Last night I was honored to play Master of Ceremonies to the 2010 Harvey Awards. This is my second year to MC the Harvey’s and I had another wonderful time. Last year I took a gamble that a room full of comic book industry professionals could laugh at themselves and their industry for some light roasting in between the tedium of passing out awards. We all had a great time and the jokes were well received. This year I tried to deliver more of the same.

This year we opened the Harveys with a message from the fake Stan Lee. My friend Kevin McShane was kind enough to put together a little intro at the last minute and it brought the house down. I really wish we could have played it a second time because I’m sure people missed some jokes because of the laughter.

Mark Waid was our keynote speaker and he gave an impassioned speech about copyright and what its intent truly is. And this lead him to some important thoughts about our rapidly growing culture of digital sharing and how comics should not fear it but embrace it. He mentioned how the comic book industry has a chance to be vanguards here, and not make the mistakes of the RIAA and the movie industry. I thought it was a great speech, but I found out this morning that it got Mark some flak at his table. I guess some people in comics just aren’t ready for this. But that’s not going to stop it from coming.

Long story short, we had an amazing evening. I really enjoy the Harvey Awards. We make jokes and laugh at ourselves one moment and then make an emotional or impassioned speech from the heart about the industry and the medium the next. It feels very much “of the people.” And I’m really happy that Marc Nathan, Brad Tree and Paul McSpadden have asked me to be a part of the legacy of the awards.

On a side note, I wasn’t just the Master of Ceremonies last night. I was also a nominee. PvP was nominated for a Harvey in the “best online works” category and won. I think this is probably PvP’s 4th or 5th nomination and I’ve never won a Harvey before last night. When they called out my name, I told the audience “Scott Kurtz could not be here tonight. accepting on his behalf is Brad Guigar.” And then Brad came up and accepted the award for me as I stood beside him. It was a lot of fun.

Again, I just want to thank everyone involved in both the Harveys and the Baltimore Comicon, as well as all the professionals who voted for their favorite creators and books this year (including PvP). Your participation makes the awards possible and credible and I know it’s appreciated.

Hopefully, I’ll be back next year one way or another.

———————
BONUS BLOG CONTENT:Here are a couple of the jokes I read on stage last night:

- We should all thank Marc Nathan an his staff for throwing such a great show. Gotta hand it to Marc. It’s not easy putting on a show in a city who’s main export is murder.

- Last year Neal Adams came up here and talked for 30 minutes about motion comics and the holocaust. I don’t know which subject was more depressing.

- We are here tonight, again, to honor our peers in comics who were smart enough to fill out ballots in their favor and hand them out to every employee in their company.

-This will be the last Harvey Awards hosted live at the Baltimore con. Next year this whole thing will be held on the iPad via Comixology’s Harvey Awards app.

- We just got word that Gareb Shamus has purchased a portion of the Baltimore Comicon and renamed it Wizard World Back of the Baltimore Comicon booth 1287. It is located between Lou Ferigno and the black guy from the old Battlestar Galactica show.