Hugo Awards Extravaganza 2019 -Graphic Story

This is a pretty self explanatory category typically composed of graphic novels and trade paperbacks.  The big story of 2019 is how stagnant the selection is; half of the Graphic Story slate has been locked in since 2017, in the form of Saga (six time nominee), Monstress (two time winner), and Paper Girls. Fortunately two of the repeats (Monstress and Saga) were my top picks of last year, so it is hard to begrudge them their perennial status.

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Hugo Awards Extravaganza 2018 -Graphic Story

This year the graphic story category returns to an sff focus after last year’s slate dominated by Avengers. Previewing the category, we have sequels to three comics I really liked (Bitch Planet, Monstress, and Saga), one sequel to a comic I thought was OK (Paper Girls), and two new entrants (including our only superhero entry written by an author whose previous Hugo nominee I rather liked).

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Hugo Awards Extravaganza 2017 -Graphic Story

What happens when SFF fans nominate comic books for an award? Usually I would say you get fewer superhero titles and more SFF, but this year fully half the titles contain avengers, though not the avengers you are thinking of. Also, I love comic books, but I have no knack for visual criticism, so I apologise in advance to both readers and artists if my art criticism boils down to “it looked pretty”.

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