Jo Duffy and Ralph Newman are this year’s recipients of the 2024 Bill Finger Award for Excellence in Comic Book Writing. The selection, made by a blue-ribbon committee chaired by writer-historian Mark Evanier, was announced June 28.

“Since 2005, we have been honoring writers whose work in the comic book industry has not, we feel, received the attention and recognition that their work deserved,” Evanier noted. “This year’s posthumous recipient wrote hundreds if not thousands of comic book scripts without, as far as we can tell, ever getting his name on any of them. That’s about as unrecognized as you can be.”

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Jo Duffy has written comics including Power Man and Iron Fist, Catwoman, Batman, Wolverine, Fallen Angels, Nestrobber, Glory, Crystar, Elvira, Defenders, Punisher, and Star Wars, as well as the English-language edition of Akira. She has written short stories, essays, the comic book biography of Saint Francis, and an adaptation of Kipling’s Jungle Book, and is the co-writer of two Puppet Master movies. She was managing editor of Epic magazine and an editor at Marvel Comics, handling such titles as Elektra, Daredevil, Dreadstar, Groo, Doctor Strange, Hulk, and ROM. She co-edited Bernie Wrightson’s Frankenstein.

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Ralph Newman (1914–1989) was born in Michigan and spent his professional life doing advertising cartooning and then magazine cartooning. His first sale in the latter field was to Amazing Stories, and he later worked as an “idea man” for other magazine cartoonists and as a story-and-gag man for Paul Terry’s Terrytoons animation studio. This led to him writing comic books for Timely Comics (now Marvel) featuring Terrytoons characters such as Gandy Goose and Sourpuss throughout the 1940s; when the license shifted to the St. John’s publishing company in the 1950s, Newman shifted with them. It is not known precisely when he also began working for the Harvey company, but its longtime editor Sid Jacobson called him the most prolific writer the firm ever had. During his years there, Newman probably wrote for every character who had any kind of longevity, including Casper the Friendly Ghost, Wendy the Good Little Witch, Sad Sack, Little Audrey, Little Lotta, Richie Rich, Spooky, Little Dot, Hot Stuff, The Ghostly Trio, and many more—all without credit. If you read Harvey comics during the company’s peak years, you couldn’t help but read stories written by Ralph Newman. He left us in 1989.

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The Bill Finger Award was created in 2005 thanks to the late comic book legend Jerry Robinson, who proposed it to honor the memory of his friend, Bill Finger.  According to Evanier, “At the time, though everyone knew Batman and his supporting cast, not nearly enough knew Mr. Finger and his vital contributions to the creation of that beloved hero. Finger’s name now appears on Batman movies and comic books, and we want to keep it on this award, as he’s still the industry poster boy for writers not receiving proper reward or attention.”

The Bill Finger Award selection committee consists of Mark Evanier, Charles Kochman (executive editor at Harry N. Abrams, book publisher), comic book writer Kurt Busiek, artist/historian Jim Amash, cartoonist Scott Shaw!, and writer/editor Marv Wolfman.