Janice's Sorta Annual Worldcon Awards

Iguanacon, 1978

• Best T-shirt: Harlan Ellison's "What Last Dangerous Visions?"
  
• Best Button: "Wandering Goy" (runner up: "Dale Arden's Gynecologist")
  
• Best Huckster Artifact: Bill Rotsler's TAFF/DUFF buttons
  

NASFiC, 1979

• Best T-shirt: Front: "Campus Crusade for Cthulu" Back: "It Found Me"
  
• Best Button: "Darth Vader is Tall, Dark, and Asthmatic"
  
• Best Huckster Artifact: Belle of Louisville T-shirts
  
• Best Overheard Conversation:
  Bob Asprin to Gordon Dickson: "Gordon R!"
  Murray Porath: "No, Gordon is"
  

Noreascon Two, 1980

• Best T-shirt: "Even Barbarians Like Chocolate Chip Cookies"
  
• Best Button: "Wombat: the Unkoala" (worn by Jan Howard "Wombat" Finder)
  
• Best Huckster Artifact: T-shirts with incorporated red blinking lights
  
• Best Overheard Conversation: This year, a song refrain:
  Oh, your brother's bound and gagged
  And they've chained him to a chair
  Won't you please vote for Chicago '82?"
  

Denvention, 1981

• Best T-shirt: Front: "Godless Heathen"
  
• Best Button: "I Will Take No Drug Before It's Time"
  
• Best Huckster Artifact: Pre-sex "Instrument of Surrender forms
  
• Best Overheard Conversation: Gardner Dozois on why Tom Disch got so angry about the Labor Day group: "He must have just gotten his period"
  

Chicon IV, 1982

• Best T-shirt: A shirt in Cyrillic lettering that the wearer claimed translated as: "My parents went to Leningrad and all I got was this crummy T-shirt"
  
• Best Button: a one-eyed smiley saying "Mutants for Nuclear Power"
  
• Best Huckster Artifact: the Illuminati game
  
• Best Overheard Conversation: In the doorway to the committee den, Jerry Pournelle is loudly demanding beer for the pro suite, even though it's very late at night. The reply to the question after he leaves, "Who is that drunken boor?" receives the response "Wow, all the stories are true!"
  

ConFederation, 1986

• Best T-shirt: A drawing of Godzilla on top, the legend "Godzilla vs. Rodin" in the middle, and a drawing of the statue "The Thinker" on the bottom
  
• Best Button: "The difference between genius and stupidity is that genius has limits" (runner up: "Think 'honk' if you're a telepath")
  
• Best Huckster Artifact: Fannish dumb, yellow car signs like "Cthulu in car" and "Trolls in Trunk"
  
• Best Overheard Conversation: In a crowded elevator into which two more people have just pushed on, a female voice in the background: "Well, I'm pregnant now; I hope y'all are happy"
  

Conspiracy, 1987

• Best T-shirt: "FIJASOI: Fandom is just a source of income"
  
• Best Button: "This universe is sold by weight not volume. Some settling may have occurred during shipment"
  
• Best Huckster Artifact: None
  
• Best Overheard Conversation:
  Ross Pavlac, during a Chicago in '91 bid presentation: "We're sponsoring a fiction contest with a prize of a 1 oz. bar of gold"
  Dennis Miller: "So that's what happened to the loot in Al Capone's vault!"
  

NASFiC, 1987

• Best T-shirt: "Heisenberg May Have Slept Here"
  
• Best Button: "Star Trek IV: So long, and thanks for all the fish"
  
• Best Huckster Artifact: No award
  
• Best Overheard Conversation: No award
  

Nolacon, 1988

• Best T-shirt: "This life is a test. It is only a test. Had this been an actual life, you would have received further instructions as to what to do and where to go. You may or may not receive an actual life later."
  
• Best Button: In Coca-cola lettering: "Trek Classic. The Original Generation."
  
• Best Huckster Artifact: Padded backpacks in the shapes of dinosaurs
  
• Best Overheard Conversation: In a discussion of the Zagreb bid, Philadelphia fan David Axler: "I don't want to go to any country whose language has "r" as a vowel"

Noreascon Three, 1989

• Best T-shirt: Below a GE logo: "Genetic Engineers: We bring good things to life"
  
• Best Button: "Hello. My name is Batman. You killed my father. Prepare to die"
  
• Best Huckster Artifact: Nifty wooden old-fashioned kaleidoscopes
  
• Best Overheard Conversation: My friend the baseball fan: "I've always thought Spock would be a natural throwing the split-fingered fastball"
  

NASFiC, 1990

• Best T-shirt: "White Anglo Saxon Pagan" and "Jewish American Pagan"
  
• Best Button: "The mome rath isn't born that can outgrabe me"
  
• Best Huckster Artifact: Elan Litt's jeweled and otherwise ornate hair sticks
  
• Best Overheard Conversation:
  Audience member: "How would that affect a time machine?"
  

