The Asylum

http://www.drshnaps.com/awards/awards1.html

Like it says, post your nominations here.

I wish to nominate the "A Modest Destiny" series (my source of inspiration) by Sean Howard. The comic can be viewed at http://www.squidi.net

There is one slight thing that might need brought to attention though...Season 3 (the current season) uses drawn backgrounds as opposed to pixel versions. Sprite characters are still used, though, and pixel backgrounds were used for all of Season 1 and 2, with great success.

Categories I'd like to nominate A Modest Destiny for:

Best Sprite Comic: From start to its current point this comic features a great shift in mood. The first season is far more light-hearted than the darker 2nd and 3rd seasons. Howard does a fantastic job of keeping readers entertained whether he's creating for comedic effect or plot development. And, as I already says, his comic is the inspiration for all of mine.

Best Use of Art/Backgrounds: I think the drawn backgrounds give a much more "personalized" feel to his comic. However, they aren't really sprites. Regardless, time and time again in past seasons Howard has created very visually appealing backgrounds when needed. Art is never his focus in creation, and that shows, but I like the backgrounds to be unobtrusive, and he accomplishes this well.

Best Drama: I don't want to spoil anything for potential readers, but Howard has evolved from his early days of comedic comics to become a fantastic serial storyteller. He excels at weekend cliffhangers and keeps audiences guessing as to characters' true intentions almost as well as Agatha Christie, if anyone is familiar with her work.

Best Character Development: Again, I don't want to spoil the pasts of some of the characters involved, but Sean does a tremendous job of at least attempting to explain why a character has become embittered or insane, etc. One character's story, in particular, is horrific enough to make you squirm in your seat. And, perhaps best of all, he can effectively portray this through dialogue...no unnecessarily graphic images are required.

That's my nomination.

And a damn good one too. See that post people? That's what I want your nominations to look like. I don't wanna see "OMG TIS COMIC IS TEH ROXXORS!" or any crap like that.

Yea this is gonna be a cool award cermony, expecially since I'm doing most of the graphics involved.

Well, let's see...

First off;

Best Comedy; I nominate the Karnak Show, mostly for its off-beat sense of humor. While most comics depend on bad puns and a slightly ridiculous viewpoint on the world, the Karnak Show is one of the most angry and rantificious things I have ever seen. There is no such thing as a good person in the Karnak Show, only different idiots and jerks trying to steal the stage. To add to the characters in humor is the author himself, sometimes dedicating full pages to a ridiculous rant; maybe about teenagers, maybe about Cookie Monster, but always funny.

Best Video Game Storyline; Bob and George. While some think this is because of the popularity, I beg to differ. The beauty of the video game plotlines Bob and George present are rather nominated because of their originality and their amount. While many comics attempt to parody one game, or if they're really good, two, Bob and George has gone through at the moment four Megaman games, in order even. Also, bob and George especially in its middle years has been true to the game's story while adding its own twist, doing the balance successfully where many have failed.

Best Use of Art/Backgrounds; 8-Bit Theatre, by Brian Clevinger. Although some consider that this cannot be nominated since the backgrounds are no longer pixelated, I believe this to be the very reason Clevinger should be nominated. The blending of realistic looking backgrounds and large, simple sprites works wonderfully for 8-Bit Theatre, giving it somewhat more of a personal feel. And that's about all I have to say on that.

I would like to nominate How to Make a Sprite Comic in Eight Easy Bits (or just "Eight Easy Bits" for short) for the positions of Best Sprite Comic, Best Comedy, Most Unique Storyline, Best Character Development, and Best Protagonist. Eight Easy Bits is a sprite comic, about a guy living in a sort of Who Framed Roger Rabbit-like world, where sprites and people live alongside one another. The artist, who I'm pretty sure is never named, decides one day to make a sprite comic, and quickly discovers how the Internet is saturated with them. Nevertheless, he goes forth with his plan. The only person who shows up at his audition is Myer, the hero of Deadly Towers, arguably one of the worst NES games ever made. Eight Easy Bits is filled with commentary on the geek lifestyle, classic video games, the sprite comic scene, and hilarious side conversation.

Also: for Best Sprite Comic, Best Use of Sprites, Best Use of Special Effects, Best Drama, Best Video Game Storyline Comic, and Best Character Development, I nominate 8-Bit Theater. Some of these nominations make no sense. However, to anyone who's read Brian's book, Nuklear Age, the subtler aspects of the comic become apparent. The development, in fact, is of amazingly high quality: the characters change without denying the traits that make them popular in the first place. Black Mage, for example, becomes more sympathetic as a character and more empathetic as a person, while remaining the same old bitter sarcastic homicidal lust-maniac we all know and love. And if you're looking for subtlety, can anyone forget Episode 434 and its cryptic foreshadowing?

Here are my personal nominations:

MSpaint Masterpieces by Disgruntled Ferret for Best Sprite Comic, Best Use of Sprites, Best Drama, Best Videogame Storyline Comic, Best Character Development, Best Megaman Comic, and Best 8-bit comic.

Planet Zebeth by Kabutroid for Best Sprite Comic, Best Metroid Theme, Best Comedy, and Best 8-bit Comic.

