From: tyg@valhalla.HQ.Ileaf.COM (Tom Galloway)
Newsgroups: rec.arts.comics.misc
Subject: Alternative Squiddies Ballot
Date: 5 Jan 1993 09:59:29 -0600
Organization: UTexas Mail-to-News Gateway
NNTP-Posting-Host: cs.utexas.edu

Presenting the Alternative Squiddies ballot, the awards for those categories
which are too temporary or silly to make it onto the regular Squiddy ballot.
As well as the opportunity to create your own categories. Remember these are
for events which occured during 1992, and it's not required that you vote
in each category. One vote per category though.

The first part of this post describes the official categories, in most 
cases with a bit of commentary or explanation. Then there's a bit about
making up your own categories. Finally, there's a ballot with only categories
and no explanations for cut & paste filling out.

Mail ballots back to me by 0001 EST Friday January 22nd, and results will
be posted shortly afterwards. The reason for the deadline of 1 minute after
midnight on that Friday is that I'll be out of town and email impaired for
the week starting that evening through the 1st of February.

r.a.c. Related Categories:

Best Nom du Net:
Best .sigs: 
Best Net.Character: LNH members, Suicide Squid, Marc Lynx, and Mr. Peanut
     are all eligible, along with any other such who exist in a creative
     manner on r.a.c.*. Nominating a real person would be considered tres
     tacky though.
Body Part You'd Give To Have A Copy Of Cowboy Wally Show: Those with a copy
     can use their imagination.
Zombie Thread Award: Topics that just won't die

Company/situation Oriented Categories:

Comic You'd Most Want From Lucien's Library:
Who/What Should Have Killed Superman: Yes, Doomsday is eligible
How Superman Will Return:
Most Overexposed Marvel Character: We're talking number of appearances relative
    to interest here, not Sue Storm's new costume.
Character You'd Most Like To See Undergo A Sex Change: Inspired by three
    characters, Shade, Shvaugn/Sean Erin, and Lobo doing just that over
    about a 2 month period [pun not intended]
Cross-Company Team-Up You'd Most Like To See: I'll fudge this a bit by saying
    that I'm hoping for ones that we probably won't ever see, unlike, say,
    Batman-Captain America or Flash-Quicksilver. More like Strong Guy-Tenzil
    Kem or Stanley & His Monster-Calvin & Hobbes.
Image Comic Most Likely To Be In Quarter Bins By 1994:

More General Comics Related Categories: 

Best Quote From A 1992 Comic Book:
Worst Comedown: The title that's gone downhill the furthest
Most Pointless Death: Yes, it counts even if the person is brought back
Best Retcon:
Worst Retcon: You wouldn't believe how tempting it is to have a special LSH
     subcategory here...
Worst Marketing Gimmick: To quote from a last year's ballot: 
     "Are you _sure_ I can only choose one for this..." Be specific though;
     "Special covers" is too general.
Most Gratuitous Use Of A Hot Character In Another Comic To Attract Readers:
Best Continuity Error In A Continuing Series: NOT most continuity errors, mind
     you; best single error, or chain of related errors. Also eligible are
     things which aren't really errors in the book in question, but which
     are such relative to other books, such as a couple of planet destructions
     before their time.
Most Regretted Cancellation:
Worst Scientific Mistake/Pseudoscience: Btw, as mentioned in last year's 
     ballot, it's this year that B.I.O.N.-specific gravity is eligible.

In addition to voting on the above formal categories, the Alternative 
Squiddies also provide you with the opportunity to make up your own category(s)
and winner(s) of same. To give you an idea of what this can be like, here are
some of my favorite categories from last year, in some cases with winners.

Please note that these aren't actual categories for you to provide winners
for for this year (although certainly some of them may be repeated by several
people, such as "Most Underrated Comic"). The idea is for you to comment on
some trend or concept that you found noteworthy which isn't covered by either
the Squiddies or Alternative Squiddies.

