ILLUSTRATORS OF THE FUTURE CONTEST

The L. Ron Hubbard Illustrators of the Future and Writers of the Future are two parallel awards for new artists and authors. The contest was created by L. Ron Hubbard and is sort-of kind-of kept separate from the Scientology stuff.* None of the judges are Scientologists, and I don't think that anyone actually professing Scientology has been a Grand Prize winner (I'm a Christian, and one winner I know for sure is a Mormon, a couple atheists, etc.). While the funding comes indirectly from Scientology sources, the judging and prestige-of-winning come from trustworthy science-fiction types.

Hundreds and thousands of amateurs compete every quarter to be one of three quarterly winners for the contests. The quarterly prizes for illustrators are $500; for authors, it's more (but we won't go there). Authors submit an unpublished story; illustrators submit a small portfolio of three pieces. It's for amateurs; you can't have written three published short stories or a novel if you're a writer, or had three black and white or one color illustration published in a magazine or book if you're an artist. Most of the writers submit many, many times before they become quarterly winners. It took me (Frank Wu) three tries to become a quarterly illustration winner - and good thing that I finally made it. I basically entered the last quarter I was eligible, because I'd since gone on to have work published. The contests are and have been judged by famous and important science fiction writers like Kevin J. Anderson (who wrote several Star Wars novels), Larry Niven & Jerry Pournelle (Niven's Tales of Known Space, Lucifer's Hammer, Mote in God's Eye), Anne McCaffrey (the Pern dragon novels), Frederik Pohl (Space Merchants, Gateway), not to mention Gregory Benford, Algis Budrys, Eric Kotani, Tim Powers, Robert Silverberg, Jack Williamson, and Dave Wolverton. Illustration judges have included folks like Frank Frazetta, Frank Kelly Freas, Laura Brodian Freas, Edd Cartier, the late Paul Lehr, Leo and Diane Dillon, Bob Eggleton, Vincent Di Fate, Will Eisner and Ron and Val Lakey Lindahn. Many of the writing and illustration winners themselves have gone to fame and fortune. (Nina Kiriki Hoffman and K. D. Wentworth are among them; Kevin J. Anderson and Dave Wolverton were winners before becoming famous authors and judges themselves. Wolverton's Grand Prize-winning story "On My Way to Paradise" was the basis of his first novel.)

At the end of each contest year, each of the twelve (3 winners per quarter) illustrator winners is assigned one of the 12 quarter-winning stories to illustrate. The judges decide which illustration they like best, based mainly on the criterion of which story most makes them want to read the story. That illo gets the Grand Prize, the L. Ron Hubbard Gold Award - a big trophy and $4000. The three stories per quarter were ranked (first, second and third), and the judges picked the Grand Prize from among the four first place winning stories. The guy who won the Grand Prize in writing, Gary Murphy, won with the second story he'd ever written - doesn't that just kill you?

The awards are actually given out in a gala annual banquet; it was really a Big Deal. We were all dressed up in tuxedoes, and there were various luminaries from the science fiction world. A lot of the judges mentioned above, plus a lot of Hollywood people, like Roger Christian, who won an Oscar for his work on the original Star Wars and who directed Battlefield Earth; and Patricia Tallman, who played Lyta in Babylon 5. Plus lots and lots of photographers and video cameras to record it all. All pretty spectacular.

Here's Frederik Pohl being given a lifetime achievement award at the awards banquet.

Before the awards banquet, we were flown in from all around the world... all over the U.S., plus Canada and as far away as Scotland. One of the quarterly winners was trying to come from Ukraine, but she couldn't get out of the country. This was really too bad, because her artwork was just spectacular. We arrived early for weeklong seminars on writing and art. We artists had it easy; we hung out with Ron Lindahn and Val Lakey Lindahn (really good illustrators and authors of How to Choose Your Dragon and Olde Misses Milliwhistle's Book of Beneficial Beasties). We just sat around and talked about art and went to barbecues and looked at art and visited to art museums, and picked at each others' portfolios. The writers had it tough; we couldn't hang out with them much because they were busy writing and writing and writing; Tim Powers had them writing a whole short story in the few days that we were there.

