Hugos 2024: Ballots for Dramatic Presentation and Graphic Story

Finally, we have my nominations and votes in the "visual" categories: comics, tv, and film. (I have linked the titles if I have written a review elsewhere.)

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Best Dramatic Presentation (Short Form)

6. Doctor Who, special #3: "The Giggle", written by Russell T Davies, directed by Chanya Button

Of the four episodes of Doctor Who to air in 2023, this is the one I would be least likely to submit for the Hugo Awards. It certainly had some strong moments, and I am not as against the "bigeneration" as some, but it did not come together for me.

5. Loki 2x6: "Glorious Purpose", written by Eric Martin, directed by Aaron Moorhead & Justin Benson

 

Longtime readers of my Hugo rankings will know of my absolute dedication to my bizarre tendency of refusing to watch any episodes of serialized streaming shows other than the ones that are the actual finalists, which means that I watched this, the twelfth and final episode of Loki, having seen only one previous episode, the fourth, back in 2022. As a result, there were a lot of character beats that totally went over my head, but I was able to (mostly) work out what was going on, and it seemed pretty interesting. I can imagine myself watching more of the show, which is more than I can say for most Marvel stuff on Disney Plus. I struggled to rank this versus "The Giggle" but decided that if this didn't land for me, it wasn't its fault I don't think.

 

4. The Last of Us 1x3: "Long, Long Time", written by Craig Mazin, directed by Peter Hoar

 

I gather The Last of Us is a postapocalyptic show about fungus zombies (I did copyedit an essay about it earlier this summer), and that it's pretty serialized, but this one stands on its own fairly well, as most of it is an extended flashback about two side characters, one of them a doomsday prepper played by Nick Offerman, following them from the early days of the apocalypse in 2003 up to the present in 2023. I thought it was a very well done depiction of a lonely man who finally found a situation in which he might thrive—I've only really seen Offerman in Parks and Rec, so this was my first experience of his (considerable) dramatic chops. Since it stood alone much better, I was happy to place it above Loki, but I wasn't about to place it above the very good episodes of any of the shows that I actually watch!

(When I uploaded the above screenshot I was reminded of my consistent objection throughout the episode that it was very clearly not filmed in Massachusetts.)

 

3. Star Trek: Strange New Worlds 2x07: "Those Old Scientists", written by Kathryn Lyn & Bill Wolkoff, directed by Jonathan Frakes

 

I was not surprised to see this as a finalist: a crossover between Strange New Worlds and Lower Decks is exactly the kind of fan-pleasing thing that Hugo nominators love. But it was indeed a worthy finalist; lots of great jokes of course but also some surprisingly dramatic moments. I liked the way Boimler's future knowledge played into the season character arc of Nurse Chapel's attempt to have a relationship with Mister Spock.

 

2. Doctor Who, special #2: "Wild Blue Yonder", written by Russell T Davies, directed by Tom Kingsley

 

In one sense, this is a weird anniversary special. The Doctor Who specials on either side of it are celebratory, in the sense that they bring back beloved characters and old concepts from Doctor Who's long history. But I really like that on getting David Tennant and Catherine Tate to come back to Doctor Who, Russell T Davies's instinct was to do a low-key episode that required them to act the shit out of it. This is Doctor Who at its best, and the kind of thing I'd happily see win.

1. Star Trek: Strange New Worlds 2x09: "Subspace Rhapsody", written by Dana Horgan & Bill Wolkoff, directed by Dermott Downs 

 

If ever something was destined to win me over, surely it was a musical episode of Star Trek. But this was a particularly good execution of that premise; its placement as the second-last episode of the season means it isn't a fun interlude, but the culmination of several key character throughlines. Christina Chong is a powerhouse singer, and her character of La'an cemented herself as my favorite with this episode; Celia Rose Gooding excels in Uhura's big musical number, which also brought their character into focus for me; Ethan Peck's song as Spock was surprisingly clever and good. Lots of good jokes too, of course, and the final musical number is excellent.

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Best Dramatic Presentation (Long Form)

6. The Wandering Earth II; directed by Frant Gwo; script by Yang Zhixue, Frant Gwo, Gong Geer, and Ye Ruchang

 

This is a Chinese movie; it's actually a prequel to the first Wandering Earth movie (2019), which is itself based on a Liu Cixin short story. The premise of the movie is that the sun is expanding, so they have to stick giant engines on the Earth and fly it out of the solar system. It's long on spectacle; its 160 minutes revolve around three big crises across decades: a terrorist attack on a space elevator, a solar storm on the moon, and the explosion of the moon. Various characters' stories weave through these crises, most prominently a heroic astronaut (and his family) and a computer scientist (whose dead daughter has been uploaded into a computer). Perhaps unsurprisingly, this latter subplot was the most interesting part of the movie, which was long on (admittedly well rendered) spectacle but short on anything else. I am glad this is a finalist, because it's the kind of thing the Hugos should be recognizing, but it's not the kind of thing I feel inclined to vote for. Very obviously inferior to Barbie and everything else on the list this year.

 

5. Barbie, directed by Greta Gerwig, script by Greta Gerwig and Noah Baumbach

I feel a bit weird ranking this where I ranked it, and I wonder if I was set up by the buzz around this film—or maybe as a man I am just doomed to not get very much out of it. I mean, I did like it a lot. Amazing visual design, good jokes, and fun songs, plus I particularly enjoyed the performance of America Ferrera. I thought the movie had a lot of great moments when it came to being a woman but I did find the message of the movie kind of muddled in that I didn't really understand what it was trying to say using the Kens. Obviously they were wrong to try to impose patriarchy... but it wasn't very obvious to me that they were wrong to rebel to begin with. Anyway, it was good fun and I enjoyed it but not as much as I wanted to.

