Harvey Award Fiasco

Well the Internet has been abuzz about the Harvey Award nominations, or more to the point, their lack of nominations. Tom Spurgeon, Robot 6, The Beat, and many others have been weighing in on the issue. The main problem being the way in which the nominations come about. Nominations for the Harvey Awards are collected through ballots and the ones with the highest amounts get nominated for the awards. That is whey we can see Grant Morrison and John Gallagher up against each other for best writer or Nascar Heroes racing to beat Love and Rockets and Y: The Last Man for best single issue.

Some people are claiming this is a case of ballot stuffing, and there have even been reports about previous years where Gemstone was handing out filled in ballots to their employees to turn in. One the one hand, I completely see this as being a terrible way to run an award show. The validity of the awards really comes into question when it becomes a popularity contest. On the other hand, what does it say about the comics not being nominated? Do they not have enough of a fan base to turn in a ballot for them and make them a contender? Or is this really a case that not too many people care about the Harveys any more. Unfortunately I think its the latter.