  Panelist: "We don't know because no one's built one yet"
  

  Audience member: "Well, not one that worked"
  

  Panelist James Morrow: "That's what I think the S&Ls invested in"
  

Chicon V, 1991

• Best T-shirt: A Hard Rock Cafe parody that said "10-Forward Lounge, NCC-1701-D"
  
• Best Button: "Dogs come when called; cats take a message and get back to you" (runner up: "668: The neighbor of the beast")
  
• Best Huckster Artifact: Laser-maker Tullio Ponti's Annoyatron, a space-age chrome implement that makes noises at various selectable pitches
  
• Best Overheard Conversation: Eve Ackerman who, when reading the line in the Swissotel's letter telling guests "Do not be alarmed if you encounter costumed guests," said "But do not feed them chocolate"
  

Magicon, 1992

• Best T-shirt: Front: Cartoon of a cow with a Civil Defense triangle on her forehead and the legend "Apocalypse Cow"
  Back: "Crazy Chicks, Hot Guitars, The Virtues of Milk"
  
• Best Button: Tasteful "I try to take one day at a time but lately several days have been attacking me at once"
  
• Best Button: Questionable Taste "If Jesus was Jewish, why does He have a Mexican name?"
  
• Best Huckster Artifact: Steve Scherer's blown-glass pieces
  
• Best Overheard Conversation: At the pre-Hugos gathering, ConFrancisco "Hugo Losers" party host Janet Wilson Anderson announced the party hours by saying "It will start approximately 30 minutes after the ceremony and last until everyone goes home."
  

  Then-merely-nominee Dick Lynch: "That's Tuesday!"
  

ConFrancisco, 1993

• Best T-shirt: A Cheers sign parody that said "Quarks: Sometimes you want to go where everybeing knows your name"
  
• Best Button: "In the beginning, there was nothing. And God said, 'Let there be light.' And there was still nothing, but you could see it"
  
• Best Huckster Artifact: Exact replicas of Star Trek equipment including phasers and communicators, with sound effects
  
• Best Overheard Conversation: Andi Shechter's reaction to Andy Porter's Best Semiprozine Hugo win: "We should hold Charlie Brown down and pin a button on him that says 'Finally, a bridesmaid'"
  

Intersection, 1995

• Best T-shirt: "AIDS can kill, Don't be silly, Put a condom, On your willy"
  
• Best Button: "The problem with troubleshooting is that trouble shoots back"
  
• Best Huckster Artifact: Glass fannish suncatchers
  
• Best Overheard Conversation:
  Me: "Ever heard Bette Midler's routine wondering what the Queen keeps in her purse? She says it can't be money because the Queen doesn't spend money, and she doesn't need an ID card saying 'I am the Queen' so what's in there?"
  

  Glyer: "I know what the Queen keeps in her purse: a beeper"
  

L.A.con III, 1996

• Best T-shirt: Valkyrie with microphone, with the caption "Now it's over"
  
• Best Button: On a metal Viking helmet: "My ancestors discovered America and all I got was this lousy helmet"
  
• Best Button - Geek division: "VI VI VI -- The editor of the beast"
  
• Best Huckster Artifact: Finely carved porcelain incense holders with faces of spirit people
  
• Best Overheard Conversation: While the Seiun award presenters were droning on, Todd Dashoff whispered to me backstage "What can you do? They're inscrutable."
  

LoneStarCon2, 1997

• Best T-shirt: (based on a typo in a heading in the program book that said "Michael Moocock"): the Kellogg's rooster riding on top of a black-and-white drawing of a cow (taken from the San Antonio yellow pages in an ad under Artificial Insemination!) with the slogan "Champion of the Eternal"
  
• Best Button: "The Velcronomicon: the book of binding spells"
  
• Best Button -- Ecumenical Division: "It's a Jewish thing. If you've got a little time, I'll explain it to you"
  
• Best Huckster Artifact: Quality stuffies about 2-feet high with sf and fantasy costumes
  
• Best Overheard Conversation: A fan whom I'd checked into the press room coming up to a conversation I was having with Mark Olson in the Boston party, who began to gush about how the only other worldcon he'd ever been to was Noreascon 3, and what a great time he'd had, all the time completely unaware that Mark had been the chair of N3!

Bucconeer, 1998

• Best T-shirt: No award (for the first time in the history of these awards!)
  