4. Dungeons & Dragons: Honor among Thieves; directed by John Francis Daley and Jonathan Goldstein; script by John Francis Daley, Jonathan Goldstein, and Michael Gilio

As opposed to Barbie, which wasn't as good as I expected, this was way better than I expected it to be! I thought it was going to be bad, but it was way better than it had any right to be. My favorite movie trope is probably "group of disparate people come together to accomplish something against impossible odds" and this is an excellently executed example of it. Excellent jokes, charming acting (a friend said that Chris Pine is the best Chris and I think she is probably right, but the rest of the cast is also great), good character moments, fun twists and hijinks, and (surprisingly for a modern action movie) no long tedious action sequences. I really enjoyed this movie.

3. Spider-Man: Across the Spider-Verse; directed by Joaquim Dos Santos, Kemp Powers, and Justin K. Thompson; script by Phil Lord & Christopher Miller and Dave Callaham

The first Spider-Verse film was an unexpected pleasure for me. This one is still excellent in some ways... but not quite as good in others. Utterly beautiful, doing amazing stuff with the medium of animation I've never seen anywhere else. Great score. Good jokes (if not as many as I remember from the first one). Neat character work with Miles and also Gwen, really getting a lot out of both visual and voice performances. I was a little skeptical of marrying up Miles's personal plot with a threat-to-the-multiverse plot, but the movie actually did a good job of that. This would easily rank above Nimona... except it's half a story! I had known it would end on a cliffhanger, but I had expected more of a Empire Strikes Back here's-a-hook-to-the-next-one cliffhanger, not a you-need-to-watch-the-next-one-to-get-anything-out-of-it cliffhanger. (That said, it's a very good cliffhanger with a very good twist!) But anyway, I feel compelled to ding it one spot. The next one doesn't even have a schedule release date yet!

2. Nimona, directed by Nick Bruno & Troy Quaye, script by Robert L. Baird & Lloyd Taylor

This is one of those cases where I begin to doubt my ability to rank things. I definitely think Nimona is better than D&D, and I definitely enjoyed D&D more than Barbie. But is Nimona better than Barbie? That doesn't seem right! But I guess that's the reason I try to think of these things as a series of one-on-one matches (I build the rankings as I watch things, rather than wait until the end), so I just have to make a series of small judgment calls. Anyway, this took me a bit to get into, but once I figured out what vibe it was going for, I found that it was both funny and had some good stuff to say about what we count as "monsters." Good reveal at the end.

1. Poor Things, directed by Yorgos Lanthimos, script by Tony McNamara

I think for certain people this is going to be a bit of a "hot take" but I really enjoyed this move. You have an inkling of what is going on from the beginning but only figure out the precise details as you go, so I will avoid too many spoilers, but basically a mad scientist in the 1890s (though, pleasingly to this pedantic Victorianist, no one ever uses the word "scientist") reanimates a woman's dead body. She has the mind of a child in the body of an adult. The film uses this concept to explore ideas about sex and gender. I (of course) kept thinking about John Berger, who tells us that, "To be born a woman is to be born, within an allotted and confined space, into the keeping of men. The social presence of women is developed as a result of their ingenuity in living under such tutelage within such a limited space." Poor Things explores these concepts by giving us an adult woman who has not had the tutelage necessary to understanding. How do others see her and how does she come to see herself?

The whole thing has this veneer of unreality laid on top of it, too; excellent use of visuals that call attention to themselves as visuals, which is of course what you would want in a film about how men see women, and how women come to see themselves. I think what I was most unprepared for, though, was how funny the movie was. I wouldn't categorize it as a comedy, but all the reviews and discourse I'd heard led me to expect it to be fairly po-faced, but it had several excellent laugh-out-loud jokes. The film has a ridiculous premise, but it totally leans into that and manages to use it to posit some serious things. I think this movie probably has a smaller circle of people who would enjoy it than D&D, but for me it was more of an achievement, so I gave it the edge easily.

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Best Graphic Story or Comic

6. The Three-Body Problem, #01–14; script by Cai Jin and Kaishu; art by Caojijiuridong and Shuixiongchon

This is the first fourteen installments of an adaptation of Cixin Liu's The Three-Body Problem, which won the Hugo Award for Best Novel in 2015, and has since been transformed into a Netflix show. Based on my seven-year-old memory of the novel, it seems to be fairly straightforward and faithful, but I don't know that it ever rises above the level of competence. The art is fine, but I found myself wishing the part focusing on the "Three-Body" game had been weirder. The best part, like in the novel, is the cynical cigarette-smoking cop who thinks the whole thing is bullshit.

 

5. Saga, Volume Eleven, script by Brian K. Vaughan, art by Fiona Staples

 

Saga itself is great, of course, but this doesn't feel like one of its greater installments, though it has a lot of nice moments. The world of Saga is pretty complicated at this point—which is one of its strengths—but that means it does not benefit from the fact that my reading has been stretched out across over seven years! Who are all these side characters? I look forward to my inevitable reread when it's completed, but for now I mostly grok the story of Alana and Hazel, which I enjoy but is continually being interrupted. Anyway, all that is to say, I am glad I am continuing to read this, and I can see why it keeps getting nominated, but I wouldn't give it an award.

4. Bea Wolf, script by Zach Weinersmith, art by Boulet

 

This is a retelling of the first part of Beowulf in comics form, in modernized English with vaguely Anglo-Saxon alliteration—except it's all about kids. The mead hall is awesome treehouse, Grendel is a mean teacher who hates fun, the warriors are all kids playing outside. It's very well done in the sense you have to admire the cleverness of it all... but I feel like my admiration is entirely technical; I was never swept up in this. Like, wow what a good job they did... but why? But still, neat stuff. So, I place it above Saga in that I can see why to someone else it's award-worthy, but below Witches of World War II in that it's not something that grabbed me.

