point Defiance Park” and its loop trail “Frank Herbert Trail” probably will go to the Park Board for a vote in January. The proposal has been working its way through the system for some time. The News Tribune has an update: “‘Dune’ author Frank Herbert finally set to get his due in his hometown of Tacoma”:

While the Metro Parks Board will have the final say on the matter — and it’s the elected body’s prerogative to deviate or tweak — it’s clear that the public has spoken, and Metro Parks’ staff has attempted to listen. During a public outreach effort earlier this year, more than 500 possible names were submitted via an online survey. The majority of responses referenced Herbert or “Dune.”

“This name provides a simple, evocative identifier that highlights the uniqueness of the peninsula remediation and new park features,” according to the staff recommendation. “On a literary level, it honors the name of the book series by Frank Herbert, a famous Tacoma author, which was inspired by the environmental history of Tacoma’s Asarco copper smelter site, directly adjacent to the peninsula.”

Last month, Thompson helped a local radio reporter tour the peninsula with park commissioner Erik Hanberg. “‘Dune’ And The City Of Destiny: How Tacoma Inspired One Of The World’s Most Acclaimed Sci-Fi Authors”.

If you go to the base of Point Defiance in Tacoma and look east, you’ll see a finger of earth jutting into Puget Sound.

It formed as toxic slag spilled from a copper smelter during the city’s industrial heyday.

For years, it was a foreboding sliver of black, glassy material. Today, workers and machines roam the peninsula as they transform it into a grassy park with Puget Sound views.

Tacoma Metro Parks Commissioner Erik Hanberg has a space-age term for what’s going on there. He calls it “terraforming.”

(3) BACK TO THE STACK. Doris V. Sutherland does a good job framing the issues in “Rocket Stack Rumpus: Critics, Authors, and Non-Binary Science Fiction” accompanied by light analysis. Sutherland concludes:

Greg Hullender responded by writing an apology-cum-rebuttal in collaboration with Eric Wong and altering the offensive reviews. Despite this, he has paid a high price for his faux pas. Locus decided that he was unfit to recommend stories to readers and removed him from its reading list jury, making the following announcement on Twitter.

Thank you to those who brought their concerns about RSR to our attention. Greg Hullender will not be involved in the Locus Recommended Reading List. We support our wonderfully complex and diverse SF community, and hope for continued positive dialogue on these issues.

The reference to positive dialogue seems out-of-place. The Rocket Stack Rumpus marks a breakdown in communications all around, from a reviewer missing the point of the stories he was covering, to authors misreading his reviews in turn. Meanwhile, the issue of Rocket Stack Rank’s provincial approach to stories set against non-Western cultural backdrops–as flagged up by Rose Lemberg in this Twitter thread–ended up being lost alongside Hullender’s misunderstanding of non-binary SF, which is perhaps a secondary issue.

There may well be positive dialogue to come out of the controversy, but at the present moment, there is little of it to be seen.

(4) MEAT AND PROPER. Autocorrect is being blamed rather than legislators falling down on the job: ” Typo in Bill C-45 legalizes cannibalism instead of cannabis”.

Canada is one step closer to the accidental legalization of cannibalism after the House of Commons passed a typo-ridden Bill C-45, formerly known as The Cannabis Act.

“I think no one wanted to be the one to point out the error,” MP Sara Anderson said. “We all thought someone else would do it, and then they called the vote, and here we are, all voting to legalize cannibalism.”

(5) RADICAL CHANGE. If this catches on, Twitter will get awfully quiet.

(6) ANDERS STORY COLLECTION. At Locus Online, “Rachel Swirsky reviews Six Months, Three Days, Five Others by Charlie Jane Anders”.

Anders’s unique humor provides a uniting theme. Only some of the stories are explicitly comic, but all benefit from her linguistic wit and her quirky but generous characterization. Her stories seem to say with affection, “People. We’re weird. What can you do?” She’s particu­larly good at tailoring prose to her characters, revealing their lives through their diction. Char­acters go to “one of those mom-and-pop Portu­guese places” and “the kinda-sorta gay bar.”

(7) MCDUFFIE AWARD OPEN. The 4th Annual Dwayne McDuffie Award for Diversity in Comics is taking entries until December 31.

Please attach a link or a 15mb .PDF file of the work to be considered. When submitting work, we strongly suggest sending the first issue of a series. If submitting anything other than the first issue, a one-page synopsis of what came before must accompany the submission. Also, we suggest sending the first 25-30 pages or first chapter of a graphic novel. We cannot guarantee anything more will be considered. If one is available, please also attach a .JPG photo of the entrant to the email. Please do not include any further attachments.

