These are my ballots for Dublin 2019: An Irish Worldcon, 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.
Best Dramatic Presentation (Long Form)
6. Avengers: Infinity War, written by Christopher Markus & Stephen McFeeley, directed by Anthony Russo & Joe Russo
Going into this film, I was convinced it was going to be terrible and there was no way they were going to pull it off. That they
did pull it off is a testament to the skill of everyone involved, but I still don't think it's particularly great. Parts of it are clever and exceptional, but parts of it are bloated with spectacle. Characters have to make dumb choices a little too often to make the story work.
5. A Quiet Place, screenplay by Bryan Woods & Scott Beck and John Krasinski, directed by John Krasinski
A postapocalyptic horror thriller where people must make as little sound as possible: this was intense and well constructed. I think probably it was a better film than
Sorry to Bother You or
Black Panther.
That I don't want to rank it higher than them reveals, I think, how voting in the Hugos is not just about quality, but about the best
in a genre. It might be a better film than
Sorry to Bother You but I don't think it's a better sf/f film. I told this to Hayley and she objected it was totally an sf premise, and she's right... but the movie isn't interested in doing sf things with that premise, it's interested in doing horror things. (I thought there were some pretty implausible parts of the premise, actually.) Those aren't mutually exclusive, of course, but the film definitely emphasize scares over, say, worldbuilding, and it's hard for me to point at
A Quiet Place and say it's the best that
sf on film has to offer even if it is very good.
4. Sorry to Bother You, written and directed by Boots Riley
If this whole film had been like its first two thirds, this would be hovering a little higher, probably just below
Annihilation. It starts out a funny, dark comedy about a black guy trying to make it as telemarketer; once he learns how to adopt a "white voice" he's suddenly the superstar, right as his telemarketing workplace is unionizing. The scenes especially where he is initiated as a "power caller" are amazing. But if it had all been like its first two thirds, it wouldn't have been sfnal, not really, even if it does seem to take place about five minutes into the future. The last third gets strange, partially in ways that I liked, and that continue the satire of the beginning, but partially in ways that kind of make it feel like the film is floundering and doesn't know how to resolve. Great acting, great music, great visual gimmicks. Definitely more ambitious than
Black Panther, but not as consistent in realizing its ambitions.
3. Black Panther, written by Ryan Coogler & Joe Robert Cole, directed by Ryan Coogler
I admired this film more than I loved it. Great cast, good worldbuilding, but ultimately it's a Marvel superhero film by the numbers. Which is an achievement in its own way, but I felt that like many Marvel movies, it tries to raise issues of complexity without dealing with their complexity. No one in Wakanda actually seems tempted by Killmonger's plan, which makes it all a little too easy for Black Panther to win everybody back; he himself doesn't feel like he quite goes low enough to ultimately be reborn.
2. Annihilation, written and directed by Alex Garland
This film was really captivating, making you feel strange and tense. Like
Arrival on the 2017 ballot, this seems like the kind of thing the Hugos should be rewarding. Great music, great direction, one of Natalie Portman's greatest performances, astounding visuals, great sfnal ideas. I like stories that point at how big the universe is, and how unfriendly it is, and this definitely does that. Every time you think you have the lay of the land, the movie changes tack, up to the strangely beautiful ending. I feel sad this had to come out the same year as
Into the Spider-Verse, as I would have ranked it #1 on, say, 2018's ballot.
1. Spider-Man: Into the Spider-Verse; screenplay by Phil Lord & Rodney Rothman; directed by Bob Persichetti, Peter Ramsey, & Rodney Rothman
I expected that I would like this; I did not expect that I would rank it so high. Funny, moving, clever, dramatic, it plays with superhero spectacle and interpersonal drama with equal astuteness, knowing how to mix them. Definitely the best
Spider-Man film since
Spider-Man 2; probably the best
Spider-Man film of them all. If every superhero film was this good, the saturation of the genre would be worth it. Some Marvel movies feel manufactured (I enjoyed
Captain Marvel, for example, but it's very Marvelly), but this one feels real. Plus it's just gorgeous, using the animation medium to its utmost, especially during the final battle. And the jokes. Oh the jokes! Honestly this is better than a
Spider-Man cartoon movie had any right to be.
