FRANK WU

MAJOR AWARDS & OTHER HONORS

Major awards I've won are: Hugo Award, Best Fan Artist (2004, 2006 and 2007); Illustrators of the Future Grand Prize (2000); Best Animation and Best in Show, Conestoga International Film Festival, Guidolon the Giant Space Chicken short (2006) and a Grand Jury Prize for Best Animation, Guidolon the Giant Space Chicken short (2006); and ASFA Website Award for Frank R. Paul website (2001).  In the current (2007) Locus Magazine Poll of science fiction artists, I am ranked Number 13.  These are detailed below.

2007 HUGO AWARD WINNER - BEST FAN ARTIST! I won my third Hugo award September 1 at the Worldcon in Japan!  Praise God!  Yeahhh!!!

I couldn't actually go to the ceremony because of the cost and distance and because of work.  But I asked Daniel Spector and Kelly Beuhler to stand in for me, with a big cardboard cut-out of my head.

  (fotos by Cory Doctorow)

(foto by Adrienne Loska)

(foto by Kevin Standlee, who transported the head to Japan for me)

George Takei (Star Trek's Sulu) met my head...

(fotos: Adrienne Loska)

As did Bob Eggleton.

(foto by Adrienne Loska)

Feeling very loved...

(Jay Lake and Adrienne)

The actual award.  Every year, the Hugo retains the familiar rocket ship, but the base is different.  In 2007, to celebrate the first Worldcon in Japan, the base featured Ultraman standing at Mount Fuji:

(foto by Dave McCarty)

2006 HUGO AWARD WINNER - BEST FAN ARTIST! I won my second Hugo award Aug. 26 at the WorldCon in Anaheim.  Yeehaw!!!

A   B 

A: With actress Morena Baccarin, who accepted the Best Dramatic Presentation (Long Form) won by Serenity. B: Betty Ballantine (Special Worldcon Committee Award); David Hartwell (Best Pro Editor - finally!), me, Martin Hoare (accepting for Dave Langford, Best Fan Writer), John Scalzi (author of Old Man's War, Campbell Award for Best New Writer), Robert Charles Wilson (for Spin, Best Novel) and Morena Baccarin again. (Fotos by Lisa Spencer.)

 C D

C. Me with a close-up of the 2006 Hugo (Foto by David Gallaher).  D: Me running up to the stage! (Foto by Robert Hole, Jr.)

2004 HUGO AWARD WINNER - BEST FAN ARTIST!  This was the first time I won a Hugo - and the third year in a row I made the final ballot (of five people) for this award, which celebrates both fan artists and semi-professionals like me.  Third time's the charm!  Also, for those who are curious, I've done fan art for Cheryl Morgan's fanzine Emerald City, and keep an eye out for my fan art showing up in fanzines Guy Lillian III's Challenger, Mike Pederson's Nth Degree, plus the Bay Area SF Assoc. (BASFA) and for the San Diego in 2006 Westercon.  You can see some of these specifically fanzine and fanac related art pieces here. For a full list of 2004 Hugo nominees click here, or click here for an annotated list full of my comments.

Here are some fotos from the night I won in 2004:

Norman Cates, who had made all the elf ears for The Lord of the Rings movies, presented the Hugo for best fan artist.  I really thought that Steve Stiles, an excellent artist and long overdue in acclaim, was going to win.  When he announced my name, I couldn't believe how much cheering there was.  I leapt out of my chair and went down the aisle so quickly that the cameras, who showed the whole thing on the big screen, couldn't catch me.  When I reached the stage, I realized that we were supposed to walk up these stairs to the stage, but, heck, I'd waited almost forty years for this moment.  I wasn't going to let some stupid stairs get in my way, so I literally jumped up onto the stage, in my tuxedo and all.  Once I had my Hugo and stood at the lectern, I was dumbfounded for a moment, and could only stand there idiotically with my mouth wide open and then I blurted out, "I love you all!" and then darted back offstage.  [I later discovered that several Noreascon blogs quoted my acceptance speech in its entirety.]  

   Neil Gaiman, emcee, stands coyly to the side.

After the Hugo ceremony we were invited back onto the stage for photos:

That's Bob Eggleton (partially obscured behind Locus editor Charles N. Brown), then Lois McMaster Bujold, Jay Lake, me, Michael Swanwick's knee, and Cheryl Morgan (who won her first Hugo, for best fanzine). 

The day after the Hugo ceremony, I lost my badge and used my Hugo to get into the convention.  I also got a kick from letting other people hold it.  When I handed it to them, their faces immediately lit up, as if they were able to touch the Holy Grail or a fragment of the True Cross.  Here's Lori Ann White holding my Hugo...

I have been a Hugo nominee for five years now (2002 to 2006), winning in 2004, and I won't know about this year until Worldcon (Aug. 23-27).

AWARD-WINNING FILMMAKING! My short animated film The Tragical Historie of Guidolon, the Giant Space Chicken won First Place in Animation Filmmaking and Best In Show, at the Conestoga Science Fiction Convention and International Film Festival, July 2006.  The second award - Best in Show - was particularly sweet because this was the first time this award was ever given, and it was given to our film!

ILLUSTRATORS OF THE FUTURE GRAND PRIZE WINNER! I won the Grand Prize ($4000!) in the 2000 Illustrators of the Future contest.  (This award was founded by L. Ron Hubbard but is kept separate from Scientology - I am a Christian and not a Scientologist.)  My winning illustration, for a story by Dan Dyson, was published in the book Writers of the Future, Vol. XVI.  For more on the contest, click here or here or here.   

Other Grand Prize winners in the Illustrators and Writers of the Future have gone on to great success - Dave Wolverton, Gary W. Shockley and James C. Glass among them - but I am the only person to win both a Hugo and the Grand Prize in either the Writers or Illustrators of the Future contest. 

ANOTHER AWARD! At the Philadelphia WorldCon (2001), I received an award for my Frank R. Paul tribute site cataloguing and displaying the work of that great early sci-fi illustrator.  ASFA (the Association of Science Fiction and Fantasy Artists) honored me with one of their first website awards, in the category "Best Archival Webpages".  I am deeply touched, as I am sure Mr. Paul would be, were he still with us.

12TH BEST SCIENCE FICTION/FANTASY ARTIST IN THE WORLD! ACCORDING TO THE 2006 LOCUS MAGAZINE POLL. Every year Locus magazine, which surveys science fiction and fantasy book and magazine publishing, asks its readers to name their favorite books, stories, magazines, artists, etc.  This year, I made the poll (which lists the top 25) for the first time.  I am 12!  Of all the myriad people doing science fiction and fantasy art in the world, I am the thirteenth favorite (or best, or coolest or dude-est whatever)!  Wahoo! So very, very exciting! For a complete list, click here.

To see my listing in the Locus magazine index of Science Fiction awards (not quite up to date), click here.