Hugo awards: graphic stories
Jul. 10th, 2017 05:31 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
jackI've entered votes for everything apart from the novellas. There's quite a few I wish I had to spend more time on: ideally I'd read more by the Campbell authors, and some of the short stories I'd like to read again, and some other things.
But I'd also like to talk about what I enjoyed, and see what other people thought, so I'm working my way through some of the categories this week. The deadline for finishing voting is 8am Sunday morning BST (I think).
A few years ago I didn't follow any graphic novels at all, I only recognised entries which were webcomics I knew. But a combination of random drift, me following some authors online, reading some of the earlier graphic novels (especially Ms Marvel and Saga) and having other things recommended to me, and of just getting into the habit of reading comics on the tablet at all, have made me recognise enough of the ballot to have an opinion on the category and want to see the entries I didn't already know.
Most of them had enough in the hugo packet to make a good decision, a first issue or first collected volume, which is pretty good. Although I wouldn't have time to read them all.
Vision was really interesting. It's about the artificial magical humanoid from the avengers I only know from the recent avengers film, but enjoyed there. I don't usually read comics from large continuities even if I like the characters, because it feels like they're too constrained by stuff I don't know. But I really enjoyed this; Vision and family lose their memories (or the emotional component of their memories) and try to fit into human society again by living in a house in the suburbs and sending the teenagers to high school. It hits a lot of interesting "learning to understand human interaction" things. Although there looks to be a fair amount of gratuitous death coming up.
Black Panther is about the prince of Wakanda fighting... a bunch of mystical stuff. It covers lots of worthwhile themes, of power and racism and so on and is very well done. I got confused because I was trying to skim and that didn't really work, but I definitely want to read it more slowly, and rated it pretty highly
Monstress, I'd like help forming an opinion about. I read the first issue a while back without knowing much about it, but my impression was, it was absolutely gorgeous, both in visuals and in tone, all about some mystical battle of enslaved people and spirits against someone, and lots of people being captured and bravely escaping; but it felt very male-gazey and I assumed it was going to be "interesting, but not developing the interesting themes further and getting hard to read". But what everyone else said about it was gorgeous, amazing worldbuilding, feminist themes, so it sounded like my first impression did completely underestimated it, and it was all the things I'd love. But I've not actually read any more to be able to form my own opinion about. Has anyone else read it more (or even just read the first issue more slowly?)
I postponed the saga and ms marvel entries. I assume they're good, but about as good as the previous series was, so I will take the risk of voting on that basis. (If either was exceptionally more standout than the rest of the series, let me know). And I will vote most of the other entries first, because I'm more excited by *new* series, even as I want the ones I like to continue.
Papergirls is about three teenage girls who deliver newspapers discovering some alien invasion or something... the write-up sounded interesting, but I couldn't get into the first couple of pages. I expect it's fairly good, but I'll see if I go back to it or not.
Has anyone else read any of the ones I've partly read and have helpful opinions?
But I'd also like to talk about what I enjoyed, and see what other people thought, so I'm working my way through some of the categories this week. The deadline for finishing voting is 8am Sunday morning BST (I think).
A few years ago I didn't follow any graphic novels at all, I only recognised entries which were webcomics I knew. But a combination of random drift, me following some authors online, reading some of the earlier graphic novels (especially Ms Marvel and Saga) and having other things recommended to me, and of just getting into the habit of reading comics on the tablet at all, have made me recognise enough of the ballot to have an opinion on the category and want to see the entries I didn't already know.
Most of them had enough in the hugo packet to make a good decision, a first issue or first collected volume, which is pretty good. Although I wouldn't have time to read them all.
Vision was really interesting. It's about the artificial magical humanoid from the avengers I only know from the recent avengers film, but enjoyed there. I don't usually read comics from large continuities even if I like the characters, because it feels like they're too constrained by stuff I don't know. But I really enjoyed this; Vision and family lose their memories (or the emotional component of their memories) and try to fit into human society again by living in a house in the suburbs and sending the teenagers to high school. It hits a lot of interesting "learning to understand human interaction" things. Although there looks to be a fair amount of gratuitous death coming up.
Black Panther is about the prince of Wakanda fighting... a bunch of mystical stuff. It covers lots of worthwhile themes, of power and racism and so on and is very well done. I got confused because I was trying to skim and that didn't really work, but I definitely want to read it more slowly, and rated it pretty highly
Monstress, I'd like help forming an opinion about. I read the first issue a while back without knowing much about it, but my impression was, it was absolutely gorgeous, both in visuals and in tone, all about some mystical battle of enslaved people and spirits against someone, and lots of people being captured and bravely escaping; but it felt very male-gazey and I assumed it was going to be "interesting, but not developing the interesting themes further and getting hard to read". But what everyone else said about it was gorgeous, amazing worldbuilding, feminist themes, so it sounded like my first impression did completely underestimated it, and it was all the things I'd love. But I've not actually read any more to be able to form my own opinion about. Has anyone else read it more (or even just read the first issue more slowly?)
I postponed the saga and ms marvel entries. I assume they're good, but about as good as the previous series was, so I will take the risk of voting on that basis. (If either was exceptionally more standout than the rest of the series, let me know). And I will vote most of the other entries first, because I'm more excited by *new* series, even as I want the ones I like to continue.
Papergirls is about three teenage girls who deliver newspapers discovering some alien invasion or something... the write-up sounded interesting, but I couldn't get into the first couple of pages. I expect it's fairly good, but I'll see if I go back to it or not.
Has anyone else read any of the ones I've partly read and have helpful opinions?
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Date: 2017-07-10 05:28 pm (UTC)no subject
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Date: 2017-07-11 09:30 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2017-07-11 08:00 am (UTC)Monstress I really enjoyed and I got on well with Papergirls too.