We also saw the debut of the book, L. Ron Hubbard Presents Writers of the Future, Vol. XVI, which had our various illustrations and stories in it.

It was so cool, to actually be in a book. I had already seen my stuff in magazines before, but never in a book. Most of the illustrators had never seen their work published anywhere. It was a strange mixture of excitement and disappointment. We were each paid $125 for book publication rights for our illos (but the authors were paid more for their stories, but we won't go there either). However... The illustrators were, well, a little dark. Some of the more cartoony ones survived fine. But detail was lost in others, including mine on page 187 - which I had done with the painstaking dot dot dot technique of the great 1930's to 1950's illustrator Virgil Finlay. All my dot dot dots bled together into one dark blob blob blob. Yikes. We were supposed to autograph a whole bunch of the books for people, and while other people were done signing their names on books, I was still going. I decided that I was going to hand re-draw the dots and the lines that had disappeared in printing. Ron Lindahn asked me if I was going to fix up all the thousands of books that had been published. I said, yes, if my hand holds out. I stopped at a few dozen - so if you get one of those, it's going to be worth a lot of money some day.

There were a couple other little glitches in the publishing. Jayson Doolittle's illustration on page 257 is actually upside-down. Oops. This will make a great story when he's famous ("My first published piece of artwork was printed upside-down!"). After all, it's been noted that the mistakes (like the upside-down airplane stamp) are worth more. Next time, he'll learn to write the word "top" on an ambiguous illustration when he submits it.

Another little error in the book victimized Steelee Faltis. Steelee is this cool guy from Oakland who's into skateboarding and wants to work in animation. He's tall and thin, but the really remarkable thing about his physical appearance is that he is completely hairless - his hair fell out a few years ago and didn't grow back. Must be a genetic thing. His parents and everybody else in his family has hair - but not him. No hair on the top of his head, no hair on his arms, no eyebrows, no eye lashes. Nothing. Here's a picture of Roger Christian signing his autograph on Steelee's bald head:

But, you may notice from my text and the picture that Steelee is, well, a guy. When we submitted little bios to the published along with our pictures in the book, we wrote them as "I did this and I did that." But the publisher changed all the I's to he's and she's. Through the sex-changing magic of copy-editing, Steelee became a female in his bio on page 274. Ooops. The book is available through Amazon, so you get your own copy and check out the oddities yourself.

Another fun story: At rehearsal for the awards ceremony, we found out that we were each supposed to go up to the podium and give a little thank you speech while accepting our quarterly prize - this big plaque. We were all a little nervous about giving speeches, but one fellow, Justin Phillips, was literally speechless. This is the guy who had been flown in from Scotland, but he was apparently painfully shy. Even though we artists had hung out as a group for several days, I had hardly heard him say more than four or five sentences. Despite this, he was establishing himself as a creator of cool fantasy prints - pegasuses and unicorns, things like that. But he was so shy. As soon as he heard that we would have to give little speeches, but just bolted. Gone. He didn't even come to the awards ceremony. Didn't show up in any of the photos. I heard a report of one Justin sighting, sitting alone in a patio, but I never saw him again. Nobody knew where he was - not even his wife or girlfriend (we weren't sure which she was). It was so odd. And kinda rude, I thought, since Author Services had brought us all down there and put us up at a hotel and kept feeding us. Rude.

But the rest of us lumped it and gave little speeches when we accepted our quarterly awards. I thought up a little speech that went something like this:

"First I'd like to thank L. Ron Hubbard for creating this award, and Author Services for running this contest. It is so hard for new authors and illustrators to get any sort of encouragement or support, but this contest really fills that void. Also, I'm standing here gladly accepting this award, but I really feel like standing here in my place should be Frank R. Paul and Frank Kelly Freas and Frank Frazetta and Umberto Boccioni and Vincent DiFate and Ron and Val Lakey Lindahn and James Bama and all the other great science fiction illustrators who have come before. Everything I do is an extension, a reiteration, a repetition of what they've already done. If we see further, it is because we stand on the shoulders of giants. Thank you. I love you all."

