Haunted Fire Studio :: Benjamin Hall :: Illustrator and Comic Book Artist

Did anyone else watch the Scream Awards on Spike last night?

This was the first time I watched them and I have to say I was pretty impressed.  An award show devoted to Comics, Horror and Sci-fi?  Is Spike TV living in my brain?

There is something iffy about the fact that Comics are being treated as a genre now... (Comics, Horror and Scifi?... Wouldn't Horror and Sci-fi been enough?) but I suppose I'm happy that they got a separate, more attention getting, billing.

The funny thing was, it seemed as though the awards themselves were not super important, it was really just a big excuse to celebrate melodramatic fiction.  Anthony Hopkins, Tim Burton, Wes Craven and George Lucas all got awards for just being mind blowing bad asses.

All in all, it was REALLY cool and I had a blast watching it... which is more than I can say for most award shows... and I'm glad it spotlighted comics.

But looking at that glass of half full water, I'd like to see the comic creators, get a little more attention on the show.  Mike Mignola was on stage with the cast of Hellboy to accept an award for Del Toro and only Ron Perlman said anything.  Not necessarily the awards show's fault... but jeez the guy created the character and, I believe, was mentioned in the opening credits!  Stan Lee appeared on the stage to award the best comic award and mentioned something about how these comics are the blue prints of the next awesome movie.  GAH!  Why do comics have to be made into movies to be taken seriously... and blueprints? Nobody has every called the Harry Potter books great blueprints for AWESOME movies.  Movies that are adaptions should not be seen as the "final product". Yeesh!

...

Maybe it was his script... I don't know.  I guess I was jazzed to see a comics related award show on my TV only to have Stan "the face of superhero comics" Lee put them back in the creative ghetto.

Maybe I'm making too much of it.

Is there room for one last gripe?  The entire show was filmed with a haze effect on the cameras that made me feel like I had glaucoma for three hours.  For an award show devoted to people who will eat Ramen noodle soup for four years to afford an HD flat Screen TV, a blurry screen was not gothicky and cool, it was just really annoying.

BUT!... I really did enjoy it... it was a little geeky, the audience scared the pants of Anthony Hopkins, and it may not pave the way to comics being taken seriously...  But I do think it will sell more comics.. and maybe that's really what is important.

As long as I have cable, I'll watch it every year.