Best Dramatic Presentation (Short Form)
6. The Good Place, Chapter 31: "Jeremy Bearimy," written by Megan Amram, directed by Trent O'Donnell
Sometimes you can drop into a serialized show and figure out why you should care, and you do care. Sometimes you drop into a serialized show, however, and bunch of characters who were dead last time you saw them now live in Australia, and you spend the whole episode wondering what's going on. Lots of people go around doing things I didn't care about; the title of the episode comes from a joke I thought was vaguely amusing, but has nothing to do with anything.
5. Doctor Who 11x03: "Rosa," written by Malorie Blackman & Chris Chibnall, directed by Mark Tonderai
This episode-- Doctor Who Discovers Rosa Parks-- had its good and even great moments, but didn't come together. Like too many episodes of series 11, there are weird jumps in the story, bits that seem important but ultimately fizzle out. The Doctor feels curiously impotent, and there are spots where that's a feature, but too often it's a bug. I'm not surprised this was a finalist, though; it feels like the
Doctor Who equivalent of Oscar-bait. (I nominated "It Takes You Away" personally, but I'm not surprised that
didn't make the finalists list.)
4. The Expanse 3x13: "Abbadon's Gate," written by Daniel Abraham & Ty Franck and Naren Shankar, directed by Simon Cellan Jones
I was an avid viewer of
The Expanse, but not long after I started watching season 3, I got busy
somehow and fell away after just one episode, so I had to skip over eleven episodes to watch this and vote! But I figured it would be okay because between then and now, I'd read
the book this season was based on. It kind of was. There are a number of characters in the show who are
not in this particular book, and as a season finale of a serialized show, its pay-offs are mostly action/plot, and not emotional, which was the strength of book three. Plus, some aspects seemed overly compressed, especially the fall-out after the climax (book one got fifteen episodes, but book three only seven!). I enjoyed it fine, and could imagine myself enjoying it more if I rewatched it in context, though, and there were no glaring incompetencies as there sometimes were in "Rosa," so I gave it the edge.
3. The Good Place, Chapter 36: "Janet(s)," written by Josh Siegal & Dylan Morgan, directed by Morgan Sackett
This is the best episode of
The Good Place of the four I've seen. I laughed at multiple jokes (I think for the first time), and it has an inventive premise: because the four main human characters have all been hidden inside the artificial construct Janet, the actress who plays Janet must play all four of them. (Most of the regular cast is barely in the episode.) She completely nails it, capturing their mannerisms and ways of speaking (without doing impressions) so well you kind of forget they're not being played by their normal actors. All that, plus a genuinely fun visit by Janet and Michael to Accounting, where the morality points people earn during their lives are reckoned. This is the first
Good Place ep I've seen to actually make me want to watch the show. Thus, I could imagine myself wanting to rewatch it in a way that's not true of "Rosa," so I ranked it higher.
2. Doctor Who 11x06: "Demons of the Punjab," written by Vinay Patel, directed by Jamie Childs
I enjoyed this more than "Rosa": it's another "worthy"
Doctor Who episode, this one is Doctor Who Discovers the Partition of India. It has nice human moments, and its lack of a real villain saves it from some of the problems that plagued a lot of other series 11 episodes. The thirteenth Doctor is at her best when being empathetic and enthusiastic, and this one did a great job with that.
1. Dirty Computer: An Emotion Picture by Janelle Monáe, directed by Andrew Donoho & Chuck Lightning, written by Chuck Lightning
I actually nominated this; it's a series of music videos from a concept album packaged into an overall narrative. Set in a dystopian future, Jane 57821 is captured by the government for being "dirty" (i.e., noncompliant), and we see her memories as they are "cleansed." It's visually amazing and inventive, and resonates with the contemporary moment metaphorically. It's unlike anything else on this shortlist, or unlike anything else I can remember, and that seems like the kind of thing worth awarding. (Incidentally, fact fans, this is one of three Dramatic Presentation finalists this year to star Tessa Thompson. She plays a very different character each time!)
Best Graphic Story
7. Monstress: Haven, script by Marjorie M. Liu, art by Sana Takeda
I liked the first volume of this series a lot, but with each successive volume, I enjoy it less. I'm happy other people are into it, and it seems a worthy finalist (and of course it's won the last two years), but it's hard for me to rank it remotely high.