• Best Button: "Witches ride brooms because nature abhors a vacuum"
  
• Best Huckster Artifact: Beautiful black silk fringed shawls with hand-drawn astronomical designs including glitter
  
• Best Overheard Conversation: Gene Wolfe, on a panel on "Religion and SF," in response to an audience question about how the panelists' religions "saw" God: "Well, in my religion it's rather difficult, because God looks like Rusty Hevelin"
  

Aussiecon 3, 1999

Chicon 2000

• Best T-shirt: Chernobyl in 2011
  Top Ten Reasons to Vote for Us:
  
  10. Nighttime party lighting included
  9. Huge heated pool
  8. Miles and miles of free parking
  7. Free clean suit with your registration
  6. Our con has a half-life of 134,000 years
  5. All our condoms glow in the dark (but, um, you won't need them)
  4. It's much nicer than Skarro this time of year
  3. Siskel and Ebert gave it 5 thumbs up
  2. Aw, c'mon, Spock got better
  1. It's the best chance you'll ever have of becoming a superhero
  

• Best Button: "Martha Stewart would die if she saw this place. Let's invite her over!"
• Best Button - Geek division: "Your mouse cursor position has moved. Please restart Windows for this change to take effect."
• Best Huckster Artifact (by far): To quote from their web site, "Wearable electroluminescent panels made of flat light and animated by a microchip in a small driver device"
• Best Overheard Conversation:
  Me to Mike Glyer at the Hugo ceremony: "I can't believe they're using a furry alien as a stage escort"
  Glyer: "Hey, for all you know he's considered very studly on his home planet"

Millennium Philcon, 2001

• Best T-shirt: "If you're really a Goth, where were you when we sacked Rome?"
  
• Best Button: "America was designed by geniuses to be run by idiots"
  
• Best Huckster Artifact: Beautifully made bronze door knockers and doorbells of gargoyles, dragons, etc.
  
• Best Overheard Conversation: In Program Ops, in response to a suggestion that a missing boombox power cord might have been dropped in Jim and Laurie Mann's room, Jim said "Yes, we've been hiding it in our room and using it to tie things to the sprinkler."
  

ConJose, 2002

• Best T-shirt: Baby Sierra Glyer's "My Daddy Has More Hugos Than Your Daddy"
  
• Best Button: "Press button to test. Release to detonate."
  
• Best Button (Geek Division): "Macintosh for productivity. Linux for development. Palm for mobility. Windows for solitaire."
  
• Best Huckster Artifact: Small round magnetic colored blinking lights (one of the few times in the history of these awards that I've actually bought the best huckster artifact -- in purple, of course)
  
• Best Overheard Conversation: George RR Martin, during a conversation about modern authors "editing" and ruining the works of earlier authors: "When Christopher Tolkien dies and his son Simon takes over, we'll probably see Sauron Strikes Back"
  

Torcon 3, 2003

• Best T-shirt (based on a Dork Tower character, which I didn't know when I saw it): Perky Goth: Put the romance back in necromancy
  
• Best Button: "Hello. I'm the Dread Pirate Roberts^TM #9875. Ask me about a franchise in your area."
  
• Best Button (R-rated): "An erection does not count as personal growth"
  
• Best Huckster Artifact: Very elaborately carved wooden fantasy artwork
  
• Best Overheard Conversation At the Australia in 2010 party, which was being held in the room that Kansas City in 2006 was using as a suite and which still had their decorations in place, including inflatable saxophones, Australian fan Robin Johnson, in response to a fan's confusion about what party she was in: "I assure you that this is Australia in 2010. It's just difficult to find inflatable didgeridoos."
  

Noreascon 4, 2004

• Best T-shirt: “If I wanted to know your opinion I’d read your entrails”
• Best Button: “We know Saddam has weapons of mass destruction: we have the receipts”
  
• Best Button (Snarky Division): “When I was your age, Michael Jackson was black”
  
• Best Huckster Artifact: Elaborately carved walking sticks with cool handles
  

Interaction, 2005

L.A.con IV, 2006

• Best T-shirt: Dude: O Holy One! I pray Thee, send me a miracle!
  God: Dude, I'm a cult of personality, not a talent show. [Much funnier if you see the artwork]
  
• Best Ribbon (a departure this year from Best Button): "SMOFs on a M*F*in’ Plane!"
  
• Best Huckster Artifact: Ceramic-looking knife sheathes with beautiful fantasy designs
  
• Best Overheard Conversation:
  Vince Docherty, regarding a statement by Rick Kovalcik at the Business Meeting that Melbourne was "a small city in a small country," suggested the response: "Just say that size doesn't matter. That always works with guys."
  Deb Geisler, on hearing the suggestion later: "And we always lie"
  
• Best Overheard Conversation (Current Events): Cory Doctorow, in a conversation in Program Ops about the increased airport security measures: “I want to see what the TSA does if a terrorist decides to attempt a hijacking using an exploding passport”
  

Denvention 3, 2008

• Best T-shirt Fools! I Will Destroy You All! Ask me how!
  