When I spoke the "shoulders of giants" quotation, which is attributed to Newton, there was an audible "ooooh" from the audience. A lot of people had gotten the audience to laugh, but I was the only one who got them to oooh.

When it came time to announce the grand prize winners, I really didn't think it was going to be me. I thought it was going to be the woman from the Ukraine, Yana Yadoshchook, whose illustration was an amazingly detailed piece with this sailing ship in space, with a meteor-pockmarked moon and even a lionfish. Amazing work. I thought it was going to be her. I wondered who was going to accept her award if she won, but wasn't there.

Or maybe I thought the Grand Prize winner was going to be Jayson Doolittle, the golden boy - and I really mean "boy," because he was only 17 when he won the quarterly contest. And here I am, over twice as old (I was the oldest illustration winner), struggling to get anywhere with art, struggling to get into magazines and sell stuff at conventions - and a lot of this kid's art is better than mine - we saw his sketchbook, and I had to avert my eyes. It was like looking into the face of God - and I couldn't take it. I had to look away. I felt like Salieri in Amadeus overwhelmed by the sight of Mozart's musical notations. Seeing Jayson's fabulous work - really intricate design work and scrolls and incredible anatomical studies and... I can't even talk about it, it was so good. And here he is, this really nice guy, a thin and gawky little... kid! And his parents were illustrators, which was such an unfair advantage. My parents couldn't draw beans. Literally. I asked my dad to draw a car once and it looked like a matchbox - not a Matchbox(TM) car, the cool little toy cars, but a matchbox - a box you put matches in. Urk. And here his kid has an unfair advantage, and he's so talented... and... And only a kid. You just wanted to kill him - in the nicest sort of way, I mean.

So I had no expectation really of winning the Grand Prize award. So when they announced my name, I really was totally, utterly, completely shocked. I walked up to the podium with my mouth hanging open and then, out of desperation for something to do I grabbed the trophy, which is huge, and lifted it up into the air, shouting, a la James Cameron:

I really didn't have another speech. I'd shot my wad with my first speech, and hadn't expected to be giving another. But one of the other quarterly winners, Samantha Miceli, had said that one year the Grand Prize winner had the other winners join him on stage. I wanted to do that, since these people were all my friends, and I'd seen their work, and it was all really good. Really, any one of us could have won. So I asked them all to join me up on the stage:

(This is actually a later, posed picture of us all on stage, but it looked something like this:)

Illustration Winners: Steelee Faltis, Jayson Doolittle (the kid), Troy Connors, Samantha Miceli, James Johnson, Frank Wu (me), and Illustration Judges: Frank Kelly Freas, Laura Brodian Freas, Vincent DiFate, Val Lakey Lindahn, and Ron Lindahn.

All in all, it's been a great experience. And it continues. Bridge Publications, the book's publisher, is working hard to generate publicity for us and the book. Author William Brown appeared with Shaq O'Neal and had his picture with him on the AP news service. The photo of Roger Christian signing Steelee's head made it on AP news, too. Various of us winners have appeared in TV and in newspaper articles about us and the contest. And we are going to book signings everywhere. Last week, I went to the Northern California Independent Booksellers Association conference (perhaps it would be best if you bought the book through your local bookstore rather than Amazon - ahem), and signed books there. It was fun - we had a little display, and I had my trophy and a framed version of the illo. People walked by, uncaring, but when we shouted out, "Do you want an autographed book?" it got folks' attention. And I had my little spiel down... "Hi, I'm Frank Wu, and this is my award-winning illustration, and this is my award I won for my illustration, and this is the book my award-winning illustration appears in..." Gets 'em every time.

