How does this happen?

[Ramses818]

How does Fionna Staples beat out Clayton Crain?! How does Valiant win nothing. I guess as with all awards you can't agree with them all. Congrats on all the nominations though, Viva la Valiant!

[agent_graves]

I was thinking the same. One category, three out of the five nominees were Valiant, and they still lost that sh!t. I love Fiona's work on Saga, but what Crain is doing on Rai, is simply amazing.

[Ramses818]

Of course I wasn't putting anyone down, but his work is so far and away better. And how does Valiant lose on humor? That was also nuts! It will take a while to get over that.

[Euneiro]

They probably split some votes on categories where they had multiple noms. Especially in humor.

[grendeljd]

They didn't win *any* Harvey awards?! A nomination alone is a great acknowledgement from the industry as is, but still - getting shut out of the awards really sucks.

[Keith]

Seriously. 20 nominations and nothing? That some flipping bullcorn, there!

[tiredofmyself]

Valiant needs female creators and female leads, like RIGHT NOW! A female XO Manowar is a good place to start. And fridge Bloodshot and make some female character as the All-New Bloodshot. And nose. Valiant needs to stop drawing proper noses on their characters.

[agent_graves]

And nose. Valiant needs to stop drawing proper noses on their characters.

Noses??

[tiredofmyself]

For some reason her effort on drawing noses (or the lack thereof) really stands out to me.

[agent_graves]

For some reason her effort on drawing noses (or the lack thereof) really stands out to me.

Who, Fiona? But, she doesn't work for Valiant.

[agent_graves]

http://www.comicbookresources.com/artic ... vey-awards" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;

Here's a link for anyone that wants to look on in agony. Yes, a nomination, is a significant achievement, but to walk away empty handed with so many nods, .

Divinity got snubbed. I counted at least three categories, that should have, or could have had, his mini included. Where's the Love!!!

[SwiftMann]

The Harvey's are a self-nominated award, so, like CrossGen a decade ago, VEI has stuffed the nomination ballot box the last two years and come up empty both times. I love (most of) the books, but these nominations were absurd. Specifically, a 17-year vet in Jen Van Meter being in the Best New Talent category.

And, other than Saga getting overly slurped as usual, nothing is really arguable in the winners (I was rooting for Chris Samnee in artists)

[Thomas]

I don't get the hype around Fiona Staples. She is good but not really something that sticks out.
I would be inclined to say that she didn't add that much to Saga. Clayton Crains art defined Rai for me. When I think about Saga, a bunch of artists could do what Fiona Staples does but with Rai I think it will be hard for VEI to replace Clayton Crain. He makes the title special. His artwork in that book is like a digital screen from a sci-fi movie.

[SwiftMann]

I don't get the hype around Fiona Staples. She is good but not really something that sticks out.
I would be inclined to say that she didn't add that much to Saga. Clayton Crains art defined Rai for me. When I think about Saga, a bunch of artists could do what Fiona Staples does but with Rai I think it will be hard for VEI to replace Clayton Crain. He makes the title special. His artwork in that book is like a digital screen from a sci-fi movie.

I don't get Fiona Staples either. I actually found her work in the first Saga trade pretty boring, sketchy and feeling unfinished. But... I don't really dig on Crain either. Digital artwork like his and Stjepan Sejic always feels too static and cold to me. That's why, for me, Samnee was the best choice in artists. Different strokes and all.

[erwinrafael]

And Clayton Crain does not know how to tell a story. If VEI pushed for Pere Perez or Clayton Henry instead, they could have a fighting chance against Fiona.

[omega_override]

How Saga is this popular when it doesn't even have that much in the way of an engaging plot, story, or characters makes little sense to me. Though it could be due to how the majority it's reader base isn't all that familiar with comics. I'm not knocking it, there's just far better examples out there that follow a similar execution, but with better results

[greg]

How Saga is this popular when it doesn't even have that much in the way of an engaging plot, story, or characters makes little sense to me. Though it could be due to how the majority it's reader base isn't all that familiar with comics. I'm not knocking it, there's just far better examples out there that follow a similar execution, but with better results

If you put out 12 monthly issues a year and sell 10,000 copies each... you sell 120,000 comics.

If you put out 3 issues a year and sell 40,000 copies each... you sell 120,000 comics and everyone praises you for selling 40,000 copies and you win awards.

Plus... you do four times less work.

That leaves plenty of time to shop for a bigger trophy case.