The award’s three new selection committee members are Jennifer de Guzman, Jamal Igle and Mikki Kendall, who join Mark D. Bright, Joan Hilty, Heidi MacDonald, Kevin Rubio, Gail Simone, and Will J. Watkins.

(8) ELIGIBILITY POSTS. Cat Rambo is doing her annual award eligibility post round-up, this year including editors, publishers, and magazines: “2017 Award-Eligible Work Blog Posts & Roundups for F&SF”. Right now there are about 20 entries on the list. She will be doing daily updates.

(9) CLASS TOMORROW. Cat Rambo says there is still space, including a couple of free slots, in the December 9 class “Speculative Poetry with Rachel Swirsky”.

Next classes are Saturday, December 9 – 9:30-11:30 AM or Wednesday, February 7, 2018, 4-6 PM. (Each class is a separate session.)

Poetry requires intense linguistic control. Every word matters. Whether you’re a poet who wants to create fantastical verses, or a prose writer who wants to learn the finely tuned narrative power that poetry can teach, you’ll find something in this class.

(10) WRITER’S LIFE. A short interview with Ursula K. Le Guin at Shelf Awareness:

Who do you write your blog for? Do you ever read the comments, and if so, what do you learn from them, if anything?

I write them for anybody who wants to read them. (Writers live in hope.)

Yes, sure, I read all the comments. They’re mostly good-natured, and some are thoughtful and enlightening.

You say that dystopian literature is yang-driven, and its opposite–utopian literature–is also yang-driven. Is there a literature that presents a realistically complex vision of a world in balance? Or is that just fantasy?

Of course it’s just fantasy. That’s why I write fantasy…

(11) NOBODY LIKES BEING SLAPPED. Cat Rambo, talking about writers and audiences: “Nattering Social Justice Cook: This Is Not A Review”.

So why did this book hit me so hard in an unhappy place? Because it was so smart and funny and beautifully written and involved connected stories about a favorite city and magic, which are three of my favorite things. And because it had a chapter that was one of the best short stories about addiction that I’ve read, and that left me thinking about it in a way that will probably shape at least one future story.

And yet. And yet. And yet. Women were either powerful and unfuckable for one reason or another or else fell into the category marked “women the protagonist sleeps with”, who usually didn’t even get a name. Moments of homophobic rape humor, marked by a repeated insistence on the sanctity of the hero’s anus, and a scene in which he embraces being thought gay in order to save himself from a terrible fate, ha ha, isn’t that amusing. And I’m like…jesus, there is so much to love about this book but it’s like the author reaches out and slaps me away once a chapter or so.

(12) TODAY IN HISTORY

  • December 8, 1991 Hook premieres in Hollywood.

(13) TODAY’S BIRTHDAY BOY

  • Born December 8, 1950 – Rick Baker, the Monster Maker

(14) COMICS SECTION.

  • John King Tarpinian saw that First Contact isn’t going too well in Close To Home.

(15) END OF THE MAZE. Maze Runner: The Death Cure comes to theaters January 26.

In the epic finale to the Maze Runner saga, Thomas leads his group of escaped Gladers on their final and most dangerous mission yet. To save their friends, they must break into the legendary Last City, a WCKD-controlled labyrinth that may turn out to be the deadliest maze of all. Anyone who makes it out alive will get answers to the questions the Gladers have been asking since they first arrived in the maze.

 

(16) CONTRARIAN. Go figure. While Patreon was in flames yesterday, Jon Del Arroz climbed aboard — “Jon Del Arroz Patreon Launch!”.

(17) EWW. It’s admittedly a mixed message when I say “Don’t look!” then put in a link anyway — “Here’s What It Looks Like When You Fry Your Eye In An Eclipse”.

“We were very surprised at how precisely concordant the imaged damage was with the crescent shape of the eclipse itself,” noted Dr. Avnish Deobhakta, a retina surgeon at New York Eye and Ear Infirmary of Mount Sinai in New York, in an email to NPR.

He says this was the most severely injured patient they saw after the eclipse. All in all, 22 people came to their urgent care clinic with concerns about possible eclipse-related damage, and most of them complained of blurred vision. Of those, only three showed some degree of abnormality in the retina. Two of them had only mild changes, however, and their symptoms have gone away.

The young woman described in this case report, at last check, still has not recovered normal vision.