 

3. The Witches of World War II, script by Paul Cornell, art by Valeria Burzo

This is a very solid comic, the exact kind of thing that you would want to be a finalist in Best Graphic Story, but it seems to me so rarely is. A nice original graphic novel, with solid writing and good art, and an interesting sf&fnal premise. I enjoyed reading this a lot, and I would happily see it win.

2. Wonder Woman Historia: The Amazons; script by Kelly Sue DeConnick; art by Phil Jimenez, Gene Ha, and Nicola Scott

This was the first Hugo finalist I read this year, and as soon as I read it, I felt like it was the one to beat in Best Graphic Story. In my experience, the franchise comics in this category are either excellent (last year's Supergirl: Woman of Tomorrow) or excruciating (last year's Dune), with little middle ground. This is definitely in the former category; absolutely beautiful art, with something interesting to say to boot. Transcends its origins easily.

1. Shubeik Lubeik by Deena Mohamed

This is an Egyptian graphic novel originally published in Arabic, now translated into English; the title means "your wish is my command." It's set in a version of our world where people can make, sell, and buy wishes (they come in bottles or cans). The wishes are of varying quality: first-class wishes always come true as you want and are very powerful; third-class wishes can backfire on you if the wish takes you literally but doesn't adhere to what you actually want. The book begins with a stall owner trying to sell three first-class wishes he wants to get rid of (he's a devout Muslim, and using wishes is against Islamic precepts), and follows three overlapping stories of the people who come into possession of each of the three. Clever, inventive worldbuilding, good comedy, but also some real pathos and emotion; I particularly liked the middle story, about how wishes might fit in with depression and talk therapy, but was also a good metaphor for how we handle depression in our world. I said Wonder Woman Historia was the one to beat... and this one beat it! While Historia is magisterial, this really resonated with me in a lot of ways. But I'd be happy for either to win!

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Overall Thoughts

As someone who watches both Strange New Worlds and Doctor Who, I of course appreciated the finalists in Best Dramatic Presentation (Short Form). These are Star Trek's third and fourth nominations since the beginning of the Paramount+ era... will it finally win? I feel like it might have a good shot. "The Giggle" is a bit of a goofy choice, to be honest, but I can't quibble with "Wild Blue Yonder." I liked both Loki and Last of Us well enough. I also thought Long Form was a strong category—an interesting, diverse set of finalists... only one of which was a superhero film! And that is one of the most distinctive superhero films of our time. All stuff I had not seen and was glad to be exposed to.

I also feel like this was probably the best, most interesting Graphic Story ballot probably ever. Again, neat stuff, none of it too similar to each other or to past finalists.

What will win? Well, I think Star Trek for Short Form, Barbie for Long Form, and god knows what for Graphic Story—the voters always manage to baffle me on that one even when the nominations are good.

Hugos 2023: Ballots for Dramatic Presentation and Graphic Story

Next, we have my nominations and votes in the "visual" categories: comics, tv, and film. (I have linked the titles if I have written a review elsewhere, or if the work is freely available on the Internet.)

Things I Nominated

As I said in my last post, I lost my nominating ballot (if I ever had it), but I am pretty sure I nominated an episode of Star Trek: Strange New Worlds season one, "Spock Amok," for the Best Dramatic Presentation (Short Form) category.

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Best Dramatic Presentation (Short Form) 

6. Star Wars: Andor 1x12: "Rix Road", written by Tony Gilroy, directed by Benjamin Caron

Andor is a Disney Plus show that's a prequel to Rogue One, a film I found overrated—and I have to admit, I don't really remember the character of Andor at all. (Plus, as a Star Trek fan, I find his name confusing.) Normally with shows I don't watch that are Hugo finalists, I just watch the relevant episodes, not any other ones. Sometimes this works (I think both For All Mankind episodes I've seen work great on their own), sometimes it does not (my friend Christiana is always criticizing the scattershot way I viewed The Good Place). This year I acceded to Christiana's advice, which was to not watch all twelve episodes of Andor, but to at least watch the first and sixth before moving onto the two that were Hugo finalists.

This was good advice, in that I had some helpful context, but also bad advice in that I thought the sixth episode, "The Eye," was much better than the two that were actually finalists; had "The Eye" been a finalist, I probably would have ranked it first. "Rix Road"—like most of the Andor episodes I saw—does a great job of building to a dramatic climax, as the inhabitants of an Empire-occupied planet take to the titular road to hold an illegal funeral procession for Andor's mother. But unlike "The Eye" and "One Way Out," I felt like the energy of this dramatic confrontation fizzled rather than exploded; the speech by Andor's mother is good, but then it just kind of ends. So I would put it roughly on a par with "Babylon's Ashes"; I gave a slight edge to The Expanse based on my long-term loyalty to that show.

 

5. The Expanse 6x6: "Babylon's Ashes", written by Daniel Abraham & Ty Franck and Naren Shankar, directed by Breck Eisner

As I say every year, I stopped watching The Expanse back during season 3, but it's not the show's fault, it's my own. However, I have enough context to follow what's happening because I read all the books, and the show is fairly faithful. That said, I suspect the emotions of the pay-offs of a season finale (series finale?) would come across much more strongly had I watched the preceding episodes. So, yeah, this was fine and had its moments, but if I ever catch up on The Expanse, I think I will like it more. (Bits of it were very sudden, though; it seems pretty crazy that they did the first book in fifteen episodes, but the sixth one in six!)

4. She-Hulk: Attorney at Law, ep. 9: "Whose Show Is This?", written by Jessica Gao, directed by Kat Coiro

As always, it is perhaps silly for my only episode of a show to be the season finale, but that's how I (usually) roll. This was okay, I guess, but it more fizzled out than climaxed. Which maybe was on purpose, given the meta gags, but I didn't think those worked terribly well (though I did like how she broke out of her show); my favorite jokes were the ones about Charlie Cox's Daredevil, who put in a completely unexpected appearance. But I was moderately entertained, so fourth place it is.

