Death of The Awards? Maybe not.

[Paul Bedford]

After the Saturday of Doujicon a few us of headed down for a pizza and beers on Lygon. Great night, lots of laughs, and also some really constructive and positive discussion about the past, present and (bright looking) future of Aussie Comics (many points from which were discussed in more depth the following day at a round table type gathering with Bobby, Trev, Jason, Dave, Avi and I - the recordings are podcasted at Bobby's Blog: http://bobbynsblog.blogspot.com - you'll have to scroll down to his thoughts on his Doujicon Sunday if you want to get straight to it).

One of the points that was discussed was The Ledger Awards...and the apparent death of. The feeling was that if only it had been kept alive until this year, it may have found new life. The past couple of years have seen some of the strongest works ever being produced by Aussies. When I came aboard the scene, I thought that me noticing the standard of work to be high was due only to never having taken any real notice before - like when you buy a particular type of car and only then become aware of how many are actually on the roads. Talking to others however, I found my perception was incorrect. Everyone else seemed to agree that the standard of works had increased markedly, with people taking it from a hobby to an appreciation of craft.

As a reflection of this dedication to their respective works, some simply beautiful, considered titles have emerged. One only need look at the once maligned "Aussie Comics" shelf at Minotaur to see these quality works encroaching on a territory once held by photocopied, badly drawn and written, stapled together...crap. Some examples of these titles (which cross a broad spectrum of genres) include Bruce Mutard's The Sacrifice, Mandy Ord's Rooftops, Gestalt Publishing's Vowels, Shaun Tan's The Arrival, Sock Puppet's Sawbones, BlackGlass Press’ Kagemono, Bluetoaster's Digested 01, LAC's Dicks, Stark Reality & Vigil (among others), Nicki Greenberg's The Great Gatsby, Nautilus Illustrations The Crumpleton Experiments, and yes, I believe Henry Pop's and mine The List deserves a place here (please forgive any omissions, purely unintentional - these are off the top of my head). Doesn’t just looking at this collection of works fill you with pride? Collectively display the range and depth of talent we have? The amazing commitment of some very talented and hard working artists? Is some reward, especially from amongst peers, not deserved? This is a lonely pursuit we have chosen for ourselves. Many, many hours are poured diligently into not only in the creation, but also the execution (and for most, printing and distributing) of our works. I believe an award system, if serving only to give some recognition of some bloody hard work well done would go so far in not only bolstering the creator's drive but - and maybe more importantly - show that we are proud enough and mature enough to recognise great works from within our own borders. And you know what, a 'Winner of the 2009 Ledger Awards' stuck on your book wouldn’t do any harm either for that other just as important side of our art, sales.

I will confess to not knowing how this award scheme operated in the past, or who ran it or even why it met its demise. But surely being the intelligent bunch that we are, we could come up with something. One of the points discussed at the Doujicon Round Table was that we need to start using the monthly meets as something more than just a social gathering and showing each other our latest pages, discussing craft and (usually the overseas) industry for a short while before just catching up. I am offering no solutions, systems, methods etc for how this would run, as firstly, they may have already been used, and secondly, I'm sure that 10 people sitting around at the meet could come up with something more quickly and less sprawling and messy than 300 posts on this board. One thing I will say though is that it should be a small affair held at a pub with small trophy's or certificates given out to winners and runners up. It may be unfair that it would probably be held in Melbourne if we are the ones to come up with the solution to how to run it, but on the flip side, if an interstate artist were to win, better they get an award than nothing - which is the current state of things.

I can't see why we can't have one this year, later in the year if we manage to get our collective arses into gear and nut something out. Then again, I believe The Sacrifice would sweep them, and I wouldn’t win a bloody thing!

Sincerely though, please post your thoughts on this matter. I don't want solutions. I will try and get some semblance of a system together which i will then post for discussion so as to not leave out our interstate friends (and those Aussies who happen to be OS at the moment). I want to hear your feelings about The Ledgers and about what I have discussed here.

And, no, I’m not, by this post, offering to carry the torch and organise everything. This should be an award system run by peers for peers and so will, if anything at all, be a collective effort across all its aspects.

Thank you for taking the time to read this. Please consider it seriously.

Phew! Time for another coffee!

Paul.

[rumpusroomie]

Sounds brilliant Paul, i'm behind this.. even if i know i wont win anything

I won't be at the next meet so i'll make my sprawling comments here.

