Ed the Sock and Shusters

Many a blog has already provided coverage of this past weekend's inaugural recognition of The Shusters, the Canadian Comic Book Creator Awards. So there's no need for me to rehash coverage here.

But I was struck by some mainstream coverage it received, courtesy of the Canadian Broadcasting Corporation. This particular article not only covered this past weekend's events, but juxtaposed that coverage effectively with a preview of the May 28 "inaugural edition of the Doug Wright Awards – which are named after the prolific newspaper and magazine cartoonist, and are also designed to honour comic professionals".

Clearly, I've been hiding under a rock, because is this not only the first time I've heard about the Doug Wright Awards. More importantly, I was bewildered to find out the Shusters had "celebrities like Ed the Sock helping out as presenters". How the heck have I never heard of Ed the Sock? Fortunately Wikipedia picked up my slack and provided the following.

But seriously, the author of the CBC piece had a chance to talk to Seth ("the writer/artist responsible for the ongoing graphic novel Palookaville") who had the unique position of having been "nominated for a Shuster (which he did not win), and [who] is also up for a Wright".

Two things that struck me about the latter part of this piece.

First after acknowledging that Seth had been involved in the initial planning of the Wright Awards, the writer also noted that Seth had "issues with the Shusters, believing they honour popularity instead of excellence, and for that reason he did not attend Saturday's ceremony". I don't dispute Seth's take on the awards, but one has to wonder if his publisher would mind the attention and sales his work might garner if he won a Shuster? Sure it's early in the game for the awards' reputation to mean much, but as a Canadian creator who conceded that he was "pretty nationalistic, so it certainly does feel good to have some attention from home" on some level he must fathom that an element of sales is a popularity contest, particularly when it's the home crowd. This may be one of those "critic/fanboy doesn't understand the creator's area of experience/perspective" situation, however.

Secondly, I was surprised, with both awards just in their first year, why anyone felt the need to seemingly pseudo throw in the towel with the following optimistic line: "Neither organization has ruled out a possible merger in the future". [Update: Any merger would be logistical/organizational in manner, the awards themselves would not merge. Thanks to Shusters associate coordinator Kevin Boyd and Wright Awards' Brad Mackay for posting in TGC's comments section and clarifying some matters.]

Time will tell how things play out with the two awards. In the meantime, congrats to all the winners from this past weekend and good luck to the Wright nominees.