3. Star Wars: Andor 1x10: "One Way Out", written by Beau Willimon, directed by Toby Haynes

"One Way Out" is a solid prison break story, but perhaps one that would have benefited more from seeing the prison set up in previous episodes. Christiana told me that Andor has a lot of wheel-spinning episodes, but if you jump around like I did it has an admirable tendency to be completely different each time out. Episodes one, six, and ten have almost nothing in common in terms of character or setting except for Andor himself.

2. For All Mankind 3x10: "Stranger in a Strange Land", written by Matt Wolpert & Ben Nedivi, directed by Craig Zisk

 

Even though I have only seen one previous episode of For All Mankind (the season two finale, a Hugo finalist last year), I found the pay-offs in this much more effective. In this episode (of a show about an alternate history of the space race), while terrorists attack NASA on Earth, a group of astronauts on Mars must figure out how to get a pregnant woman to a waiting orbiter where she can safely give birth even though they're almost out of fuel. Groups of smart people working together to come up with bizarre plans is basically my favorite genre of television, and this is a strong example of it. If I can ever stomach paying regularly for Apple TV+, I will have to go back and watch the rest of this show.

1. Stranger Things 4, ch. 4: "Dear Billy", written by Paul Dichter, directed by Shawn Levy

 

As I've been saying, I normally watch only whatever episode of a show is specifically nominated... but I had seen seasons one and two of Stranger Things, before I fell behind on my tv watching, so I resolved this would be my impetus to catch up. I saved Stranger Things for last in my schedule just in case I couldn't make it through everything, but I was indeed able to view twelve episodes in the month of September, getting me up to "Dear Billy." I can see why this episode was a finalist; Sadie Sink is excellent as Max throughout, and in particular the famous ending with its use of Kate Bush is harrowing and triumphant, a great depiction of depression and the ways we can sometimes escape from it. I really struggled to place this against For All Mankind, but ultimately decided to go with the show I actually watch otherwise. (Now that I've fulfilled my Hugo obligations, I can stop watching again, right?)

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Best Dramatic Presentation (Long Form)

6. Avatar: The Way of Water; directed by James Cameron; script by James Cameron, Rick Jaffa, and Amanda Silver

I successfully went fourteen years of my life never having seen Avatar; alas, I was not so lucky with the sequel, which I suffered through in all its inexplicably-three-hour entirety. It seems to me that the entire movie suffers from—among other things—a nonsensical and morally abhorrent premise. That is to say, the main guy, Jake, is a human living as a Na'vi on the planet Pandora, leading its people in a war of resistance against occupying human forces. But early on in the film, he goes on the run because his family is threatened. The problems are: 1) he flees to a place where he has no ability to blend in, among a different race of Na'vi; 2) this is an awful thing for him to do, he's depicted as the only hope they have; 3) the movie then just totally ignores the plight of the Na'vi he abandoned, either because they are okay (which makes no sense) or they are all being slaughtered offscreen (which makes him even worse).

It's all a bit The Word for World Is Forest, isn't it? Yet even though that's one of my least favorite Le Guins, James Cameron could have done a much better job if he had ripped it off more: the thing Le Guin shows in her novels of conflict between colonizer and colonized is that the colonized have to avoid buying into the values of the colonizer. If the Na'vi really offer an alternative to the values of Earth, then why is the only way they can be defended with the values of Earth? That is to say, with overlong fight sequences that could have come straight out of a Marvel movie? At the end of the movie, Jake and his family haven't really accomplished anything at all! So anyway, this was an astounding technical achievement, I guess, but so what? I did like Jemaine Clement's character. If I have to suffer through another, he had better be in it.

5. Black Panther: Wakanda Forever, directed by Ryan Coogler, script by Ryan Coogler and Jay Robert Cole

This second Black Panther film was basically fine. Some good moments and action and humor, good character work dealing with the death of Chadwick Boseman/T'Challa. Namor from the comics was reworked quite a lot here, but in a way I found really interesting and successful. I had totally forgotten Lupita Nyong'o's character from the first film, though, so some parts of the movie were a bit confusing, and as a friend pointed out, why is this sequel to a groundbreaking Afrofuturist text about two victims of imperialism fighting each other as opposed to, you know, the colonizer? The final battle was, thankfully, surprisingly short for a Marvel movie. But I look forward to seeing where they go with Shuri as Black Panther; I've been a fan of Letitia Wright since Cucumber and Banana. So, not a great film, but certainly doing more interesting things than The Way of Water, and doing them better.

4. Nope, written and directed by Jordan Peele

The nice-but-actually-mean thing to say about this movie is that at least it's better than Us, but it's no Get Out. This is about a horse farm that trains horses for films suddenly coming under attack by a strange force. It has some good comedy, and there's a nice sense of group-of-disparate-people-pull-off-a-crazy-plan, and the explanations are reasonably satisfying, but it's one of those cases where I read the Wikipedia article and ended up feeling that the movie the director said he was making was more interesting than the one I watched, if you see what I mean. But, you know, better this than another Marvel movie.

3. Severance Season One, created by Dan Erickson

I had never even heard of this before it became a Hugo finalist, but dutifully signed up for Apple TV+ for two months to work my way through it. It's about a corporation where people are "severed": your work self and your home self become different people, each with no memory of the other. For the "outie," it's a great deal: you get paid, but never remember going to work. But for the "innie," it's a slog, because you spend your whole life at work and know nothing better. It's a bit phildickian, in a good way; it captures that feeling I really liked in Ubik or Martian Time-Slip, of "new technologies, same old bullshit," the alienation from the world that is the postmodern condition. There are some great performances (Parks and Rec's Adam Scott, of course, but all four leads are strong), some excellent jokes, and some decent twists. That said, there are probably a bit too many twists; I would have been more interested in exploring some of the psychological and sociological consequences of the "severance" technology, but the series moves into the kind of conspiracy thriller territory that is a bit too standard in streaming shows. I might have ranked it higher except that the first season doesn't really tell a complete story, so it's not totally satisfying, and hard to judge as a whole.

