Hey all, it’s time for:

The Webcomic List Awards 2010

For the uninitiated, The Webcomiclist awards are peer-recognition awards for the best of comics on the web. Organised by the people at TWCL forums (which includes yours truely) anyone with ‘a substantive involvement in webcomics’ (in most cases, webcomics creators) may nominate comics for each of the categories of awards. Those comics with the most nominations in each category are put before a team of judges who then decide the esteemed victor. I’m a judge in the best gag-a-day category, so I’m looking forward to seeing what the community decides is the funniest things out there.

For the other categories, here are my nominations - up to three are permitted per category

Best Black and White Art:
Sandra and Woo - Impressive and bold use of blacks whites and greys from a variety of camera angles to create an immersive world and dynamic characters.
Axe Cop - That Ethan Nicolle’s pen can keep the pace of his brother’s zany stories is a testament to a great artist. A masterclass in high-octane off-the-wall comic art.

Best Colour Art
Jackie Rose - Artwork as adventurous as the plot, the camera twists and turns, zooms and pans around a fantastic environment with all the artistry of a top action film director.

Best Non-Traditional Art
My Cardboard Life would get my nomination, but sadly it’s inelligable as Phillipa Rice is a judge in the awards. You should read this comic anyway however.

Best New Comic
Axe Cop - This has been such a sensation that it’s hard to believe it’s less than a year old. Chopping it’s way into the webcomics scene with the fantastic imagination of a child (it’s 5-year old writer Malachi Nicolle) and the craftmanship of a professional comic artist (Ethan Nicolle, 29, see above) this comic has been the well-deserved webcomics sensation of 2010.

Best Writing
Bug Nominated for sheer density of jokes. That Adam Huber can fit a great gag in each panel, and then do this 5 times a week deserves much praise.
Hark a Vagrant - Exuding a charm that it’s difficult to place one’s finger on, but that is evident in each perfectly constructed frame. Also see Kate Beaton’s TwitPics for more comic goodness.
Edmund Finney’s Quest to Find the Meaning of Life - Edmund’s unending journey through strange and bizarre lands is as engaging as it is entertaining. Free-spirited and effortlessly funny.

Best Longform
Order of the Stick - OOTS is to me one of the few webcomics that can be considered as a novel, with multiple fully-fleshed out characters, twisting storylines, complex pro- and antagonists and a vast world that is more addictive the more it is slowly revealed.

Best Character
T-Rex from Dinosaur Comics - I just think the two of us could be BFFs? Despite having stomped upon about 300 tiny women in 2010 alone, T-Rex to me remains one of the most intensely likeable, and (ironically) human characters in the webcomics I come across.

Best Comic
(drumroll please)

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Axe Cop!
(for reasons stated above)

I’d be interested to know what people think of my picks. If you are a comic creator, then head over to The Webcomic List Awards and get nominating!

Peace,
L

N.B. Not that I’d expect you to anyway, but as an organiser and judge LukeSurl.com is inelligable for nominations.