(18) SUPPORTING SPACE EXPLORATION. Bill Nye says The Planetary Society’s latest collaboration with the Chop Shop store is mission posters for kids, like this one:

(19) TENTACLE TIME. In the garden: “‘Underwater city’ reveals mysterious octopus world”.

Once thought of as solitary creatures, scientists discover ‘underwater city’ full of octopuses living side by side

A couple of assumptions are often made about octopuses. First, that they are smart. There is truth in that: octopus behaviour such as tool use, predation techniques and puzzle-solving suggest a higher level of intelligence than other invertebrates. Everyone has watched an octopus unscrewing a jar.

Second, they have a reputation for being solitary. So solitary in fact that an official collective noun for octopuses doesn’t even exist (though ‘tangle’ has been suggested).

This may have to change, however. Over the last decade, scientists have discovered that octopuses aren’t always lone beasts. In fact, octopuses engage in rich, fascinating and unusual behaviours when they interact with each other.

(20) PATREON SURVIVOR, IF POSSIBLE. Cat Rambo is weathering the storm by asking readers how to add more value to her Patreon campaign (and also whether or not to bail from it): https://www.patreon.com/catrambo

Cat She says, “I’ve lost about 15% of my income from there so far, but I’m a very minor player. however if there is something the F&SF is not seeing from me but desperately yearns for, now’s the time to weigh in: “Patreon Changes”.

(21) FRONT PAGE NEWS. I have added to the File 770 sidebar a link to John Hertz’ review of The Glass Bead Game (Hesse), which has found a permanent online home.

(22) KRYPTON. SyFy has put out a teaser trailer for its series about Superman’s homeworld. ScienceFiction.com sums it up:

The series is set two generations before the destruction of the Man of Steel’s home planet. ‘Krypton’ follows Superman’s grandfather (Cameron Cuffe), whose House of El was ostracized and shamed, as he fights to redeem his family’s honor and save his world from chaos. The Seg-El name is both a nod to Superman co-creator Jerry Siegel and a reference to John Byrne’s 1980s miniseries, ‘The World of Krypton.’ Cameron Cuffe is set to play Seg-El alongside with Georgina Campbell as Lyta Zod.

 

(23) THE DARK SIDE. Charles Payseur turns his attention to dark fantasy and horror in “Quick Sips – The Dark #31”.

December brings a pair of stories to The Dark Magazine that focus sharply on observation and theater. In both, women drawn into roles where they are closely watched by men, and in both these experiences are further framed in terms of a sort of voyeurism. In one, a woman is filed, in the other, a woman is part of a play. Both feature stages and bring the reader in as spectators and in some ways as participants. We are the eyes that act as camera and as audience.

(24) BLOW BY BLOW. Sci-Fi Design has a gallery of “Comic Book Covers Recreated Using Balloons”.

Comic book cover art is awesome. They use a variety of styles, but have you ever seen comic book covers that are made from balloons? These awesome balloon sculptures as comic book covers were created by Phileas Flash. They take days to make and the pieces themselves fit into a 10 foot by 10-foot space. Then photoshop is used to add the letters which are also balloons. I love all of the detail that he gets with this unusual medium.

(25) POP CULTURE SUMMIT. Rolling Stone took notes: “Alice Cooper on His Dinner With David Bowie and Ray Bradbury”.

After Cooper’s initial meeting with Bowie in the late Sixties, they later forged a friendship. Once, they even had dinner together with Fahrenheit 451 author Ray Bradbury. “It was really interesting, because these guys were in outer space somewhere,” he says. “They were talking about quantum physics, and I’m going, ‘So … what kind of car are you driving?'” Cooper laughs.

(26) CAMERON PROJECT. Alita: Battle Angel Official Trailer.

From filmmakers James Cameron and Robert Rodriguez. Alita Battle Angel is in theaters July 20, 2018. Cast: Rosa Salazar, Christoph Waltz, Jennifer Connelly, Mahershala Ali, Ed Skrein, Jackie Earle Haley, Keean Johnson.

 

[Thanks to JJ, Cat Eldridge, Chip Hitchcock, John King Tarpinian, Cat Rambo, Greg Hullender, David K.M. Klaus, Carl Slaughter, Martin Morse Wooster, Rich Lynch, and Andrew Porter for some of these stories. Title credit belongs to File 770 contributing editor of the day Darren Garrison.]