2. Turning Red, directed by Domee Shi, script by Julia Cho and Domee Shi

I watched a lot of Pixar films as a child, but few in adulthood; in the past five years thanks to the double-whammy of parenthood and Hugo voting, that has changed. Of the several I have seen in the past few years (which include Inside Out, Onward, and Soul), this is a clear favorite, abandoning the usual Pixar formula (two disparate personalities work together to cross a strange landscape) in favor of a beautiful story of adolescence and the experience of immigration and assimilation. The main character is a Chinese-Canadian who turns into a red panda when embarrassed, and this is a potent fantasy metaphor for her relationship with her mother and with the culture of her classmates. Lots of good jokes, great character beats, and a beautiful climax that gave me goosebumps.

1. Everything Everywhere All at Once, written and directed by Daniels

This squarely hits my interests in storytelling: big sf concept that is interesting on its own merits but also a powerful metaphor for real life, takes itself totally seriously but also not seriously at all at the exact same time, characters who are just regular people living regular lives turning out to be the moral linchpins. I thought this was excellent from top to bottom, hilarious and also touching. I don't think anyone talks about the "New Sincerity" anymore, but surely this is it at its best: all the techniques of postmodernism deployed to a heartwarming message. This year's top three were all excellent, but this was an easy winner.

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Best Graphic Story or Comic

7. Dune: The Official Movie Graphic Novel, script by Lilah Sturges, art by Drew Johnson

The comic of the movie of the novel? Really?? This seems spectacularly pointless. Sure, do a comic of the original novel and unleash the visual imagination of Frank Herbert in a way that can't be captured by another medium. (And I believe there are some comics directly based on the novel.) But why try to capture the visual imagination of a film of a novel on the page? It seems pointless—and once you read it, you realize it is pointless. This vastly accelerated set of highlights with art that essentially copies film stills gives you little sense of the grandeur of either film or novel.

6. No Award

I find the nomination of Dune fundamentally inexplicable. There is no way this is one of the six best sf&f comics of the year.

5. Cyberpunk 2077: Big City Dreams, script by Bartosz Sztybor, art by Alessio Fioriniello and Filipe Andrade

This is a tie-in to the game Cyberpunk 2077, and its nomination is also inexplicable. It's about two people in some kind of cyberpunk dystopia, one of whom wants to climb the criminal ranks, the other of whom just wants to fantasize about living an easy, meaningful life in the country. It's okay, but some of the art is hard to follow and much of what happens is pretty cliché. It has its moments, but there's nothing here to make you care.

4. Monstress: Devourer, script by Marjorie Liu, art by Sana Takeda

I've put Monstress—which I believe has never missed the Hugo ballot since 2017—in sixth several times. That I did not do so this year is more a testament to the low quality of the other nominees in this category than anything else. I didn't think it was very great this year, but I'd definitely prefer to see it win over a Dune or Cyberpunk 2077 tie-in.

3. Once & Future: Monarchies in the U.K., script by Kieron Gillen, art by Dan Mora

This is volume four of Gillen and Mora's sequence about King Arthur returning in modern Britain... only as a zombie. As is so often true of Kieron Gillen comics, I can't help but feel the premise has more potential than is used. There are a lot of clever spins on Arthurian legend here... but they mostly only justify exciting action sequences, rather than say something interesting about Britain. But it is exciting and I like the characters, so it is certainly better than Cyberpunk 2077 or Monstress.

2. Saga, Volume Ten, script by Brian K. Vaughan, art by Fiona Staples

Saga is back! It's been what, three years I think since volume nine? I usually read it in the form of the huge hardcover omnibus volumes, but I am glad to have this little taster of what is to come. It's been a while, so my memory on many story points is murky, but I still enjoyed this a lot. Good character work, decent twists, and as always amazing art from Fiona Staples. Not so sure about the villain who speaks like a Twitter conservative. It isn't quite as good as the self-contained Woman of Tomorrow... though even if it was, I'm don't think the Hugo Awards are really for rewarding tenth volumes in ongoing series! Give the award to something new and interesting. (Saga won for its first volume, and was a finalist for volumes two, three, six, seven, and nine; if I was king of the universe, it wouldn't be a finalist again until its final volume—assuming, of course, that it sticks the landing.) But given the weakness of the other finalists this year, it acquits itself fairly well regardless.

1. Supergirl: Woman of Tomorrow, script by Tom King, art by Bilquis Evely

This was the first of the Best Graphic Story finalists I read, but as soon as I read it, it felt clearly like the one to beat. Beautiful art from Bilquis Evely, but also a really well put together story with a new-but-familiar spin on a classic character. In the end, I was right; nothing in this category came close.

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Overall Thoughts

I feel like Best Dramatic Presentation (Short Form) is unusually strong this year. Even though I don't care for, say, She-Hulk, I can see that it's interesting and why other people would like it. The top three finalists, in particular, are pretty strong. (Though it really is too bad "The Eye" wasn't a finalist.) I think it's probably going to be "Dear Billy," but if not, I think one of the episodes of Andor.

Dramatic Presentation (Long Form) was also interesting (Avatar aside), but in this case, there's a clear winner: I have little doubt that Everything Everywhere All at Once will not win. It won't be close as, say, Arrival, but it will win.

Best Graphic Story continues to slog along as a category. We have four repeat finalists... but alas, the two new series/creators are the worst ones! Move over, Monstress. I am going to go out on a limb and claim this will be Tom King's year to finally win it... but he came in sixth last year, so what do I know?