I'm just trying to remember some of the issues with the last Ledgers that may hinder our movements forward or need to be considered.

1. Cost for entrants. I know it's flippant for some of us to say who did big print runs "it's not much" but when you're a small publisher handing out 3 books etc is a considerable outlay. Especially with some of the premium books, the Sacrifice costs $40 odd dollars in store. Can Bruce afford to burn $120? Plus postage.

2. Time. This one is more about Gary C's organisation. I'd hate to take something he built away from him, he founded them not only as a celebration of Aussie comics but also as a tribute to a talented mate. Gary should be involved just to make sure we don't drop his ball and so if we get bored in a year or two he can easily take it back.

3. I remember Dave B. and Ben H. expressed in their podcast the view that the Ledgers can sometimes be a celebration of averageness and that if there isn't enough stellar world to fill out the nomination list then even the winners look bad as they're judged the best of a bad bunch. I don't want to indicate they thought themselves above anyone, from what i remember they felt THEY weren't worthy either.

4. Event cost. It's not cheap either. Organisers would need to post books between judges, get those little trophies/plaques made up, host a website etc. We'd need a decent funding model.

5. Make it worth it. If we want to make a big to-do about ourselves we need to make sure any awards is an EVENT. Something the press can get behind, report on and promote.

[JasonFranks]

One problem I foresee is the difficulty of getting a good overview of the whole country. I notice that almost every book Paul mentioned is by Melbourne creators--I really don't know much about what's going on in Sydney, let alone Brisbane, Adelaide, Perth. And then there's New Zealand. I know there are be reciprocal groups of creators over there--Marc Schmidt knows a bunch of people, but he's overseas even more often than I am.

Getting everyone involved is important; these awards shouldn't just be Pulp Faction-centric; I know there are groups of creators around Melbourne that I've never even met.

Another thing I'd like to see is a bit of publicity for them--I don't ever remember seeing a press release for the Ledgers on any of the big international comic news sites, let alone coverage that the Eisners, the Harveys, the Ignatz or even the Shusters. If we hold awards we need to publicize them to as big an audience as possible, otherwise there's no point. I don't believe that even Australian comics readers were very aware of the Ledgers. We need whatever Aussie comics awards there are to be in local newspapers as well as all over the internet. The Age is hungry for this stuff...

As for having a ceremony in a pub, I like the idea but I think it needs to be bigger. If the awards are going to be truly national then they surely have recipients from multiple cities. I don't imagine many people will fly interstate to collect a trophy in a pub--if there's a ceremony it needs to be adjunct to some kind of a convention, where creators can try to increase their audiences, sell some books and otherwise network.

I know it's a big effort, but I think it'd go a long way to increasing the visibility of the Aussie comics community, at home and abroad. That means more readers will seek out comics, more local publishers will get interested in them, more overseas publishers will become interested in Australian talent.

-- JF

-- JF

[jpaulos]

When and how did the awards die? Did I miss something?

[Egofreaky]

I'm going to be brutally honest, like I generally am.

The awards sort of seem like a bit of a circle jerk to outsiders.

For a start, almost nothing that isn't spoken about here on PF gets a nomination.
Either that needs to change, and the people outside of this group need to be notified that they're up for an award, or we really need to publicise it better, which also means publicising this community better.
I'm thrilled that I've been nominated a number of times, and even won, but it means nothing to people off this forum... Part of that is the relative obscurity of this community.

As "OzComics", this was an easy group to find. It's name made senseas to the purpose of the community.
As "Pulp Faction", it's pretty much only those in the know that know what we're about, or that there even is a loose community of Australian artists.
Sure, looking up "Australian Comics" in google will get you a return for PF on the front page, but it's not really enough.
More people need to be involved in the promotion of the Ledgers, and PF itself.
There need to be posters and entry forms in every comic shop.
We need to have web banners on our sites... Maybe animated ones explaining what's going on.
Outside interests need to be involved, such as general illustrators and even some of the graphic design magazines. I've got contact details for Desktop if people really want. PRESS RELEASES, PEOPLE!
We need to get more people knowing that there ARE Australian cartoonists, there ARE Australian comics, and yes, we DO have a community that goes with it.
I was recently interviewed for Frankie magazine, and they were amazed that there were general comic creator communities, not just manga ones... When otaku are beating you out for being social, you've got a few PR issues going on...

