The nominations for the 61st annual Nebula Awards, honoring the year’s best sci-fi and fantasy writing, have been announced. They include the new categories for Best Poem, and Best Comic. Now before we proceed to list the nominees for Best Comic, it should be noted that the awards are organized by the Science Fiction and Fantasy Writers Association (SFWA), and as such, only the books’ writers and publishers are listed in the press release.
The SFWA states, “Like the Ray Bradbury Award for Outstanding Dramatic Presentation and Game Writing Award, these new awards celebrate the writers at the heart of productions that also involve editors, artists, publishers, producers, and a wealth of other team members who make the magic happen.”
And the finalists for Best Comic are:
- Second Shift, by Kit Anderson (Avery Hill)
- Carmilla Volume 3: The Eternal, by Amy Chu (Berger Books)
- Helen of Wyndhorn, by Tom King (Dark Horse)
- Fishflies, by Jeff Lemire (Image)
- Mary Shelley’s School for Monsters: The Killing Stone, by Jessica Maison (Wicked Tree)
- Strange Bedfellows, by Ariel Slamet Ries (HarperAlley)
- The Flip Side, by Jason Walz (Rocky Pond)
- The Stoneshore Register, by G. Willow Wilson (Berger)
Understandably, the Nebulas’ decision to only recognize the books’ writers has garnered mixed reactions. Nominee Amy Chu, who created the Carmilla series with Soo Lee and Sal Cipriano, noted, “That little Spidey hallucination fight scene in Emma Frost that people keep giving me credit for? That was almost all [artist] Andrea DiVito. I just wrote the ‘thwip’! But you wouldn’t know that unless you had access to the script.”
The SFWA’s Bluesky account responded “Please write to sarc[at]sfwa.org to suggest changes to the process! This is an excellent window for feedback.” They elaborate, saying, “This is a challenge with the Ray Bradbury, too, because SFWA membership has historically been split as to whether the award is holistic in practice, or solely about writers. There is an excellent opportunity here for [the rules committee] to explore consistency-driven refinements to all Nebula naming conventions.”
Other nominees this year include James Gunn’s Superman in the category for Outstanding Dramatic Presentation, and AdHoc Studios’ Dispatch (by Ashley Jeffalone, Suzee Matson, Chris Rebbert, Chad Rhiness, and Pierre Shorette) for Best Game Writing. For the full list, head to the official website, or watch the video announcement below:
The winners will be announced at the Nebula Awards Conference in Chicago, on Saturday, June 6. For more details on the event, and how you can attend online or in-person, click here.