Hugos 2019: Saga, Book Three by Brian K. Vaughan and Fiona Staples

Comic hardcover, 464 pages
Published 2019 (contents: 2016-18)
Acquired and read June 2019

Saga, Book Three

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Writer: Brian K. Vaughan

Artist: Fiona Staples
Lettering+Design: Fonografiks

Book Three of Saga continues the space epic, as Marko, Alana, Hazel, and their companions spend time on a doomed comet, on an abortion planet, and a water world. As always, Vaughan and Staples's work is propulsive, never immobile. One issue leads into the next into the next; one situation's resolution sets up the next problem. I found that this one was brought down mildly by some commentary on current events that was a little too direct and obvious for good sf (apparently in a magical space universe, people discuss trans identities and abortion rights the exact same way as in the 2010s U.S.), but the twists and turns of the characters are good. The themes that came to the fore in this volume were the appropriate use of force-- something Marko has really struggled with all along, and is brought to a beautiful climax here-- and the responsibilities of family-- there's some good contrast between Alana and Marko's approach to their child(ren?) and Prince Robot's. There are some real sad moments, and some real uplifting ones, and some disturbing moments. I'm sad that the series is going on an extended hiatus after this, because I want it to keep going now!

This deluxe edition has some nice stuff from Vaughan and Staples about the genesis of the series, which goes back to a universe he imagined in math class as a kid. And of course I loved Fonografiks's discussion of what typeface to use for the logo!

My 2018 Hugo Awards Ballot: Visual Categories

I recently finished going through all the materials for the 2018 Hugo Awards; here are the ballots I submitted to Worldcon 76 San Jose, with commentary, in the two Hugo categories for "Dramatic Presentations" and the "Best Graphic Story" category (i.e., comic books). I'll start with the story I ranked the lowest and move upwards. Links are to longer reviews when I have written such a thing, or where the story is freely and legally available on the Internet. (Note that if you're reading this before August 22, not all of those reviews will actually be live yet.)

Best Graphic Story

7. Monstress: The Blood, script by Marjorie M. Liu, art by Sana Takeda

There are definitely things to like and love about Monstress, but I find the mythological backstory largely impenetrable. Or maybe I just don't want to put the work into penetrating it, but that seems almost as damning. The book is utterly gorgeous though, and it's populated by amazing characters, fascinatingly dark concepts, and a deep sense of history and culture. I just wished I cared about the overarching story Liu and Takeda are telling more than I do; based on the first volume, Monstress could be amazing, but based on the second it isn't quite.

6. Bitch Planet: President Bitch, script by Kelly Sue DeConnick, art by Valentine De Landro with Taki Soma

Sometimes you can jump into the middle of an ongoing comic series; sometimes you're clearly not meant to. This was one of the latter times. President Bitch collects issues #6-10 of Bitch Planet, a series about a prison planet for women in a dystopian future where women can be jailed for "noncompliance" at the drop of a hat. The book makes no attempt to introduce characters and concepts for people who haven't read book one, and I found myself struggling to follow along, but enjoying it when I could figure it out. There's some sharp satire here, and Valentine De Landro (who I knew from a poor fill-in on Spider-Man Loves Mary Jane) is an excellent artist, with a good sense of page design. Ranking this versus Monstress was tough. Both seem like series that aren't quite delivering on their potential, but I gave Bitch Planet the benefit of the doubt since it's more likely the problem was mine in not reading the first volume.

5. My Favorite Thing Is Monsters, Book One by Emil Ferris

This is an excellent book, a really absorbing masterwork, so good it's hard to believe it's Emil Ferris's first graphic novel. Karen is a pre-teen girl growing up in 1960s Chicago, and as the title indicates, her favorite thing is monsters-- she's obsessed with schlocky horror comics and movies. At the same time she has to navigate being a pariah at her Catholic school, she also must survive racism, deal with her mother's cancer, and investigate the murder of her glamorous German neighbor. The book is amazingly drawn, all done in ballpoint pen on looseleaf; you're reading Karen's journal's account of the events of the story. There's a lot of collage/montage, with Ferris's artwork blending the realistic with the fantastic, and the use of color is astonishing at times. Who knew pen could be so beautiful? A prolonged series of flashbacks to the Holocaust are captivating. I have little idea where this honking enormous book is going (the second half is due this fall, I believe), but I really want to know. My main issue with it is that I'm 99% certain it's not actually science fiction or fantasy! All of the fantastic elements thus far are pretty clearly Karen's imagination. How much should that influence my rankings? But I definitely enjoyed it more than Monstress or Bitch Planet, and that's enough for me to give it the edge over them for now, despite its lack of clear sfnal content.

4. No Award

I really struggle with when to deploy "No Award"; however it seems pretty clear that a work that's not actually science fiction or fantasy shouldn't win a Hugo Award (at least not in this category). That said, I'd still rather My Favorite Thing Is Monsters win than Monstress or Bitch Planet, so that bumps them down below No Award as well, which feels a bit mean, but oh well.

3. Saga, Volume Seven, art by Fiona Staples, script by Brian K. Vaughan

Last year I read the first six volumes of Saga basically in one go, so it's a little weird to just read one volume by itself; I had to do a lot of mental re-orienting on its expansive cast of characters. Anyway, I don't think this is the best volume of Saga, but it's still good. (Volume six had more thematic depth, for example.) Sometimes I think Brian K. Vaughan is over-reliant on shock deaths to the extent that they cease to shock, but then at other times I am genuinely shocked, so there you go. It's good stuff with some nice twists outside of the deaths: surprising things are done to/by Marko, Alana, and Sir Robot here. I do wonder what kind of long-term plan there could possible be-- how can our heroes find peace if the galaxy cannot?-- but I'm here for the ride as long as it lasts. My Favorite Thing Is Monsters and this are probably about equally ranked, so I'm giving the edge to Saga since it's actually sf.

