PRLog (Press Release) – Oct 19, 2008 – A panel of respected judges selected the winners after popular voting predominately narrowed each category to the top five finalists.  Interestingly a number of award winners were not the top vote getters as the judges in several categories bucked the popular sentiment.Best Art went to Sarah Ellerton, the writer and artist of Phoenix Requiem. Best Writing went to Michael Wakcher for Circle Versus Square.  Best Design was awarded to Elle Connelly by Indigo Kelleigh. Best Protagonist went to Dr. McNinja from The Adventures of Dr. McNinja by Chris Hastings.  Best Antagonist went to Dr. Horatio Synn from Johnny Saturn written by Scott Story and Benita Story.  The Best New Comic was Trying Human by Emy Bitner.  Finally, the Author Congeniality Award went to Krishna Sadasivam the author of PC Weenies.

A total of 139 nominations were made and voted upon in the seven categories.  Thousands of votes were received and tabulated before the judges took their turn.

The WCRCA’s are an awards for webcomics and are designed for readers to give their opinions on what they feel are their favorites in the various categories.  It also seeks to encourage readership and exposure to non-mainstream webcomics with a focus on new and different webcomics.

The influential panel of judges were Philip M. Hofer also known as Frumph who is a writer, programmer, and creator of the webcomic site that organized the awards Frumph’s News, List, Ratings and Reviews, J.T. Shea, the host of The Gigacast weekly webcomic podcast and founder of NightGig Studios, Kurt Sasso, host for Two Guys Talkin’ Webcomics, Steve Hamaker colorist of the Bone graphic novel series by Jeff Smith, creator of the novel Fish N Chips, and also a contributor to several of the Flight anthologies and finally, John Hernadez, founder of the webcomic host, The Rampage Network.

“There were a lot of really tough choices for the WCRCA’s,” said judge Kurt Sasso.  Sasso went on to say, “To think that one vote can change an entire category is a lot to take on. Which is why we truly discussed any choices we had at great length. I think we managed and learned from these awards. As long as readers new and old get to see some comics that they might not have seen before, then I’m happy to have given them a broader selection.”

Given the number and variety of nominees, total public votes cast and the prestigious judging panel, this award is destined to become one of the most prestigious in webcomic community.