The story itself, which is written by Dan Dysan (pen name of Dan Eater) is about a post-apocalyptic world. Our hero is being interrogated in a prison of war camp; they are basically executing everyone who can't prove he's useful. Our hero is trying to prove he's useful because he's a blacksmith and knows how to make knives. Lucky for him, and for us, because otherwise there wouldn't be a story.

So that was my experience with the Illustrators and Writers of the Future Contest. The contest itself is on-going. If you're a new writer or illustrator, please enter. There's not much opportunity for new creators to get much recognition or promotion, but this is it. You can visit the contest website for details here.

Here are some more Illustrators/Writers of the Future photos for your amusement:

Me, surrounded by illustration judges: Ron Lindahn and Val Lakey Lindahn, Laura Brodian Freas, Frank Kelly Freas, and Vincent DiFate

I also won a Hugo award for Best Fan Artist at Noreascon, Sept. 2004. That makes me the only Grand Prize winner (in either the Illustrators or Writers of the Future) to have won a Hugo! To see more about the Hugo win, click here.

As time has gone by, it's become more clear to me the connections between Scientology and the Writers and Illustrators of the Future contest. It is by far the most well-funded of any awards for newbies (the grand prize was recently upped to $5000). One winner described it to me as "Win the Scientologists' Money!" One wonders how any organization founded with one (non-Stephen King) author could possibly afford to dole out prizes like that. The only logical explanation is that the money somehow comes via a portion of the sales of all the Dianetics books, plus whatever extra cash Tom Cruise is willing to toss the Scientologists' way.

Also: Though none of the judges and (as far as I know) none of the winners have been Scientologists, most if not all the support staff and people running the contest behind the scenes are Scientologists. I don't think that they affect the actual judging, though, and I should say for balance and truthfulness that all the support staff I've dealt with have been unflaggingly kind to me and helpful in promoting my work and my career, no matter what their beliefs.

One thing, though, that was creepy - and this has gotten creepier over the years, is the vague attempt to tell us winners about Scientology. In my year, there was an optional trip to L. Ron Hubbard's personal museum, where you got to see the awards he won for his work, and you learned a little about Scientology. The last year I attended the ceremonies (2003), this trip was mandatory, and the winning illustrators and writers shuffled their feet and looked at their hands uncomfortably, while we were all told what Scientology was about. Needless to say, they won no converts that day.

I don't think that Scientology as it's first presented is entirely crazy - it comes across as a mellow form of "love your neighbor" combined with benign uses of alternative medicines. For instance, the Scientologist guiding us through the museum explained that, at their suggestion, some of the firemen working at Ground Zero after 9/11 used steam-baths to rid their skin of toxins and poisons. That seemed pretty reasonable. It also comes across as a strange way to keep promoting the name of a middling-and-occasionally-brilliant-SF-writer named L. Ron Hubbard. Keeping his name alive seems like the organization's prime objective (notice how his name is in big letters on the cover of the Writers of the Future book). Being a little self-aggrandizing myself on occasion, I can appreciate the effort - Donald Trump promotes himself and his work by putting his name in ten-foot tall letters on sides of buildings; Hubbard used the tools of his trade: books translated into myriad languages, more books, contests, but... founding a religion? If the religion's main point is "Love Hubbard, Love Your Neighbor," that wouldn't be so bad. But... Scientology gets weirder and weirder as you go deeper into the Scientology doctrines involving past lives, space aliens and mass exterminations (check out the Wikipedia article for details - I'm not making this up). It would almost come across as a parody of a "legitimate" or "traditional" religion, except for the legal extents that the organization has gone in prosecuting those who bad-mouth it. That's not cool.

I believe that this is a free country, founded on the principal that everyone can believe or preach anything they want, no matter how retarded or stupid. Now, I appreciate this as a Christian, because, well, a lot of people think my faith is retarded and stupid. I can accept that, and I'll accept their right to believe whatever they want, and hope that they accept my right to believe what I want. If someone wants to leave the church(es) I attend(ed) and then bad-mouth me or my pastor buddies, it may sting, because I really really really hope I've done no intentional harm to anyone, but, heck, I will fight to the death for your right to say whatever you want to say. But Scientologists suing ex-Scientologists to shut them up ... that's not cool.