2. Paper Girls 3, script by Brian K. Vaughan, art by Cliff Chiang

Last year, I resolved a mental tie between two Vaughan comics by going with the familiar and choosing Saga, but this year I'm going the other way around. Like I said above, volume seven wasn't the best volume of Saga (even though it was still good), but volume 3 very much is the best volume of Paper Girls, and that seems worth rewarding as the comic hits its stride.

1. Black Bolt: Hard Time, script by Saldin Ahmed, art by Christian Ward with Frazer Irving

I was dreading reading this, because Marvel's push of the Inhumans is the least interesting thing about Marvel by a long shot, and Black Bolt is the King of the Inhumans. But it turns out that if you take the King of the Inhumans and put him into space prison, allow him to speak, and team him up with the Absorbing Man, a hood from Brooklyn who used to fight Thor, he suddenly becomes enormously interesting! Well, interesting enough to hang an enjoyable story off, anyway. This is fun and well-done, a prison break narrative featuring superheroes and -villains; in addition to Blackagar Boltagon and Carl "Crusher" Creel the Absorbing Man, there's an old alien man (apparently a Hulk villain), a kid with many eyes, and a Skrull pirate who refuses to shapeshift because she likes herself the way she is. Christian Ward's art is sometimes a little difficult to follow, but usually incredible, handling conversation and surreal space torture with equal aplomb. The best issue is the one where Black Bolt and Creel are trapped in a room together as the air runs out, and Creel reveals that amidst his superpowers, he has an all-too-human tragic backstory-- but also hopes and dreams. Funny and touching. All this plus Lockjaw! My Favorite Things Is Monsters is probably actually the better comic, but this one is clearly sf, giving it the edge for me. Who knew I could be made to care about an Inhuman? I think this is one of those ongoings that gets cancelled after twelve issues, so one more collection will see the series off; I'll have to check it out from the library.

Best Dramatic Presentation (Long Form)

7. Blade Runner 2049, screenplay by Hampton Fancher and Michael Green, directed by Denis Villeneuve

I rewatched Blade Runner in the afternoon one day (on the big screen at the Tampa Theatre!) and then watched 2049 the same evening (at home). I'm not a Blade Runner fanboy, but 2049 doesn't really hold up by comparison. Some beautiful shots, but I was surprised that the sequel left LA... three different times! And the shots of LA itself felt too expansive compared to Ridley Scott's crowded original. The original is so urban and so confined. The actual plot of the film was too straightforward, too long, too societal, and too unambiguous. Deckard is a rapist stone-cold killer in the original who ends up being saved by the "villain" at the climax; there's little like that here. A sequel doesn't have to be like the original, of course, but it ought to be enough like it to justify making it a sequel to begin with, and based on my wife's reaction, I don't think you'd get much out of it on its own, either. Villeneuve did a way better job with Arrival last year.

6. No Award

It's just like, c'mon man, I'd be embarrassed if Blade Runner 2049 won. It's not a very good movie, and I'm surprised it's on the ballot. 

5. Wonder Woman, screenplay by Allan Heinberg, directed by Patty Jenkins

I gave this one a miss in theatres after Man of Steel and the promotion for Batman v Superman convinced me that DC's attempt at a "cinematic universe" was not for me, but finally watched it once it was nominated for the Hugos. I found it a pretty typical 2010s superhero film, with the occasional flash of brilliance, such as Diana's charge across No Man's Land, or the gas attack on the Belgian village. On the other hand, I didn't find the "romance" particularly convincing, even by the standards of this genre. The action sometimes felt weightless, and having watched Superman: The Movie (1978) just a week prior, I found myself wishing modern blockbusters were less visually grim. Gal Gadot was excellent.

4. Star Wars, Episode VIII: The Last Jedi, written and directed by Rian Johnson

This is one of two films on this list I saw in theatres, before it became a Hugo finalist. I came out uncertain as to what I thought, and given I haven't rewatched it, that means I still don't know what I think. It seemed to me that The Last Jedi was trying to be three different movies that weren't integrated with one another in a coherent fashion, and often important things happened abruptly. I liked Rey's story, and what was done with Snoke and Kylo Ren, and there were some cool battles, but Finn's emotional throughline was poorly handled, I think. I don't know, rating this versus Wonder Woman is tough-- I feel like Wonder Woman is generic, whereas The Last Jedi tried to play with the genre but didn't have good enough handle on it to pull that off. So which is more worthy? I guess I'll give the edge to ambition.

3. Thor: Ragnarok, written by Eric Pearson and Craig Kyle & Christopher Yost, directed by Taika Waititi

I have been a devoted fan of the Thor films since seeing the first one in theatres; I know it's popular to hate on Thor: The Dark World, but I dig it too-- surely its ending battle is the best one in any Marvel film, because it understands the silliness of it all. Well, I enjoyed Thor: Ragnarok as well, which has silliness in spades. It does kind of have that vibe of when a new writer takes over an ongoing comic series and suddenly everything from the previous run is disposed of without ceremony, and when it gets away with that, it works, but there are parts where it jars. (I didn't like seeing the Warriors Three go down like mooks, for example.) But I always enjoy Thor's love-hate relationship with Loki, which this handles well, and there's a lot of fun to be had, especially when Thor takes up with a band of ineffectual revolutionaries. Also it might be the only Marvel movie with a good score?

2. The Shape of Water, screenplay by Guillermo del Toro & Vanessa Taylor, directed by Guillermo del Toro

I'm really torn between this and Get Out; as things in award categories so often are, they're hard to compare-- a horror film with sf elements vs. a dark historical fantasy. One wants you to be afraid, the other wants you to feel something; one is very much naturalistic, one is lush and vivid and colorful. I ended up giving the edge to Get Out because sometimes Shape of Water was a bit too simplistic. Like, one guy is racist and homophobic in the space of fifteen seconds. He's bad. I get it. But on the whole, it's a great film, with excellent performances and some real beautiful imagery; del Toro really relishes the early 1960s setting. Ask me again after the deadline and I might be wishing I'd ranked this first.

