Tag Archives: Will Eisner Comic Awards Hall of Fame

2019 Eisner Awards

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Comic-Con International presented the Will Eisner Comic Industry Awards 2019 in a ceremony held July 19.

Best Short Story

  •  “The Talk of the Saints,” by Tom King and Jason Fabok, in Swamp Thing Winter Special (DC)

Best Single Issue/One-Shot

  • Peter Parker: The Spectacular Spider-Man #310, by Chip Zdarsky (Marvel)

Best Continuing Series

  • Giant Days, by John Allison, Max Sarin, and Julaa Madrigal (BOOM! Box)

Best Limited Series

  • Mister Miracle, by Tom King and Mitch Gerads (DC)

Best New Series

  • Gideon Falls, by Jeff Lemire and Andrea Sorrentino (Image)

Best Publication for Early Readers (up to age 8)

  • Johnny Boo and the Ice Cream Computer, by James Kochalka (Top Shelf/IDW)

Best Publication for Kids (ages 9–12)

  • The Divided Earth, by Faith Erin Hicks (First Second)

Best Publication for Teens (ages 13–17)

  • The Prince and the Dressmaker, by Jen Wang (First Second)

Best Humor Publication

  • Giant Days, by John Allison, Max Sarin, and Julia Madrigal (BOOM! Box)

Best Anthology

  • Puerto Rico Strong, edited by Marco Lopez, Desiree Rodriguez, Hazel Newlevant, Derek Ruiz, and Neil Schwartz (Lion Forge)

Best Reality-Based Work

  • Is This Guy For Real? The Unbelievable Andy Kaufman, by Box Brown (First Second)

Best Graphic Album—New

  • My Heroes Have Always Been Junkies, by Ed Brubaker and Sean Phillips (Image)

Best Graphic Album—Reprint

  • The Vision hardcover, by Tom King, Gabriel Hernandez Walta, and Michael Walsh (Marvel)

Best Adaptation from Another Medium

  • “Frankenstein” by Mary Shelley, in Frankenstein: Junji Ito Story Collection, adapted by Junji Ito, translated by Jocelyne Allen (VIZ Media)

Best U.S. Edition of International Material

  • Brazen: Rebel Ladies Who Rocked the World, by Pénélope Bagieu (First Second)

Best U.S. Edition of International Material—Asia

  • Tokyo Tarareba Girls, by Akiko Higashimura (Kodansha)

Best Archival Collection/Project—Strips

  • Star Wars: Classic Newspaper Strips, vol. 3, by Archie Goodwin and Al Williamson, edited by Dean Mullaney (Library of American Comics/IDW)

Best Archival Collection/Project—Comic Books

  • Bill Sienkiewicz’s Mutants and Moon Knights… And Assassins… Artifact Edition, edited by Scott Dunbier (IDW)

Best Writer

  • Tom King, Batman, Mister Miracle, Heroes in Crisis, Swamp Thing Winter Special (DC)

Best Writer/Artist

  • Jen Wang, The Prince and the Dressmaker (First Second)

Best Penciller/Inker or Penciller/Inker Team

  • Mitch Gerads, Mister Miracle (DC)

Best Painter/Multimedia Artist (interior art)

  • Dustin Nguyen, Descender (Image)

Best Cover Artist (for multiple covers)

  • Jen Bartel, Blackbird (Image); Submerged (Vault)

Best Coloring

  • Matt Wilson, Black Cloud, Paper Girls, The Wicked + The Divine (Image); The Mighty Thor, Runaways (Marvel)

Best Lettering

  • Todd Klein— Black Hammer: Age of Doom, Neil Gaiman’s A Study in Emerald (Dark Horse); Batman: White Night (DC); Eternity Girl, Books of Magic (Vertigo/DC); The League of Extraordinary Gentlemen: The Tempest (Top Shelf/IDW)

Best Comics-Related Periodical/Journalism

TIE

  • Back Issue, edited by Michael Eury (TwoMorrows)
  • PanelxPanel magazine, edited by Hassan Otsmane-Elhaou, panelxpanel.com