Rubin Dante: Time Vagrant by Yutz for Best Original Storyline, Best Drama, and Best Protagonist.

The Number 000 Blues by Xaphan for Best Drama, Best Videogame Storyline Comic, and Best Megaman Comic.

Metroid 3rd Derivative by Reynard for Best Use of Special Effects and Best Metroid Comic.

Legacy of Terra by Karnak for Best Drama, Most Unique Storyline, and Best Action.

Misadventures by Plague for Best Use of Special Effects. I actually have no idea what is going on in this comic, but those special effects are pretty so I had to add it.

The Karnak Hates Everything Show by Karnak for Best Comedy, Best Antagonist, and Best Character Development. Also the name of this comic just rocks.

Cuteness² + Evilness³ = Kirby! by Pishi the Penguin for Best Kirby Theme.

Sorry for the lack of reasons, I'll update later with them maybe. But if I don't, hey, I know what the reasons are, and that's all that really matters, right? I'm runnin' the show here.

Well I nominate A Modest Destiny for best humor.

You got the link already.

And also A Spaceship Destiny on the same site for best humor

I would like to nominate "The Legend of Captain N64", one of the sprited subcomics located at Hazard Labs.

Located here:The Legend of Captain N64

Created By: Professor Hazard and Senor Booyah

Categories I'd like to nominate "The Legend of Captain N64" for are:

Best Use of Sprites: The Hazard Labs crew has taken great and painstaking efforts in creating 8-bit versions of their avatars. While all the sprites take a form from either Mega Man or one of the Robot Masters as their basis, each of the separate HazLabbers has a unique look, and each sheet, as far as I can tell, has been done completely. It took me months to figure out which models they used for all the bases, and that's saying a lot for edits. The effort put into each of the sprites is nothing short of amazing. Also, look for their own special "megaman-ized" rendition of Samus Aran's sprites.

Best Comedy: "The Legend of Captain N64" tells its bizarre tale mostly through Engrish (as in poorly translated English). Although that's not what truly makes it funny, it certainly is a part of it. The other part lies within the clever jokes, the bantering between Haz Labbers, be it with chracters they meet or villians they face, and the illustration of the effects of teleporting human beings (apparently it induces vomiting). One of the moments that really made me laugh was when Professor Hazard confesses that he can't understand what Kirby is saying, citing "I don't speak Marshmallow!"

EDIT: Upon seeing the post below mine, and remembering that there was such a category, I am also going to nominate Legend of Captain N64 for Best 8-bit Sprite Comic. Well...seconding the nomination anyway.

I'll add a nomination to the above comic(Legend of Captain N64) for
== Best 8-bit Sprite Comic ==
because that category is low on nominations anyway.

I'm trying to stay an informed voter by reading all of the nominated comics, Some of them are so bleeding boring, but I Think I've read atleast the first 10 and last 10 episodes of all the nominated comics, so I can make an impartial vote (and to get a feel for how the comics started and how good/bad they are now) but I think most people will just vote for whatever comic they know, or of have heard of, which will probably water down the quality of votes.

I'd like to suggest that there be a seperate category for best Drshnaps Comic series just so the local authors can have a chance of winning something too, with no nominations required just everything from "Loser Sprites" down the side list to "Star Shadow" automatically entered, with the exceptions of "Crazy Kitty Kage" & "Red Tsunami" since they're not sprites and not 25 episodes. Odds are Schnaps would win it anyway, seeing it's his site and he won the Which Author to interview first poll, but dang it, he deserves an award every now and then.

Another Suggestion, I'm not too fond of this voting system, where you narrow it down to 5 and then right away vote on who wins, Ideally I'd probably want to narrow it down to 5 by July 1st, but instead of voting for the whole month of July only hold voting from like the 15th or 20th so people have time to read more of the finalists comic strips, or set up a page where you can view a few random episodes from each of the finalists because I think most people will be too lazy to go and actually find out which comics are actually worthy.

Also, I was just wondering who gets to vote, and how, cause you'll have a lot of cheating if it's like the Fanservice polls, seeing I could easily go to school walk into a computer lab, and vote 100 times for my favourites and then go back the next day again to vote again, basically whoever has more access to computers would win,

one last suggestion for now, actually more like just a comment or weird observation, the "1st annual DSP Sprite Award" Banner, Kirby should probably by reduced in size a little, up until now I thought it was a weird duck with funny cheek bones, so if you shrunk it a little it would be more distinguishable that it's a star and not a ducks bill, then again maybe I'm the only one who confuses the two so easily.

Just to point out, StarShadow doesn't have 25 episodes either.

well my main point was the others not being Sprite Comics, but I guess, No List For You!! also it hasn't been updated since March 2, so it fails the updated in the last 2 months rule too, although I here you'll be updating it today?

Yeah, sometime between 1 and 3 Central Daylight Time.

We might do an awards thing for DSP comics later. But I don't wanna run it at the same time as this. My personal comics would be excluded though, because everyone sucks up to me it seems ...

YOUR COMICS SUCK!!!

Oh, like anybody else would resist. Admit it.