An award for a gaming comic should have at least one thing: people actually gaming. Not people holding game controllers making references to video games. (See one of Scott Kurtz's strips on the subject.) Not a comic that features images and characters from a video game doing and saying things. Not even a comic about people who speak in HAX0R or people acting as if they're in a game. No, to have a gaming comic, you should have SOMEONE ACTUALLY PLAYING A DAMN GAME.
Planet Earth (and other tourist traps) does just that. The d8 storyline ran for three weeks. The Superhero RPG storyine ran for a week. If you want to count the NeverWinter Nights storyline, that's five weeks of actual gaming found in this past year's archives. This is also about five weeks of gaming more than the winner and runner-up of 2002's "Best Gaming Comic" award.
If you're an online cartoonist, I urge you to nominate a comic strip that actually features gaming for the award for a comic strip that features gaming. If you don't want to nominate Planet Earth (and other tourist traps), nominate Dork Tower. Nominate Absurd Notions. Nominate Player Versus Player/PVP.
Posted at May 14, 2003 12:22 PM
Last year, the winner was 8-Bit Theater, a comic strip that illegally uses character designs in order to make a profit. The strip's only connection to a game is the characters stolen were from a video game.
The runner up was Megatokyo, whose intial few strips featured two "gamers", yet seem to never actually play any games. One of the regular readers of PE(aott) who also reads Megatokyo says that the majority of the Megatokyo's archives consist of "drawings of SadGirl #15 and excuses why the comic strip will be delayed". A perusal of about twenty or thirty strips in the MT archives (plus a look at every 2003 strip written and drawn to date) revealed absolutely no instances of characters in the comic actually playing a damn game.
Posted by: cartoonlad at May 14, 2003 12:30 PMI think your objections are quite legitimate. People seem to have no idea what the term 'gaming' MEANS anymore. I really like Megatokyo, but it's not about gaming. Any nominations for it in that category would, I think, be doing both it and those legitimate gaming comics a disservice.
Good luck getting the point across. *glares at those who are stupid*
Posted by: Sosiqui at May 14, 2003 01:05 PMHeh heh, I can resubmit my nominations I think.
-Seth
Posted by: Seth C. Triggs at May 14, 2003 08:48 PMWell, I amended my nomination form (I'm one of those stupid ones) and I was able to get PE(aott) in there!
-Seth
Posted by: Seth C. Triggs at May 14, 2003 08:52 PM