A part of this would be to start having a Pulp Faction area at larger cons, like SupaNova.
I've attempted to organise something like this with OzTAKU and manga artists in the past, and will be redoubling efforts to do so next year, but I'm happy to attempt to help get a PF section going. Between the two communities, we'd potentially take up 1/3 of Artist Alley... We'd also be able to sell books for people that otherwise can't attend.
We need to talk to DannyZ and Bill about purposefully putting us near each other if we ask for some sort of affiliation slot, or we need to pull together and get a booth to promote PF and the Ledger's.

Arranging sponsorship for the event shouldn't be all that hard.
Look at SMASH!They've managed to get Canson, Eckerlseys and Wacom in the past. There's no reason why we can't get similar groups either.
And then there are educational institutes that teach illustration and animation that would probably love to have "Tafe X presents The 20XX Ledger Awards" for a small fee and a logo on the bottom of the poster.
Heck, OzCo Australian Council of the Arts should be backing this one up.
We can approach publishers that have taken on Australian graphic novels even. A small fee for logo placement from 5 sponsors, a free booth / table at a large con and a one hour timeslot, and BAM!
Like I say, I've got contact details for a number of places, so whoever ends up organising stuff, email me and I'll forward them on.

Secondary to that is actually having the Ledgers as a proper award ceremony that moves with the conventions.
SupaNova currently goes to more states than any other, so it's currently the logical choice, but if Armageddon steps up its game, then it'd perhaps be in the running as a hosting event.
It's not that hard to do a proper awards ceremony. You just need a good slide show and some decent hosts, like one of the attending cartoonists. It requires a bit of negotiation with the con, but I'm sure they'd be open to the idea, and a lot of these guests love to whore themselves out because if they don't, know one recognises them.
In so far as trophies, well, I know where to get them done cheaply (no, not the craptacular ones I use for Iron Artist) as various OzTAKU members are actually involved in the creation of merchandise and promotional items.

Anyway, that's just my $3.02 on the issue.

[JasonFranks]

... so are the Ledgers still running, or not?

Avi, the only thing I disagree with you on is the idea that the awards should be tied to Pulp Faction. I love youse guys and all, but membership on an internet messageboard should not be an Integral part of the awards. The awards committee (man, I hate that word) should be visiting all of the messageboards (not just the Aussie ones!) as well as sending material out to comic shops and newspapers and news sites.

-- JF

[rumpusroomie]

As i think i said earlier all this is dependent on whether Gary has called it quits. He's been silent recently but that doesn't mean the awards are dead. For all we know he's been hard at work offline on this for months. It's his baby.

So it is far from certain that the Ledgers is even dead.

I will mention that if there is a goal to make it an live event, which is something that should be aimed for, in Melbourne we could probably get c31 involved and get it sent around the country on the various c31 affiliated stations.

[antains]

[rumpusroomie]

I guess the Ledgers has thus been named in part because of the equivilents in other countries have been named after a pioneer. America's being the Harveys/Eisners and Canada's being the Shusters. Eventually the award should be it's own reputation. Who was Oscar? we still know what it means.

I'm not insisting we have to keep it the Ledgers, i'm just saying any continuation of THAT name/competition history needs the blessing of Gary.

[Gary Chaloner]

Jason Paulos just gave me a heads up to this thread.

Simply put: The Ledgers aren't dead. Plans are afoot for a larger more well organised set-up to take over from me. An announcement will be made within weeks... or a few months at the most.The plan in a general sense is to have 'catch-up' awards for the years missed... then onwards under the new structure. As I won't be directly involved in the day to day planning of the awards into the future, I'm kind of reluctant to divulge more until the new powers that be want to make an announcement. But I thought it was worth mentioning.

(Now I'll go and read the thread properly...)

[jpaulos]

So THERE!!!!! I hereby nominate myself for an honorary Ledger.

[jacen_c]

[jpaulos]

... and if ANYBODY is going to kill it again it's going to be ME!

[Egofreaky]

antains: That's cool... I'm not sure how you see as what you said as anyway being construed as an attack.
I'm pointing out that we need attention & sponsors.
You're pointing out that to get sponsors, we need more attention... Not the same point, but definitely the same end result.
My point is that we can make the attention expand if we attempt to expand the scope of things. The Aussie Illustrators group on FaceBook is rather large. Good starting point there. Wecomic rings, surely we can track down the Australians. The ACA, the ASA, newspaper cartoonists, etc etc etc...

As for the name of The Ledger's... personally, I like it, even without previously knowing who Peter Ledger was.
I'm just wondering how many people would associate it with a certain Joker...