Best Comics-Related Book

  • Drawn to Purpose: American Women Illustrators and Cartoonists, by Martha H. Kennedy (University Press of Mississippi)

Best Academic/Scholarly Work

  • Sweet Little C*nt: The Graphic Work of Julie Doucet, by Anne Elizabeth Moore (Uncivilized Books)

Best Publication Design

  • Will Eisner’s A Contract with God: Curator’s Collection, designed by John Lind (Kitchen Sink/Dark Horse)

Best Digital Comic

Best Webcomic

Will Eisner Hall of Fame

The Eisner Awards judges selected four people to be automatically inducted:

  • Jim Aparo (Silver Age DC artist, Brave and the Bold, Batman and the Outsiders)
  • Dave Stevens (writer/artist, creator of The Rocketeer)
  • June Tarpé Mills (Golden Age creator of the Miss Fury comic strip and comic books)
  • Morrie Turner (cartoonist of the Wee Pals newspaper strip)

The judges also chose 14 nominees from which voters selected these 5 to be inducted in the Hall of Fame.

  • Jose Luis Garcia-Lopez,
  • Jenette Kahn
  • Paul Levitz
  • Wendy & Richard Pini
  • Bill Sienkiewicz

Other awards presented tonight:

Will Eisner Spirit of Comics Retailer Award

  • La Revisteria Comics, Lr Asturias SA., Capital Federal, Buenos Aires, Argentina

Bob Clampett Humanitarian Award

  • Edgardo Miranda-Rodriguez
  • Kyung Jeon-Miranda
  • Lisa Wood.

Bill Finger Award for Excellence in Comic Book Writing

  • Mike Friedrich
  • E. Nelson Bridwell

Russ Manning Promising Newcomer Award

  • Lorena Alvarez, writer/artist of Hicotea and Nightlights (Nobrow)

Aparo, Mills, Stevens, Turner Chosen by Judges for Eisner Hall of Fame

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The Eisner Awards judges have selected four people to be automatically inducted into the Will Eisner Hall of Fame for 2019,

  • Jim Aparo (Silver Age DC artist, Brave and the Bold, Batman and the Outsiders)

Jim Aparo’s first comics work was at Charlton Comics in the late 1960s. He worked on several genres there and was eventually recruited by editor Dick Giordano for a move to DC Comics in the late 1960s, where he handled such features as Aquaman and Phantom Stranger before landing the art chores on DC’s premiere team-up book The Brave and the Bold (starring Batman). He then co-created (with Mike W. Barr) Batman and the Outsiders, which he drew from 1983 to 1985. Aparo went on to draw stories for Batman (most notably “A Death in the Family” storyline), Detective, and other DC titles into the late 1990s. For most of his career, Aparo not only pencilled his work but inked and lettered it as well. He died in 2005.

  • Dave Stevens (writer/artist, creator of The Rocketeer)

Dave Stevens created the Rocketeer, the retro adventure hero of 1980s indie comics and 1991 movie fame. The Rocketeer combined Stevens’ love of 1930s movies, the golden age of aviation, and 1950s pinup girl Bettie Page. Before becoming a professional artist, Stevens contributed amateur illustrations to early Comic-Con program books in the 1970s. His first professional gig was as Russ Manning’s assistant on the Tarzan comic strip in 1975. Stevens later worked as an animator at Hanna-Barbera and a storyboard artist on projects including Raiders of the Lost Ark and Michael Jackson’s “Thriller” music video. Stevens was the first recipient of the Russ Manning Most Promising Newcomer Award in 1982, and he won an Inkpot Award and the Kirby Award for Best Graphic Album in 1986. He died in 2008.

  • June Tarpé Mills (Golden Age creator of the Miss Fury comic strip and comic books)

One of the few female artists working during the Golden Age of comics, June Tarpé Mills was the creator of Miss Fury, an action comic strip and comic book that first appeared in 1941.

Miss Fury is credited as being the first female action hero created by a woman. The Miss Fury comic strip ran until 1951.

Mills returned to comics briefly in 1971 with Our Love Story at Marvel Comics. She died in 1988.