Most Underated Mainstream Book(s):
Guilty Pleasure Mainstream:
Most Irritating Price Increase In A Comic That I Will Buy No Matter How
  Bloody Expensive They Make It:  GROO
Character I'd Most Like To Lobotomize With A Rusty Swiss Army Knife: Cable
The Generalissimo Francisco Franco award for Still Being Dead After All These
  Years: Captain Mar-Vell (and they better damn well keep it that way)
Best PAD line:
The Most In Need of Some Economics Classes Award: for all the suckers who 
  bought zillions of copies of X-men #1a-e thinking that they'll be worth
  something some day. (let's not *all* give this one to Superman #75 this year,
  eh?)
Worst Character Name:
The I-Don't-Know-What-the-Hell-He's-Saying-But-I-Like-It Award:
  Garth Ennis for taking bold new strides with John Constantine's English 
  slang
Best Cover:
Biggest Disappointment:
The Spinning-In-His-Grave Award For Best Betrayal Of A Character's Original
  Concept:
The Mushroom Award For Keeping People In The Dark And Feeding Them Plenty
  Of Bullshit:  Marvel's press releases.
The "It's Only a Flesh Wound" Award of Meritous Valor, Posthumous:
  In one of the first Byrne Uncanny's, one of the Hellions has their
  life drained to feed FitzGerald's time portal. The same Hellion is shown
  captured in Fitz's iceberg fortress the very next issue, where she dies 
  again, to power that same one-way portal. 
The Marlin Perkins Toothy Congratulations Medallion for Most Painstaking
  Background Research for a Quote:
  In Wolverine #51, Forge, watching over Wolvie's Danger Room session,
  observes that "He's regressed to the emotional response pattern of a
  berserker killer ape." Uh huh. Now just what researcher went around
  gathering brain patterns from berserker killer apes so Forge could do
  that comparison, and why are they still working in their field?
Best Anagrams for Tom DeFalco:  (tough, his name's only ten letters)
  Calfed Moot / Flood me cat
The "Book Most deserving of the Weedwhacker(tm)" award goes to Swamp Thing
  under Nancy Collins.
Comic least deserving of Tom DeFalco's writing: Fantastic Four
Comic most deserving of Tom DeFalco's writing: 	X-Force  (it seems natural...)
Best Excuse For A Switch To Marxism: Marvel on Wall Street
The Gerhard Scholarship For The Purpose Of Learning To Draw Background Awards:
  Rob Liefeld
The "Look-At-All-The-Pretty-Colors" Award:  Shade, the Changing man
Comics Creator Whose Work Is Most Likely To Send R.A.C.ers To A Major 
  University Research Library: Neil Gaiman 
----------------------------------------------------------------------

Best Nom du Net:
Best .sigs: 
Best Net.Character: 
Body Part You'd Give To Have A Copy Of Cowboy Wally Show:
Zombie Thread Award: 

Company/situation Oriented Categories:

Comic You'd Most Want From Lucien's Library:
Who/What Should Have Killed Superman: 
How Superman Will Return:
Most Overexposed Marvel Character:
Character You'd Most Like To See Undergo A Sex Change: 
Cross-Company Team-Up You'd Most Like To See:
Image Comic Most Likely To Be In Quarter Bins By 1994:

More General Comics Related Categories: 

Best Quote From A 1992 Comic Book:
Worst Comedown: 
Most Pointless Death: 
Best Retcon:
Worst Retcon: 
Worst Marketing Gimmick: 
Most Gratuitous Use Of A Hot Character In Another Comic To Attract Readers:
Best Continuity Error In A Continuing Series: 
Most Regretted Cancellation:
Worst Scientific Mistake/Pseudoscience: 

"David Duke has decided to run for President in 1996 with Oliver North
as his running mate. They'll running as the Ku Klux Klan and Ollie ticket"
--Capitol Steps
tyg   tyg@hq.ileaf.com
Newsgroups: rec.arts.comics.misc