TLC Awards

You may be looking for the Starsky & Hutch zine TLC.

Award
Name:	TLC Awards
Date(s):	1991
Frequency:
Format:
Type:
Associated Community:	The LOC Connection
Fandom:	K/S
URL:
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The TLC Awards were announced as a replacement for the cancelled Surak Awards. The letterzine The LOC Connection was the forum for ballot collection and organization. One needed not be a subscriber to participate.

From The Monthly: "Don't forget -- deadline for balloting is June 10, 1991 for K/S zines for 1989 and 1990."

Failure

The editor of The LOC Connection explained that she wanted to include the winners of the recent TLC Awards but that "they'd flopped rather badly." She'd figured with 80 subscribers added to the 20 she'd sent out to other active fans, that she'd have gotten at least 50 ballots returned; there were only 26, and it seemed pointless to base awards on that too few replies:

According to my mail, the main reason most people didn't vote was because they didn't feel they had read enough zines to be confident of that the 'best' choices were for the various categories. It's a moot point now, but if someone else does awards in the future, I hope those individuals who fall in this group will consider that voting in and of itself is not an exact science. There are probably no more than a dozen people in K/S who read all the zines in the same year that they come out. My feeling is that one should vote for anything they may have read that was excellent for its category, even if there may be something even more excellent that they hadn't read yet.

The Rules

While the TLC Awards are based on the same format as the Suraks, there are some important differences:
1. The TLC Awards will only, be for K/S zines.
2. There will not be a separate section for foreign zines.
3. There will not be a nomination process prior to voting. Instead, there will be a 1st place, 2nd place, and 3rd place winner announced for each category. (I have not yet decided about possible Honorable Mentions.) The results will include a breakdown of the votes for those placing, as well as the total number of votes in each category.
4. The 1st place winner in each category will receive a certificate.
5. The different writing categories will be broken down by number of pages, as were the Suraks, for the 1989 and 1990 Awards. However, beginning with the 1991 Awards, the writing categories will be determined by word count.
6. Instead of breaking down illos between Best Portrait and Best Action Illo, as the Suraks did, the TLC Awards will have art categories for Best Cover and Best Interior Illo. In the case of covers, the front and back covers of a zine will be considered a single voting entity if they are by the same artist; i.e., voters need not select between them.
7. There is major philosophical difference between the Suraks and the TLC Awards in that the Surak categories awarded a person based on votes received for a variety of her work in a particular category. B.g., Mary Smith could win BEST WRITER - SHORT STORY based on the total votes she received for three different stories. With the TLC Awards, most categories award a single piece of work. e.g., Jane Jones' story "Lust on the Enterprise" would win the BEST SHORT STORY category with 40 votes, even if Mary Smith had three stories that garnered 25, 20, and 15 votes. Mary Smith received more total votes than Jane Jones, but "Lust on the Enterprise" is the single piece of work that received the lost votes. However, with the TLC Awards, there are also four different categories that do award a particular writer, poet, artist, and editor for overall excellence. In the above example, it is highly likely that Mary Smith would win the award for BEST OVERALL WRITER. See the Instruction sheet for more details.
8. While the Suraks required a $1.00 fee to vote, I am requesting a $2.00 contribution (stamps are welcome) to help offset postage and xeroxing costs. This donation is strictly voluntary.