Kids’ Comics Award Winners

Regina Telgemeier’s Ghosts was announced as the winner of the Dwayne McDuffie Award for Kids’ Comics at the Ann Arbor Comics Art Festival on June 18.  The award runs in tandem with the Dwayne McDuffie Award for Diversity and focuses on comics aimed at young readers. Here is the complete shortlist:

  • Bad Machinery Volume 6: The Case of the Unwelcome Visitor, by John Allison
  • Blip! by Barnaby Richards
  • The Cloud, by K.I. Zachopoulos and Vincenzo Bolzano
  • The Creepy Case Files of Margo Maloo, by Drew Weing
  • Ghosts, by Raina Telgemeier
  • Goldie Vance, by Hope Larson, Britney Williams and Sarah Stern
  • Hilda and the Stone Forest, by Luke Pearson
  • Moon Girl and Devil Dinosaur Vol. 1: BFF, by Amy Reeder and Brandon Montclair
  • Patsy Walker, A.K.A. Hellcat! Vol. 1: Hooked On A Feline, by Kate Leth, Brittney Williams and Natasha Allegri
  • Princess Princess Ever After, by Katie O’Neill.

The Ann Arbor Comics Art Festival (A2CAF) also sponsored a set of awards that kids attending the con were able to vote for via paper ballot, while the wider world was invited to vote via online form. The nominees are listed below with the winner in BOLD.

MOST EPIC ADVENTURE

  • The King of Kazoo, by Norman Feuti
  • Tree Mail, by Mike Raicht and Brian Smith
  • Red’s Planet, by Eddie Pittman
  • The Great Pet Escape, by Victoria Jamieson
  • Night Air, by Ben Sears

FUNNIEST GRAPHIC NOVEL

  • Dog Man, by Dav Pilkey
  • Comics Squad: Lunch! by various
  • Laser Moose and Rabbit Boy, by Doug Savage
  • Caveboy Dave, by Aaron Reynolds
  • Lucy and Andy Neanderthal, by Jeffrey Brown

FAVORITE AUTHOR

  • Jennifer Holm
  • Raina Telgemeier
  • Ben Hatke
  • Jarrett Krosoczka
  • Hope Larson

BRAVEST HERO

  • Bera the One-Headed Troll
  • Raven the Pirate Princess (tie)
  • Margo Maloo
  • Mighty Jack (tie)
  • Peony from Space Battle Lunchtime

FRIENDSHIP TO THE MAX!

  • Caveboy Dave by Aaron Reynolds
  • Narwhal: Unicorn of the Sea! by Ben Clanton
  • Hippopotamister, by John Patrick Green
  • Monty the Dinosaur, by Bob Frantz and Jean Franco
  • Ghosts, by Raina Telgemeier

FAVORITE GRAPHIC NOVEL ABOUT LUNCH

  • Space Battle Lunchtime, by Natalie Reiss
  • Comics Squad: Lunch! by Various
  • Lunch Witch: Knee-deep in Niceness, by Deb Lucke

2017 Dwayne McDuffie Award Winner

Ezra Clayton Daniels has won the 2017 Dwayne McDuffie Award for his science fiction graphic novel Upgrade Soul.

UPGRADE SOUL is an immersive science fiction graphic novel written and illustrated by Ezra Claytan Daniels. Featuring an original score by Alexis Gideon and interactive design by Erik Loyer.

UPGRADE SOUL is the story of an elderly couple who become the guinea pigs of a visionary procedure that aims to revivify them by filtering toxins from their bodies on a molecular level. When the procedure experiences a fatal complication, the couple is faced with severely deformed, though intellectually superior duplicates of themselves. Soon, it becomes clear that only one version of each individual can survive, and the psychological battle for dominance begins.

The Dwayne McDuffie Award celebrates diversity in comics and comic creative teams. This year’s award jury included Black Panther writer Don McGregor, Batgirl and Birds of Prey writer Gail Simone, Green Lantern and Iron Man artist Mark D. Bright, and Milestone Media’s Matt Wayne, and others.

2017 Dwayne McDuffie Award Shortlist

The finalists for the third annual Dwayne McDuffie Award have been announced by The Hollywood Reporter.

The award celebrates diversity in comics and comic creative teams, and honors the memory of Dwayne McDuffie. McDuffie was a comics writer and co-creator of Milestone Media, which featured superheroes of varying genders, sexualities, race, and ethnicity. He died in 2011, aged 49. The award is given to comics that continue his legacy of featuring diversity as well as telling a compelling story.

This year’s nominees are:

The award jury includes Black Panther writer Don McGregor, Batgirl and Birds of Prey writer Gail Simone, Green Lantern and Iron Man artist Mark D. Bright, and Milestone Media’s Matt Wayne, among many others.

The winner of the award will be revealed on Saturday at the Long Beach Comic Expo.

[Via Tor.com.]