One of the regular features of the Bristol Comic Expo has been the presentation of the Eagle Awards, at least until recently. Last year nothing happened. There was voting, but no results were ever announced. This year a panel item at Bristol promised a new start and big developments.

Let’s start with the good news. The nominees for 2010 were announced. You can read the full list here, and vote on them. The Eagles are fan-voted awards and there’s no voting fee or other qualification. The nominee lists look quite good as well.

(By the way, I note that the web comic category includes Freak Angels, but not Girl Genius or Schlock Mercenary.)

In addition they announced what sounded like a very interesting initiative: a competition for original comic content by non-professional creators that would be judged by an expert jury and lead to publication for the winners. It is great to see an award organization trying to promote the industry it supports in that way. There should be a press release about this available tomorrow.

What the Eagles folk need to do now is deliver. I was slightly bemused to find that their web site does not include a deadline for voting, nor does there appear to be an RSS feed for their news service. Hopefully this sort of thing is just teething troubles and they will settle down and do a fine job for many years into the future.