My daughter Maddie and I left the house yesterday for Comic Con in San Diego at 5:30 am and walked through the door of the convention center at 8:30. The Scribe Awards weren’t until 2, so we roamed around the exhibition floor for a few hours.
I was astonished by how many bootleg DVDs of TV shows were being sold there (and at outrageous prices)…which seemed awfully brazen to me, considering so many of the legitimate rights holders were in attendance.
I ran into my old friend Mark Evanier, who was signing copies of his
beautiful new book KIRBY: KING OF COMICS. The book is major achievement
and I’m glad Mark is getting the big sales and wide acclaim
that he deserves for it. He hinted to me that more, equally ambitious,
books are on the way from him.
On the way to the Scribes, we scooted through the autograph area, where I always find it sad to see has-been B, C and D list stars of yesteryear signing pictures of themselves for a few bucks. As we walked by, a morbidly obese, middle-aged man was singing a song to BUCK ROGERS co-star Erin Gray, who looked like she wished she was anywhere else but where she was sitting. Richard Hatch, thanks to the revival of BATTLESTAR GALACTICA, had two or three more people than Erin. But poor Herb Jefferson, another former GALACTICA cast member, was exiled to a table far from Hatch, and sat forlornly without a single fan.
The Scribe Awards and Tie-In Panel was sparsely attended at first, but by the time we were mid-way through, we built to a nice-sized crowd. Our 2008 Grandmaster Alan Dean Foster gave a thoughtful, and very funny, speech on the lack of respect tie-in writers get from the publishing industry and their fellow
writers, despite the huge success of tie-in books. He applauded the International Association of Media Tie-In Writer’s efforts to change that and to increase the awareness of tie-in writing in the mainstream media.
Other panelists included Andy Mangels, Max Allan Collins, Steve Leiva, Kevin J. Anderson, William Dietz and Stacy Deutsch. I must admit, though, that I was distracted for much of the panel by an audience member who had long hair and a beard on one half of his face and was bald and clean-shaved on the other. I couldn’t help thinking that he was a man born to drive Adrian Monk insane…
That’s a picture of Foster and me on the right. The Scribe Nominees and Winners (noted in bold with asterisks) are below:
BEST GENERAL FICTION ORIGINAL
CSI NY: DELUGE by Stuart M. Kaminsky
**MR. MONK AND THE TWO ASSISTANTS by Lee Goldberg
MURDER SHE WROTE: PANNING FOR MURDER by Jessica Fletcher & Donald Bain
CRIMINAL MINDS: JUMP CUT by Max Allan Collins
BEST GENERAL FICTION ADAPTED
**AMERICAN GANGSTER by Max Allan Collins
BEST SPECULATIVE ORIGINAL
LAST DAYS OF KRYPTON by Kevin J. Anderson
**STARGATE ATLANTIS: CASUALTIES OF WAR by Elizabeth Christensen
STAR TREK: THE NEXT GENERATION – Q&A by Keith R.A. DeCandido
BEST GAME-RELATED ORIGINAL (SPECIAL SCRIBE AWARD)
HITMAN: ENEMY WITHIN by William C. Dietz
FORGE OF THE MINDSLAYERS by Tim Waggoner
**EBERRON: NIGHT OF THE LONG SHADOWS by Paul Crilley
BEST SPECULATIVE ADAPTED
RESIDENT EVIL: EXTINCTION by Keith R.A. DeCandido
52: THE NOVEL by Greg Cox
**30 DAYS OF NIGHT by Tim Lebbon
BEST YOUNG ADULT ORIGINAL
BUFFY THE VAMPIRE SLAYER: THE DEATHLESS by Keith R.A. DeCandido
GOODLUND TRILOGY: VOLUME THREE: WARRIORS BONES by Stephen D. Sullivan
**NANCY DREW AND THE CLUE CREW #10: TICKET TROUBLE by Stacia Deutsch & Rhody Cohon
BEST YOUNG ADULT ADAPTED
**THE 12 DOGS OF CHRISTMAS by Steven Paul Leiva
Hey, congratulations on the win. You were up against some pretty stiff competition there.
Bravo!
Aren’t you the president of the association? Is it kosher for you to win?
Congratulations, Lee! Nice looking award, too. Thanks for sharing a pic of it with us.
I’m Jewish, so it must be kosher.
Seriously, though, Max and I wrestled with whether or not we should exclude ourselves and our work from consideration. We looked to see what other organizations were doing in this regard. The president, executive director, and board members of the MWA, for example, are all eligible for Edgars, only those serving as judges — or as the General Award charge — are ineligible (as I was last year when I served as Edgar Chair). The same is true, I believe, of the ITW. Since neither one of us has anything to do with the judging process, Max and I decided to submit our work. (We were both up for awards last year but lost to others).
Even so, I must admit I felt awkward getting an award from an organization that I co-founded. In fact, in my “acceptance speech,” I said that Max and I didn’t form this organization to give each other a statuette…but to enhance the professional and public image of tie-writers and broaden awareness of what it is that tie-in writers do. I think we have already made some big strides towards that goal…and the Scribes are a big part of that (When Publishers Weekly interviewed Christa Faust, they spent a big chunk of those column inches discussing how she felt about winning her Scribe…and beating Max Allan Collins, among others, for the honor). And to get an award from our peers in this field was a tremendous honor for us both.
All of the board members of ITW, as well as those involved in the awards process, are ineligible for the Thriller Awards. And didn’t MWA drop Mike Connelly from the Edgars shortlist a few years ago when he was president?
I’m not saying your way of doing it is necessarily wrong. I was just wondering.
I stand corrected on the ITW. Thanks for the clarification. As far as Connelly goes, he chose to remove himself from consideration after he learned that he been nominated. The MWA had nothing to do with it.
I don’t think a writer should be ineligible just because they are serving the group in some way as long as they have nothing to do with the judging. It’s fair to the writer and beneficial for the group (and for the public who are rooting for their fav authors).
“Mr. Monk and the Two Assistants” is my personal favorite of the three I have read so far. It has a special sweetness. So it seems right that it won.
Glad you had a good time at the event!
You had me rolling around laughing at your observations. It’s been a long time since I attended an SF / Comicon – and I too have some strange memories.
One was in the toilet of a London Comicana event in the 1980’s…..I was in the toilet taking a leak, when from the corner of my eye, a guy comes in, strips off to his Y-Fronts and then starts painting himself Blue with a tin of paint and a brush.
When I finished, I washed my hands by the blue guy [who was obviously a fan of Alan Moore’s THE WATCHMEN] and fled fast, lest I get into some weird conversation
Ali
Yay, Lee Goldberg. Congratulations!
YOu can always count on Connelly to do the classy thing. This is just part of why he’s so respected in the business.
Connelly had also won the Edgar in that category several times before (maybe even the previous year in fact). It’s easy to bow out when you’ve won the award several times but I mean no disrespect. It’s the same as Dennis Franz or John Larroquette bowing out of the Emmys after winning so many times in a row.
Although Connelly has been nominated a few times for the Best Novel Edgar, he’s never won it. He did win Best First Novel for his debut, THE BLACK ECHO.
Congrats on the win. Very well deserved.
Mark
Congrats Lee. Never mind who bowed out of what. The fact is you didn’t award yourself the statue – I expect that a board had a vote. Good is good and ought to be awarded.
Connelly rocks and so do you! Kudos!!
Pam