  • Morrie Turner (cartoonist of the Wee Pals newspaper strip)

Morrie Turner created the Wee Pals comic strip in 1965. When Wee Pals was first created, bringing black characters to the comics pages was by no means an easy task. At first, only five major newspapers published the strip. It was not until 1968 and the tragic assassination of Martin Luther King Jr. that Wee Pals achieved nationwide acceptance. Within three months of Dr. King’s death, Wee Pals was appearing in more than 100 newspapers nationwide. In 2012 Turner was the recipient of Comic-Con’s Bob Clampett Humanitarian Award. He also has the distinction of having been one of the handful of pros at the very first Comic-Con in 1970.

The judges have also chosen 14 nominees from which voters will select 4 to be inducted in the Hall of Fame this summer. These nominees are Brian Bolland, Kevin Eastman, Jose Luis Garcia-Lopez, Lynn Johnston, Jenette Kahn, Paul Levitz, Alex Nino, Lily Renée Peter Phillips, Wendy & Richard Pini, P. Craig Russell, Bill Sienkiewicz, Don & Maggie Thompson, Akira Toriyama, and Naoki Urasawa. For a complete list of the 2019 nominees, including bios and art, click here.

Kalish, Ormes Named to Eisner Hall of Fame

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The Eisner Awards judges have selected two individuals to automatically be inducted into the Will Eisner Hall of Fame for 2018, Carol Kalish (pioneering direct sales manager for Marvel Comics), and Jackie Ormes (first black female newspaper cartoonist, for the strip Dixie in Harlem featuring the character Torchy Brown). Voters will select four more inductees.

Carol Kalish (1955–1991)

Carol Kalish served as Direct Sales Manager and Vice President of New Product Development at Marvel Comics from 1981 to 1991. She is credited with pioneering the comics direct market when it was in its adolescence, in part through a program in which Marvel helped pay for comic book stores to acquire cash registers. Beginning in the mid-1980s, Kalish spearheaded the expansion of the Marvel’s distribution into previously unexplored retail outlets, including major bookstores such as B. Daltons and Waldenbooks. In 2010 she was posthumously awarded the first ComicsPRO Industry Appreciation Award.

Jackie Ormes (1911–1985)

Jackie Ormes was the first, and for a long time only, black female newspaper cartoonist. From 1937 to 1938 she wrote and drew Dixie in Harlem comics featuring Torchy Brown. After returning to her roots in journalism, she published Candy, a single-panel cartoon about a witty housemaid in 1945. Then she created Patty-Jo ’n’ Ginger, another single-panel cartoon about a pair of sisters, which ran for 11 years through 1956. Finally, from 1950 to 1954, Ormes revamped Torchy Brown into Torchy in Heartbeats, an 8-page color comic insert, including many paper dolls as was popular in the time.

The judges have also chosen 16 nominees from which voters will select four to be inducted in the Hall of Fame this summer. These nominees are Charles Addams, Jim Aparo, Gus Arriola, Karen Berger, Howard Cruse, Carlos Ezquerra, Dave Gibbons, Paul Levitz, Tarpé Mills, Francoise Mouly, Thomas Nast, Lily Renée Peter Phillips, Posy Simmonds, Rumiko Takahashi, John Wagner, and S. Clay Wilson.

[Thanks to Mark Hepworth for the story.]

Four Named To Eisner Comic Awards Hall of Fame

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Comic-Con International has announced that the Eisner Awards judges have selected four individuals to automatically be inducted into the Will Eisner Comic Awards Hall of Fame for 2017.

Usually the judges add two people to the Hall, but the number has been doubled this year as part of the Will Eisner centennial celebration – he would have turned 100 on March 6. The judges’ picks are —

Milt Gross (1895–1953)

Milton Gross began his cartooning career in 1915, producing a number of humorous newspaper strips. After serving in World War I, he went on to create strips like Frenchy, Banana Oil, and Help Wanted. His big break came with Gross Exaggerations, a weekly column of prose and cartoons. In 1926 Nize Baby, a book collection of some of these columns, appeared and was an instant hit. Under the same title, Gross began a Sunday page feature in 1927. Other books by Gross include Hiawatta Witt No Odder Poems, De Night In De Front From Chreesmas, Dunt Esk, and the pioneer wordless graphic novel He Done Her Wrong. In 1933, Gross was hired away from the New York World by newspaper tycoon William Randolph Hearst, for whom he produced such strips as Count Screwloose of Tooloose, Dave’s Delicatessen, Otto and Blotto, and That’s My Pop! Gross became a celebrity, famous for his cartooning, scriptwriting, radio shows, and columns.