At the end of the day, I feel the same way about Scientology as I do about the Lottery: They take money from the stupid. If you're dumb enough to think that you are going to be the one in twenty million people who are going to win the lottery, or if you're dumb enough to think that L. Ron Hubbard's made-up religion has any validity, then, well, I won't stop you from throwing your money away. If you were stupid enough to start giving them money in the first place, I can see how they would be upset at you when you stop.

Lottery money does go to help build schools (at least some of it), so that's good. And Scientology money goes to help poor, starving but bright new artists and writers, and that can't be bad, can it?

Update, Tues, May 23, 2006. I got the following note from Joni Labaqui, one of the hard-working people who help run the WOTF/IOTF. I reproduce it verbatim. She has some good points, and I reproduce her words without editing or changing them.

Dear Frank,

Hi! It's Joni Labaqui here. Haven't seen you since you blew me off at LA Con a few years ago and now I know why. I didn't understand why you didn't want to talk to me for very long. I loved your write-up on your site about the contest until you got into talking about Scientology. I know what you mean about feeling hurt when people put down your church. I happen to think you are NOT stupid because you are a Christian. I have many Christian friends and I respect their beliefs and even fight for them. But then you get into my religion on your site and putting out falsehoods, then I realized you didn't have all of the info. We don't sue people for bad mouthing our religion. The Church sues when there is slander and liable of considerable magnitude involved. Lets use an analogy here - lets say someone accused you of raping the girl next door, but you didn't do it. Would you be upset? Lets say the parents then sued you or had you put in jail or both. Would you be upset? Would you hire an attorney? Gee, you'd be involved in a legal suit wouldn't you? What if the father of the girl made sure you were lied about in the newspapers and on TV and he tried or succeeded in ruining your reputation? How would you feel? On top of that, lets say what really happened is you simply talked to the girl and were trying to help her and she turned around and accused you. How would you feel? And how about all those people who love to gossip? (I personally hate people who gossip as all they are doing is hurting others and they are basically low-life losers - lots of people fit into this category, I'm afraid). How would you feel?

You were actually wrong in that Scientology pays for the writers and illustrators awards. The Hubbard estate (which is not the church) makes so much money on royalties from his hundreds of published fiction it would make your head spin. You were right about the fact that every one of us who works at Author Services is a Scientologist, but the judges of the contest are not. They share the same goal that Mr. Hubbard did in starting and paying for this contest - to help the new guy, just like yourself back then when you won. So I don't understand, a nice person like you has to even bring up the subject in your write-up. You think we are interested in "converting" any of you winners just because we have you tour the Life Exhibition? The answer from the horses mouth is NO. We are simply showing you more about his life and works so that you have the facts about the other part of his life, not the bullshit and lies that has been put out by vested interests of multi-billion dollar drug companies and the psychs that can't stand us. Have you received tons of unwanted, unsolicited mail? The answer is no. Trust me, if we wanted to convert you, you would sure know it. Believe it or not, Mr. Hubbard in founding this contest just wanted you guys to be seen and heard because he knew how hard it is to get started. Period. Its not about Scientology. That is the simplicity of this contest. Anyone reading anything else into it has their own issues and I feel sorry for them. I guess maybe you ran into someone bad mouthing us and you listened to them. If someone badmouthed you - to this day - I wouldn't buy it. I'd tell them to take a hike. Do you know why? Because I know you are a good person. I met you, I shared some of that joy you experienced when you won, and I was truely happy for you because I like people being happy, winning in life and doing well and winning this contest. I still like you, but I'm a bit disappointed that you felt compeled to write what you did. I don't get it. I personally put in hundreds of hours of work to help give you the event that you won your award at, so how do you think I feel?

I hope to hear from you. Best, Joni