Baltimore Comicon was its usual greatness. Marc Nathan runs a darn fine show, and has a ninja-like awesome staff. And I'll write more about that soon, but I had a long day of driving and unpacking, and I'm a little beat. I'll post fun stuff and stories and pictures soon, including why I'm jealous or Lora Innes. But for now, I know what you want to really read about…
The Harvey Awards.
Yeah, I didn't win. And I'm disappointed, but man, it was an awesome experience. Let me warn you now, this is gonna be a long one…
I was nominated in two categories: Best Letterer and Best Cartoonist. When you're in comics, everyone knows what the awards and the categories are. When you're talking to people outside the industry, its a harder explanation. It's kind of like being nominated MVP in soccer. People understand it's a good thing, but come on, it's soccer, does anyone in the real world care? So it's hard to find people outside the comics circle who get it. But I'll do my best to explain it.
The Harvey Awards are kind of like the SAG Awards. Voted on by comics professionals. There are the "technical" categories, like Best Letterer and Best Colorist, and the more prestigious categories, like Best Artist and Best Cartoonist. They're all important, though.
The awards are held in the Mariott Ballroom. It's a pretty swanky affair, actually. Hors d'overs, drinks, fancy dinner. I and my Mom headed over about seven.
Yeah, my Mom. When she found out I was up for a Harvey, she decided to come. She was planning on Amtrakking up and surprising me, but was stymied by the ticket-getting process. So she asked in that "I'll just show up anyway" way for me to bring her along.
As the awards approached, the gravitas of the whole thing began to weigh on me. It's a pretty cool thing to be nominated for a Harvey, and the thought of receiving one started to twist in my brain. It was nice to have Mom there to act as a safety valve to keep me from spending too much time in my own head.
I sat with a bunch of my fellow nominated friends and their families, and we had a great time. And the Scott Kurtz started the awards.
I already hated Scott Kurtz. He got to be on MacBreakWeekly, and I love that show all to pieces. Jealousy's a horrible thing. Then, on top of it, he turns out to be a great host. Funny as can be. There was a Glengarry Glen Ross parody cartoon that was pretty funny, and his first quip of the night was "We'd like to thank you all for attending, but our attendance isn't up to Diamond's minimums, so the whole night is cancelled."
It's funny because it's true.
Scott also gets it, in a pretty awesome way. After the whole Kanye West thing, I expected there to be some "You've got a great book, Taylor Swift, but…" thing along the way. I even joked that we needed to have an over/under pool on the first joke. I would have lost, because there never was one.
I mentioned this to Scott after the ceremony, and he said that they thought about it, but any joke like that would have taken away from someone's big moment. That's pretty cool, to be that aware of the moment for the individual to not go for the big joke.
The first award given was the Best Letterer. Honestly, I didn't think that I'd win. I was up against some great letterers, and ones who still practice hand lettering. I started that way, and can still bust it out when I need to, but I'm mostly font-based these days. So, when I lost to John Workman, I was pretty centered with it.
What followed was two hours of the most fun awards I've ever been part of. I'm not a big fan of awards shows. I've always said that unless I'm up for one, or have money riding on it, I don't watch them. I was up for this one, though. Scott was very funny, and so were most of his presenters. It was a great time.
And it almost distracted me from worrying about the big award.
I had all that time to think about winning or losing the Best Cartoonist Award. It was a little nerve-wracking. But a weird thing happened along the way.
I realized the honor that it was to be nominated.
The whole ceremony has a very real spirit of collegiality to it. There's a "we're all in this together" vibe. As it went on, you really get a sense of the heft of the award and the recognition. There have been 22 Harvey ceremonies. If each one has five nominees, and none of them overlapped (which is an oversimplification) that means 110 people have ever been nominated for Best Cartoonist. I'm one of them.
Wow. That's just… wow.
So, by the time that my award category rolled around, I wasn't worried about winning. I was just humbled to be in that company.
Oh, yeah, and I was up against Al Jaffee, of Mad Magazine fame. If I'd won, I might have Kanye Wested myself. It's Al Jaffee, I'm not in his weight class. So, when he was, it was no surprise.
That's all right, though. If you've got to lose to someone, he's a pretty good person to lose to. I can't complain at all.
It was a great time, and I'm glad I got to share it with my friends and family. Congratulations to all the nominees and to those who did win, especially Bryan Glass who was just so thrilled that it was heartwarming. He did a somersault onto the stage, in fact. Heck, I almost didn't want to win just to not have to follow that.
So what's next?
There's an episode of "The West Wing" where the President and his staff are getting upset about the lack of progress they've made and the problems they've failed to find solutions for. In it, Sam Seyborn has this exchange:
Sam: I was thinking about what you asked me before about have I been able to think of anything, and I said, "No." And you said, "Neither have I and neither has the President."
Leo: What about it?
Sam: I wouldn't speak for anybody else, but you know I'm not done yet, right?
I'm not done yet, either.