H. G. Peter (1880–1958)

At age 61, Harry G. Peter began drawing Wonder Woman, collaborating with writer William Moulton Marston. Peter started with the Amazon’s first appearance in Sensation Comics in 1941 and continued drawing the feature for close to two decades. Wonder Woman #97, cover dated April 1958, was Peter’s last issue.

 

 

 

Antonio Prohías (1921–1998)

Antonio Prohías is best known for his 30 years of work with MAD magazine on his comic feature “Spy Vs. Spy,” which has been adapted into a series of animated shorts, several video games, a series of live-action television commercials, and a Sunday strip. Prohías’s two feuding spies stand among the handful of comics characters with an immediate, globally recognized iconic meaning. In the late 1940s Prohias began drawing cartoons for the prestigious Cuban newspaper El Mundo. His wordless material enjoyed international appeal, and by the late 1950s he was the president of the Association of Cuban Cartoonists. On May 1, 1960, just three days before Castro gained control of El Mundo and the rest of Cuba’s free press, Prohías fled Cuba for New York City.

Dori Seda (1950–1988)

Dori Seda was one of the pioneers of the autobiographical comics genre in underground comix. She started her career when she was hired by Last Gasp publisher Ron Turner to do the bookkeeping for the company. Her stories were published in several comics and anthologies, including Wimmen’s Comix, Rip-Off Comix, Tits ‘n Clits, and Weirdo. Dori’s only full-length solo book was Lonely Nights Comics. Her work is collected in Dori Stories (1999), which also includes memorial essays by friends. In 1988, Last Gasp established the Dori Seda Memorial Award for Women, whose first (and only) recipient was Carol Tyler.

The judges have also chosen 17 nominees from which voters will select another four people to go into the Hall of Fame this summer. These nominees are Peter Bagge, Howard Cruse, Steve Englehart, Justin Green, Roberta Gregory, Bill Griffith, Gilbert and Jaime Hernandez, Francoise Mouly, Jackie Ormes, George Pérez, P. Craig Russell, Posy Simmonds, Walt Simonson, Jim Starlin, Rumiko Takahashi, and Garry Trudeau.

Burgos, Jansson Chosen for 2016 Will Eisner Hall of Fame

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Carl Burgos, Golden Age creator of The Human Torch, and Tove Jansson, cartoonist of the internationally popular Moomins, have been selected by the Eisner Award judges to  be automatically inducted into the Will Eisner Comic Awards Hall of Fame for 2016.

The judges have also chosen 14 nominees from which voters will select four to be inducted in the Hall of Fame this summer. These nominees are Lynda Barry, Kim Deitch, Rube Goldberg, Edward Gorey, Bill Griffith, Matt Groening, Jack Kamen, Francoise Mouly, George Pérez, Antonio Prohias, P. Craig Russell, Rumiko Takahashi, Jacques Tardi, and Herb Trimpe.

Eligible voters are professionals working in the comics or related industries as a creator (writer, artist, cartoonist, colorist, letterer), publishers or editors, retailers (a comics store owner or manager), graphic novels librarians, or a comics historians/educators. Visit www.eisnervote.com to register or to sign in and vote online. The deadline for voting is April 1.

The 2016 Eisner Awards judging panel consists of journalist/reviewer Brian Doherty, comics writer/editor Danny Fingeroth, retailer Jason Grazulis (BSI Comics, Metairie, LA), librarian Jason M. Poole (Webster Public Library, Webster, NY), Comic-Con International board member Natalie Powell, and academic/scholar Carol Tilley (University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign).

The Eisner Awards will be presented July 22 in San Diego.