1. Get Out, written and directed by Jordan Peele

Get Out pretty much consumed the humanities academic facebooksphere when it came out, but despite having some sense of what it was about, I was off base enough that the film was still quite enjoyable. A lot of people I've talked to have been surprised that it's a Hugo nominee, given that it's horror. But of course, texts can belong to many genres at once, and in the case of Get Out, the sf element is integral to the horror: I was really impressed with how once you realize what's going on, almost every oddity throughout the film, big and small, suddenly makes a great deal of sense. Also Jordan Peele understands that there's nothing so serious it won't be improved by jokes.

Best Dramatic Presentation (Short Form)

6. The Good Place, Chapter 13: "Michael's Gambit," written and directed by Michael Schur

I can intuit that this episode is significant, possibly even mind-blowing, to the ongoing story of The Good Place if you've been watching it all along. However, I have not been, and so I was like, "Oh, interesting." Outside of that, I'm not sure this episode had a lot going for it, though; the idea that four friends in heaven have to decide which two of them have to go to hell ought to have been more funny or more dramatic. Or both.

5. Doctor Who 11x00: "Twice Upon a Time," written by Steven Moffat, directed by Rachel Talalay

I am, to be honest, somewhat baffled that the 2017 Christmas special was the only Doctor Who episode to make it onto the ballot this year; I can think of several episodes from series 10 that were better than this, including "Extremis" (which I myself nominated) and "The Pilot" and "Thin Ice" and "Oxygen" and the series finale. "Twice Upon a Time" is mildly diverting, but squanders a potentially interesting premise (a meeting between the first and twelfth Doctors as each is on the verge of regeneration). The final speech shows that not even Peter Capaldi and Rachel Talalay can save yet another long speech from the pen of Steven Moffat; I wish the regenerations could be less of spectacles than they have become.

4. The Good Place, Chapter 19: "The Trolley Problem," written by Josh Siegel & Dylan Morgan, directed by Dean Holland

This episode was more comprehensible as a standalone story, but more importantly, it had better jokes than chapter 13 of The Good Place, mostly those revolving around the ways Ted Danson's character makes two others continuously reenact the famous philosophical quandary of the trolley problem in a real-seeming simulation, complete with fake people who have real feelings, in real time. On the other hand, there were a surprising number of comic bits that fell flat for me, given the talent involved (series co-creator Michael Schur is also the co-creator of Parks and Recreation, which you all know I have been enjoying watching). Anyway, this was okay, and so was "Twice Upon a Time," and I feel like my inclination to rank it fourth is more about sticking it to "Twice Upon a Time" than appreciating "The Trolley Problem" on its own merits.

3. "The Deep" by Clipping.

I don't listen to hip-hop, but between this song and last year's album Splendor & Misery, I appreciate the artistry of Clipping. when I hear it. This song is about an underwater race made up of the children of pregnant African women thrown off slave ships; in the near future, they discover the surface world when corporations come looking for oil. (The underwater civilization is apparently from the work of a 1990s electronica duo.) Only five minutes long, which makes it hard to rank high, but it packs a punch.

2. Black Mirror 4x01: "USS Callister," written by Charlie Brooker & William Bridges, directed by Toby Haynes

This is the second episode I've seen of Black Mirror, after last year's Hugo finalist "San Junipero." This wasn't as good as that, but I still really enjoyed it. It seems like it's going one way, but then there's a clever swerve about twenty minutes in, and it suddenly becomes a different story. It seems at first like it's going to critique Star Trek tropes, but it actually almost reaffirms them. Horrifying at times, good jokes at others, with some neat details and twists I didn't anticipate.

1. Star Trek: Discovery 1x07: "Magic to Make the Sanest Man Go Mad," written by Aron Eli Coleite & Jesse Alexander, directed by David M. Barrett

I actually nominated this, my favorite episode of Discovery's first season, and a poster child for what the series does at its best: rework the tropes of Star Trek for people who have seen them plenty, plus throw in some heartwarming emotional moments. (Read my review of the whole first season linked above if you want more details.) I couldn't decide if I liked this or "USS Callister" more, but it would be really nice for Star Trek to win a Hugo again, so I used that as my arbitrary tiebreaker; it last won in 1995 for the Next Generation finale "All Good Things..."

Overall Thoughts

Best Graphic Story continues to be a strong category; my placement of "No Award" is a bit misleading. Any of my top three I'd happily see win. I also understand why people like Monstress and Bitch Planet even if these particular volumes didn't do it for me, and it wouldn't bother me if they won either, despite where I ranked them! I suspect my ranking of Black Bolt first will be in a definite minority (I mean, I'm as surprised as anyone); my guess is either Saga or Monstress for the win.

I also found the long-form Dramatic Presentations better than last year's. Thankfully there's a lot less 1980s nostalgia this year. A whole two non-franchise films! Three legitimately strong films, and I know Last Jedi and Wonder Woman have their fans, too. Last year it was pretty obvious to me that Arrival would crush it, but this year things are less clear. A sizeable minority love Get Out, but I suspect it's not to everyone's taste; it definitely won't be The Last Jedi; Ragnarok is not particularly serious. That leaves Wonder Woman or Shape of Water, I suspect. (But who knows. Maybe with the way instant preference voting works, Ragnarok will be everyone's second choice and thus win it?)

Short form was kind of weird: the Discovery episode and "USS Callister" seem kind of obvious as finalists, but two episodes of a sitcom? A (admittedly good) hip-hop track? A mediocre Doctor Who episode? Given the wealth of quality science fiction and fantasy on tv today, these are really the best six? No The Expanse or Legion or The Handmaid's Tale? (I suspect the issue is that with serialized shows, there's no one episode that draws a lot of nominations.) This category will definitely be won by "USS Callister," but I couldn't even begin to guess how the ranking will break down after that.