• Best Button: "WTFWJD?"
  
• Best Huckster Artifact: Detailed bronze SF and celtic pins, doorknobs, etc. by Butch Honeck
  
• Best Overheard Conversation A Jewish fan who renamed the con “FakachteCon” (based on the Yiddish word meaning “screwed up”)
  

Anticipation, 2009

• Best T-shirt: Midwestcon 60 shirt by Jane Dennis - A photo of the tunnel of the never-completed Cincinnati subway system with the following text: “Doesn't Go Anywhere. Doesn't Do Much. Midwestcon 60” (Will probably be amusing only to frequent Midwestcon attendees)
  
• Best Button: "I do what the little voices in my GPS tell me to"
  
• Best Huckster Artifact: Creatures From El - Finely sculpted fantasy creatures by Canadian sculptor Ellen Jewett
  
• Best Overheard Conversation: Howard Rosenblatt, on hearing a story about a friend who was told by a woman he barely knew when he was walking her back to her con hotel late at night that she had slept with the two most powerful men in fandom: “Did he respond that he was the third most powerful man in fandom?”
  

Aussiecon 4, 2010

• Best T-shirt: Didn't see a whole lot due to isolation in my Program Ops cave, but I liked Jane Dennis's design for the Committee/Volunteer T-shirts: a group of cyborg koalas carrying off a spaceship
  
• Best Button/Ribbon (this year, a ribbon): “George RR Martin is not your bitch” - Neil Gaiman, 2009
  
• Best Huckster Artifact: Stephen's recommendation - Silversmith Cindy Smith
  
• Best Overheard Conversation: On the escalator down from the Hugo pre-reception to the ceremony:
  Scott Edelman: "So, are we going to be doing a group sing of 'Waltzing Matilda'?"
  Ginjer Buchanan: "No, but they really love Banjo Patterson here. I think he's on the money.”
  Me: "He's on the $10 bill. It also has the words to 'The Man From Snowy River' in microprint."
  John R. Douglas: "Oh, good, that will give me something to do during the ceremony."

Renovation, 2011

Chicon 7, 2012

• Best T-shirt: My Little Cthulhu
  
• Best Button/Ribbon (this year, a ribbon): ““Helen's Pool Boy” (after Chicon 7 Vice Chair Helen Montgomery's propensity when she chairs a con to ask why she doesn't get pool boys)
  
• Best Huckster Artifact: Lighted stands with Lichtenberg figures (branching patterns of internal fractures permanently captured inside various shapes of acrylic)
  
• Best Overheard Conversation: At Monday's Business Meeting:
  Glenn Glazer to Helsinki in 2015 bid chair Eemeli Aro: “Why are you bidding for 2015, which is only a year after the London Worldcon, given that it will be so difficult and so expensive for Americans to go to two overseas conventions in a row?”
  My Australian husband Stephen, from the audience: “Cry me a river”

LoneStarCon 3, 2013

• Best T-shirt: My Other Shirt Is Mithril
  
• Best Button/Ribbon (this year, a ribbon): Captain Hammer Is My Favorite Tool
  
• Best Huckster Artifact: Elastic-band bookmarks with small enamel plaques by Kel-A Unique Art
  
• Best Overheard Conversation: One of the traveling Daleks in the Exhibits area: “Oh no, stairs! I'm f*cked!”

Loncon 3, 2014

• Best T-shirt: All Cats Are Psychopaths ("I kill things because I love you")
  
• Best Most Obscure Button/Ribbon (this year, a ribbon): Graphic representation of the song that is meaningful to the lead character in Best Novel winner Ancillary Justice
  
• Best Huckster Artifact: Pagan and fantasy pins, torcs, brooches, etc. made of pewter and bronze, including personalized bracelets with your name in Elvish, Celtic, dwarfish runes, and other fantasy languages from UK dealer Runesmith (plus his prices include free international shipping!)
  
• Best Overheard Conversation: Irish fan James Bacon during the bid presentation for Dublin in 2019 at the Business Meeting, when asked "What's the food like in Dublin?": "We have some food." *pause* "Potatoes, mostly..." *pause* "Except when we don't." *pause* "And then we need your help."

MidAmeriCon II, 2016

• Best T-shirt: Minions carrying away the Tardis
  
• Best Button/Ribbon (this year, a ribbon): "Voice of Outraged Integrity"
  
• Best Huckster Artifact: Cool monster jewelry boxes by artist David Lee Pancake
  
• Best Overheard Conversation: At the beginning of a conversation about Mary Robinette Kowal's having broken a convention center rule, Ginjer Buchanan interrupted: "For lewd puppetry?"