2018 Hugo Nominees: graphic stories

For a really thoughtful look at the 2018 Hugo Award nominees for Best Graphic Story, I highly recommend my Skiffy and Fanty crewmate Stephen Geigen-Miller's analysis.  He didn't name his top picks, though. So I'll give my quick reactions here.

Best Graphic Story nominees

Black Bolt, Volume 1: Hard Time, written by Saladin Ahmed, illustrated by Christian Ward, lettered by Clayton Cowles (Marvel)Bitch Planet, Volume 2: President Bitch, written by Kelly Sue DeConnick, illustrated by Valentine De Landro and Taki Soma, colored by Kelly Fitzpatrick, lettered by Clayton Cowles (Image Comics)Monstress, Volume 2: The Blood, written by Marjorie M. Liu, illustrated by Sana Takeda (Image Comics)My Favorite Thing is Monsters, written and illustrated by Emil Ferris (Fantagraphics)Paper Girls, Volume 3, written by Brian K. Vaughan, illustrated by Cliff Chiang, colored by Matthew Wilson, lettered by Jared Fletcher (Image Comics)Saga, Volume 7, written by Brian K. Vaughan, illustrated by Fiona Staples (Image Comics)

I really loved the first few volumes of Saga. But nothing moved me in this one; it just felt like echoes of what started out as big, fresh ideas. Moreover, in no way does Volume 7 stand on its own. The graphics are great, as always, but there's just not enough story for me. I'm not putting No Award above this on my ballot, but I'd be happier with any other entrant winning.

The 2017 entrants for both Paper Girls and Monstress were big improvements on their previous years, for me. The stories were much more coherent than in the first volumes, and that gave me room to feel more empathy for the protagonists.

Bitch Planet, Vol. 2 was a huge improvement over last year's entry, in my eyes. Vol. 1 just kept hitting me again and again with the horrors of a female-oppressing dystopia, but it didn't seem to be going anywhere. Vol. 2 weaves together disparate threads and gives considerable forward momentum to the story. This is one of my top three picks, and I'd be fine with it winning.

However, choosing my winner between Black Bolt and My Favorite Thing is Monsters is really difficult.

BB,V1 tells the story of a sometime king, imprisoned and learning about and from the other prisoners, and resisting torture with them. It tells a complete story, and a very satisfying one at that. The art is bold and striking. I'm thrilled that Black Bolt's success has led to other Marvel projects for writer Saladin Ahmed, and presumably Christian Ward too, although I don't follow his career (or Twitter) like I do Ahmed's.

MFTIM is something really unusual, told as the diary/art journals of Karen Reyes, a girl who pretends to be a werewolf so she can try to avoid being afraid and sad so much of the time. She tries to investigate the mysterious death of her upstairs neighbor, but she also writes and draws about other things in her life, and sprawls across the pages with asides and insets instead of filling them with panel-panel-panel like so many comic books do.  I don't feel quite right with where the story stops, but I'm enchanted to have had this chance to go through part of Karen's life with her. I'm very glad that my lovely local library has this graphic novel, and I hope a lot of people read it. That's why I'm giving My Favorite Thing Is Monsters my top vote for the Hugo Award, to try to boost awareness for this amazing debut work by writer/artist Emil Ferris.