Ursa Major Awards

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Ursa Major Awards (image by Heather Bruton)

The Ursa Major Awards are intended to be the furry fandom award for outstanding achievement in anthropomorphic and furry arts, equivalent to the science fiction fandom's Hugo Awards. The awards were first presented in 2001 at ConFurence 12. Due to the early misconception that the Awards were intended for the ConFurence alone, in 2003 it was decided that the awards would be presented at as many furry conventions as possible. To that end, the UMA's were presented at C-ACE in 2004, at Anthrocon in 2005, at Rocket City FurMeet in 2006, at CaliFur in 2007, and will be presented at Morphicon in 2008.

The UMA's were originally administered by The ConFurence Group. In 2003, administration was passed to the Anthropomorphic Literature and Arts Association (ALAA), which expanded to include representatives from many popular conventions over the course of 2007.

The UMA trophy consists of a framed certificate containing an illustration of the award logo designed by Heather Bruton, with the name of the winner. A plaque has also been awarded on occasion.

Contents

[edit] Nomination process

At the beginning of each year nominations for each category are solicited for works published/released in the previous year, and may be made either electronically via the website or email, or by postal mail. Those who wish to vote for the awards must register at this time and receive their ballot number. At the end of the nominating period, the submissions are tabulated and the works receiving the highest number of submissions (usually the top 5, though ties or the like may mandate a few more or less) become the nominees for the year's Ursa Major Awards. Registered voters may then vote. Note that any furry who wishes may register to vote for Ursa Major Awards - this is meant as a fandom-wide award.

Nominations for the 2006 Awards began on 18 January 2007, and continued until 28 February. Voting took place from 10 March until 14 April. The 2006 winners were announced on 4 May 2007 at Califur 3. Nominations for the 2007 Awards wll begin on 24 January 2008, the first day of Further Confusion 2008. The 2007 winners are slated to be announced at Morphicon in May 2008.

[edit] Categories

The Ursa Major Award categories have changed and evolved somewhat since their inception. Since the year 2005, the categories are:

  • Best Anthropomorphic Motion Picture
  • Best Anthropomorphic Dramatic Short Work or Series
  • Best Anthropomorphic Novel
  • Best Anthropomorphic Short Fiction
  • Best Anthropomorphic Other Literary Work
  • Best Anthropomorphic Comic Book
  • Best Anthropomorphic Comic Strip
  • Best Anthropomorphic Fanzine
  • Best Anthropomorphic Published Illustration
  • Best Anthropomorphic Game
  • Best Anthropomorphic Miscellany (new in 2006)

[edit] Eligibility

From the UMA website: To be eligible, a work must have been released between January 1 and December 31 of the calendar year for that award, and must include a non-human being given human attributes (anthropomorphic), which can be mental and/or physical (for example the intelligent rabbits in Watership Down for the former, and Bugs Bunny for the latter.) Simply including an animal character is not sufficient to qualify.

[edit] Ursa Major Award Winners

[edit] 2000

In this year ConFurence 12 introduced the Special Awards (for the Best Anthropomorphics of the 20th Century), which were voted on by convention members and counted by Greg Bilan, Rod O’Riley, and Fred Patten.[1]

The winners were:

After the convention, a permanent award committee was set up to extend the concept.

[edit] 2001

Voted on by members of ConFurence 2002 and awarded at the convention, the winners were:

[edit] 2002

Awarded at ConFurence 2003, the winners were:

[edit] 2003

Awarded at C-ACE 2004, the winners were:

[edit] 2004

Awarded at Anthrocon 2005, the winners were:

[edit] 2005

Awarded at Rocket City Fur Meet 2006, the winners were:

177 ballots were received, all posted online. While the majority of voters (over 100) came from the USA, a significant proportion were from overseas, including Canada, Australia, Denmark, Finland, Germany, Malaysia, the Netherlands, New Zealand, Norway, the Philippines, Poland, Romania, Slovenia, Sweden, West Indies, Trinidad, and the U.K.

[edit] 2006

Awarded at CaliFur 3 in 2007, the winners were:

2006 Ursa Major Awards
News coverage
Background
The 2006 Ursa Major Awards
The 2006 Ursa Major Awards

[edit] 2007

Awarded at Morphicon 2008, the winners were:

In total, 201 ballots from 15 countries were counted: 145 from the U.S.; a dozen or more from Australia and the U.K.; a half dozen or more from Canada and Germany; and one or two each from Austria, Bulgaria, Italy, Laos, Mexico, New Zealand, the Philippines, Russia, Spain, and Sweden.

[edit] See also

[edit] External links

Awards
Anthropomorphic Beauty Contest | The Assassin's Award for Furry Excellence | e621 Award | The Furry Side 'Best of Fur!' Award | Golden Sydney Award | The Legion of the Headless Unicorn | Michael-Scot McMurry Award for Conspicuous Integrity | One Foxy Site! Award for Web Excellence | Order of Potter | The Titanium Crowbar | Ursa Major Awards | Virtual Vikki's Web Seal of Approval
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