Gunnerkrigg Court and The Webcomic List Awards 2009
Gunnerkrigg Court
“Gunnerkrigg Court does not look much like a school at all.”
“It closer resembles a large industrial complex than a place of learning.”
“Within the first week of my attendance, I began noticing a number of strange occurrences.”
“The most prevalent of these oddities being the fact that I seemed to have obtained a second shadow.”
That’s the awesome beginning of an awesome comic, Gunnerkrigg Court by Tom Siddell. It is the big winner of The Webcomic List Awards 2009 whose winners have been announced today. It did not only win the main category “Best Comic”, but also the awards for “Best Writing” and “Best Longform”. I was a judge for several of its categories and Gunnerkrigg Court has been my favorite comic in the contest by far. My copy of its first print edition has already arrived. 🙂 Gunnerkrigg Court is a fantasy comic with sci-fi elements subdivided into more or less self-contained chapters. They tell the mysterious story of the young girl Antimony “Annie” Carver and her best friend Katerina “Kat” Donlan who attend the eponymous school as they get involved in the political intrigues between Gunnerkrigg Court and the mythical creatures of Gillitie Wood, a forest near the school.
Go check it out!
After the discontinuation of the Web Cartoonists’ Choice Awards I and several other members of the webcomic community site The Webcomic List felt the need for a replacement and came up with the idea for a new award called The Webcomic List Awards in July 2009. Webcomic creators and other people involved in comics were asked for their favorites; the winner of each category was then established by a panel of judges, including for example Brad Guigar of Evil Inc. for “Best Gag-a-Day”, among the five webcomics with the most nominations.
On the website of The Webcomic List Awards 2009 you can have a look at the comic pages drawn by our community members to present the categories, announce the nominees and celebrate the winners.
However, if you are just interested in the winners of each category, here they are:
Digger
- Gunnerkrigg Court by Tom Siddell
- Moon Town by Steve Ogden
- Girls with Slingshots by Danielle Corsetto
- Gunnerkrigg Court by Tom Siddell
- FreakAngels by Warren Ellis
- The Abominable Charles Christopher by Karl Kerschl
- The Dreamland Chronicles by Scott Christian Sava
- Gunnerkrigg Court by Tom Siddell
- Digger of Digger by Ursula Vernon
If you have a webcomic site of your own, it would be great if you could write a news entry about our award and the winners of it. It is currently the only general webcomic award with additional categories other than “Best Webcomic” (which exists for example as part of the Ignatz Awards or the Harvey Awards). However, it was also our goal to keep the number of different categories low so that each one is worth more. Since it is also not a popularity contest the most popular webcomics (Penny Arcade, XKCD, etc.) don’t win by default.
We believe that all winning comics are of very high quality and therefore worth checking out. So have a look at them and spread the word!
I took a look yesterday at Gunnerkrigg Court. It was 10 PM and I thought: “Nah, don’t really like the style and the first part of the story is dull. Whatever, let’s give it another chance.”
I could finally find the strength to go to bed way past midnight…. 🙂
I’ve been a fan of GC for a while =] it doesn’t leave the impression of a webcomic in that there is no dependency on punchlines at the expense of the story, which is really refreshing.
I just caught up with Gunnerkrigg Court today.
The plot exploded out of the gates, but I wasn’t really into it until character development caught up. (I felt that that really happened in a hand full of dirt)
Great comic over all. I will keep watching. It has been added to my list of favourites.
I’ve read all of the above except Moon Town.
They were generally good.
Girls with Slingshots can get a bit lame, but then I don’t really like the gag comics. Ain’t my sorta thing.
Gunnerkrigg Court is all sorts of nifty… though the little City Face side-stories about the pigeons are, for some silly reason, my favourite bits.
FreakAngels is… well… pretty. And I sorta get the geographical references because I live in London… but it is more than a little Mary Sue-ish for my tastes.
I have nothing bad to say about the Abominable Charles Christopher. That thing is gorgeous and quirky. I do like those eccentric comics.
Same with Digger. Delightfully eccentric. =)
The Dreamland Chronicles is… utterly cheesy and so heavily kiddy-friendly as to be cringeworthy sometimes… but you have to respect a fully graphically rendered comic like that. Some of the scenes are so utterly cluttered with 3D models that I doubt my laptop could even render as much without crashing.
So yeah… Gotta say I agree with the awards.
Besides… didn’t all this take place in the years BH? (i.e. Before Homestuck)
Things have changed.