Comments on: Ignatz Awards Non-Controversy: Jurors Up For Awards

By: Evan Dorkin

Evan Dorkin — Tue, 01 Sep 2009 17:18:22 +0000

I don’t think this years jurors pulled a stunt, but I still think jurors shouldn’t be nominated. Bow out for a year or don’t judge. Just my opinion. It looks odd no matter how cleanly it came about, good work or bad, it’s just inviting raised eyebrows and casts doubts in some minds on the process and the outcomes. And it’s easily avoided. The way things go, I bet you could find five creators who didn’t publish or had minimal output and don’t mind bowing out to serve the greater good. Or whatever.

The biggest problem I had with the program when I used to attend SPX – are the Ignatzes still voted on by having a box set up on a table that anyone on the floor can stuff ballots into?

All that being said, I think that’s a nice roster of nominated work.

By: Ryan

Ryan — Tue, 01 Sep 2009 16:35:58 +0000

not related to the juror non-issue but on the Ignatz front:
Hellen Jo FTW!

I went ahead and named my winners on the EAZB:
http://blog.electricantzine.com/pick-the-winners-ignatz-edition

Was very pleased with the ballot this year, and the interesting choices by the jurors. There were no Eyebrow-raising HUH?? nominations on the list, like many comics awards often elicit. Having a jury of contemporary creators and piers helps make the Ignatz cool, vibrant and relevant :)

By: Tom Spurgeon

Tom Spurgeon — Tue, 01 Sep 2009 13:05:13 +0000

I also tweeted an explanation in response to Kathryn’s tweet, so I thought I covered it even if you don’t agree with my admonishment. I’m a little concerned to see your post that seems to be suggesting I blew this off. It was in my story before Kathryn asked her question out loud.

As for that admonishment: Me, I don’t think it’s a big deal for judges to skip a year if they’re going to be judges. If you want a chance to see your work nominated, don’t judge that year.

It seems unless they do that, they’re still going to get people asking questions and raising eyebrows even though nothing was done that was wrong. The only way to answer the questions is to go into an explanation of the rules, at which point the questions are already going to be asked — I mean, I posted about it immediately, and people still had questions.

By: Chris

Chris — Tue, 01 Sep 2009 05:26:44 +0000

Yeah I think Tom’s wrong in his admonishment though (and I missed that the first time). I don’t think jurors should have to recuse themselves if proper steps are taken, and the rules of the event should be entirely clear.

By: Tucker Stone

Tucker Stone — Tue, 01 Sep 2009 05:12:54 +0000

http://www.tcj.com/3_online/n_102299.html

If you scroll down to the headline “Ignatz Under Fire” you can read more about it. Tom posted the link when he posted the nominations last week.

http://www.comicsreporter.com/index.php/your_2009_ignatz_award_nominees/

By: Tucker Stone

Tucker Stone — Tue, 01 Sep 2009 05:09:46 +0000

There’s a really great collection of articles about this exact issue, including the weird historical problems that first brought the jurors-are-nominated rules to the forefront. I read it through Tom Spurgeon’s website, if I can find the link, i’ll post it for you. They had some controversy when some guy did nominate himself a few years ago.