6. Black Panther: Long Live the King; scripts by Nnedi Okorafor & Aaron Covington; art by André Lima Araújo, Mario Del Pennino, and Tana Ford, Terry Pallot, & Scott Hanna
Three standalone stories in the world of Black Panther: a three-issue one where he investigates the cause of an earthquake/blackout and runs into an old childhood friend, a two-issue one where he seeks out the leader of a dangerous cult and runs into an old childhood friend, and and one-issue one about a Venomized Black Panther who chases down robbers and runs into an old childhood friend. Apparently there is only one way to generate character drama. The first two stories are okay but unremarkable superhero adventures. Good concepts, but largely nothing is done with them except for fight sequences, and the art looks good but struggles to communicate action. The third I had to stop reading halfway through because I didn't understand where an interim Black Panther who was a wheelchair-using Nigerian girl carrying the Venom symbiote fit into things; I googled and discovered the whole story takes place in an alternate universe, which the comic book collection itself completely fails to mention. Anyway, last story aside, I understood what was happening so I ranked it above
Monstress.
5. No Award
I don't feel like the Hugo Award for Best Graphic Story is for merely competent superhero comics (even within the superhero genre, there is definitely better than
Black Panther), so this seems like the kind of circumstance in which one ought to deploy No Award.
4. Abbott, script by Saldin Ahmed, art by Sami Kivelä
This was a fun comic book: a black journalist in Detroit in 1972 discovers that dark occult forces are at work, and only she can put the pieces together to stop them. It was fun, but not great, I think because honestly the supernatural stuff feels like a distraction because it's all kind of generic. I'd rather be reading a comic about a hard-nosed bisexual reporter investigating police corruption in Detroit, which seems much more unique than a comic about a woman encountering dark supernatural forces. Though of course then it couldn't be a Hugo finalist. Anyway, great art, strong dialogue and sense of character. Ahmed is clearly a rising star in comics.
3. Paper Girls 4, script by Brian K. Vaughan, art by Cliff Chiang
I felt this volume of
Paper Girls was weaker than the volumes of
Paper Girls on either side of it, but a weak volume of
Paper Girls is still a comic book worth awarding. Vaughan and Chiang consistently do some of their best work here, month in, month out.
2. Saga, Volume 9, art by Fiona Staples, script by Brian K. Vaughan
Saga is always quality, and though I found aspects of volume 8 on the weaker side, volume 9 bounced back nicely, with some good character and thematic resolution. For me,
Saga is slightly better than
Paper Girls-- I think Vaughan has more to say in
Saga-- so an above-average
Saga wins out over a below-average
Paper Girls even though they're both great comics.
1. On a Sunbeam by Tillie Walden
Even though I really like both
Paper Girls and
Saga, I can't say I was excited to have them ranked up top. I feel like awards, especially genre awards, need to recognize works that are pushing forward. But
Saga already won in 2013 for volume 1, and was a finalist in 2014, 2015,
2017, and
2018, while
Paper Girls hasn't won yet but was a finalist in 2017 and 2018 already. All of my lower ranked placings also feel kind of recycled (
Monstress already won in 2017 and 2018, even). But
On a Sunbeam, which I read last, delighted and moved me. Walden takes the boarding-school story and the group-of-disparate-people-have-to-work-as-a-team-in-space story and makes something new in putting them together. Add a beautiful romance and even more beautiful art, and you have something quite amazing, something that even though it has many familiar elements, feels utterly unlike anything else I've read (except for maybe
Moto Hagio). Great stuff, and quite obviously the most deserving of the award by far.
Overall Thoughts
Long-Form Dramatic Presentation was probably the strongest of these three categories, where I'd be reasonably happy if anything in my top five won. I appreciate how the Hugos always cause me to seek out a few non-franchise films I might not have gotten around to in a long time, if ever, otherwise. I don't think the eventual winner is as clear-cut as in some other years:
Annihilation is my guess, but on the other hand, I feel like everyone who sees
Into the Spider-Verse is taken by it. Short Form was kind of a muddle, but then it always is; even the stronger stuff here didn't blow me away. My guess is that the inexplicable and inscrutable love of the Hugo electorate for
The Good Place causes "Janet(s)" to win. I really wish there was a more diverse pool of tv finalists, though; we supposedly live in the Golden Age of it after all!
Similarly, I wish Graphic Story was more diverse; as my comments on
On a Sunbeam point to, there's been a lot of repetition in this category in just the three years I've been voting. I kind of have a feeling
Monstress will threepeat, but I have no idea why people keep voting for it. I guess at least
Schlock Mercenary no longer makes the ballot.