[kjjohanson]

How Saga is this popular when it doesn't even have that much in the way of an engaging plot, story, or characters makes little sense to me. Though it could be due to how the majority it's reader base isn't all that familiar with comics. I'm not knocking it, there's just far better examples out there that follow a similar execution, but with better results

I recently started reading Sage (in the middle of volume 2 now), and I have to disagree with you. What makes you think that the majority of its reader base isn't familiar with comics?

[ilzuccone]

i'm not a fan of either artist. if i had to pic i would give it to fiona. crain hides half baked drawings behind smoke and mirrors. as an artist it stands out and smacks me in the face every time i read rai.

I think it will be hard for VEI to replace Clayton Crain. He makes the title special. His artwork in that book is like a digital screen from a sci-fi movie.

i would disagree. art schools are currently pumping out artists that do exactly what crain does. most of them end up unemployed or work in tv/ video games where the money is so so much better.

[kjjohanson]

How Saga is this popular when it doesn't even have that much in the way of an engaging plot, story, or characters makes little sense to me. Though it could be due to how the majority it's reader base isn't all that familiar with comics. I'm not knocking it, there's just far better examples out there that follow a similar execution, but with better results

I recently started reading Sage (in the middle of volume 2 now), and I have to disagree with you. What makes you think that the majority of its reader base isn't familiar with comics?

It's important to note, as well, that the Harveys are nominated and voted on by comics professionals, I believe, so Saga's readers don't have much to do with the results.

[BugsySig]

I enjoy Saga and always have. It's a long payoff book, though, and with the scattered release schedule I can see how that rubs people the wrong way. But reading it in trade when each comes out, I think is pretty great.

I haven't read most of the other non-VEI books, so I can't really speak to them, but having that many nominations without winning any is a little odd. Sometimes that is what lays the ground work for future awards however.

And guess what, the Oscars are self-nominated too. That doesn't mean you get to vote for yourself, or that you will even be picked as a finalist. It means you submit which comics, artists, etc you want to nominate from your publisher in each category. The Harvey Awards then choose the finalists from that pool, which are then voted on by industry professionals. Dumb and Dumber To can nominate themselves for Best Picture, but the Academy is never going to make them a finalist.

[erwinrafael]

The problem with the Harveys is that the nominations are purely ballot stuffing. As long as you are a comic book professional, you can nominate and the final nominations are purely based on numbers. It is only in the final awards that any sort of quality control is done.

[SwiftMann]

And guess what, the Oscars are self-nominated too. That doesn't mean you get to vote for yourself, or that you will even be picked as a finalist. It means you submit which comics, artists, etc you want to nominate from your publisher in each category. The Harvey Awards then choose the finalists from that pool, which are then voted on by industry professionals. Dumb and Dumber To can nominate themselves for Best Picture, but the Academy is never going to make them a finalist.

The Harvey Awards don't "choose the finalists from that pool." They simply take the most votes. From Baltimore Comic-Con's Facebook page when I called out the ridiculousness of Van Meter getting nominated in New Talent, ""We don't nominate 'em, we just tally 'em. "

So, sticking with your analogy, if everyone that worked for New Line was told by New Line to nominate Dumb and Dumber To and it got the top five votes due to nomination ballot box stuffing, it would be a finalist. That's what's happening here and why many deservedly don't win. And gross speculation on my part, the obvious nomination stuffing is likely keeping the few that deserve to win from winning because it leaves such a bad taste in everyone's mouth.

[BugsySig]

And guess what, the Oscars are self-nominated too. That doesn't mean you get to vote for yourself, or that you will even be picked as a finalist. It means you submit which comics, artists, etc you want to nominate from your publisher in each category. The Harvey Awards then choose the finalists from that pool, which are then voted on by industry professionals. Dumb and Dumber To can nominate themselves for Best Picture, but the Academy is never going to make them a finalist.

The Harvey Awards don't "choose the finalists from that pool." They simply take the most votes. From Baltimore Comic-Con's Facebook page when I called out the ridiculousness of Van Meter getting nominated in New Talent, ""We don't nominate 'em, we just tally 'em. "

So, sticking with your analogy, if everyone that worked for New Line was told by New Line to nominate Dumb and Dumber To and it got the top five votes due to nomination ballot box stuffing, it would be a finalist. That's what's happening here and why many deservedly don't win. And gross speculation on my part, the obvious nomination stuffing is likely keeping the few that deserve to win from winning because it leaves such a bad taste in everyone's mouth.

Fair enough, but how can small publishers dominate the Harvey award nominations over Marvel or DC then? They have way more people who can "nominate" books? It cant just be ballot stuffing.

[erwinrafael]

Because the Big 2 do not care about the Harveys. They know that the battle is in the Eisners.