Saturday, April 11, 2009

Tom Russell at the 15th Annual RACCies

For twelve years, on and off, I've been writing superhero fiction on the USENET newsgroup rec.arts.comics.creative. When I first started, I was, to put it delicately, God-Awful. I have, however, improved greatly over time.

And while that improvement is very much its own reward-- I write my stories primarily for my own pleasure-- it is always nice to have that improvement recognized by other members of the RACC community. Comments, reviews, and other kinds of feedback are what's directly responsible for that improvement in the first place. That's the sort of recognition I thrive on.

But, you know, it's always nice to win something. And that brings us to this year's RACCies-- the newsgroup's annual awards ceremony. At my very first RACCies, I took home the "Ed Wood Golden Pie Plate" Award-- an award of perhaps dubious merit that hinted at both my high level of enthusiasm and my low level of accomplishment. The last few years, I've done considerably better.

This year, I won RACC14, Favorite Person Who Hangs Out On RACC and I tied for RACC1, Favorite Writer, with the esteemable Rob Rogers. My series JOLT CITY, which took home the Best Acra Series (that is, the best series for mature audiences) award the last two years in a row, lost that one this year by one point to Dave Van Domelen's NEW EXARCHS but was consoled by being deemed RACC2, Favorite Ongoing Series.

My creation WikiBoy, part of the LNH shared universe, took home RACC8, Favorite Supporting Character, though it should be noted that this year I didn't write anything for the character myself, and so I can only claim some award by dint of paternity. That same paternal impulse causes me to gush somewhat proudly that the discussion thread "Writer's Block and Crazy-Ass Ideas", which I instigated, took home RACC15, Best Discussion.

All-in-all, not a bad haul.

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