Hall of Fame

Russ Manning was a giant in both the comic strip and comic book worlds. He drew the Tarzan comic for Dell in the 1950s and 1960s, then went on to draw the syndicated Tarzan newspaper strip from 1969 to 1972 and the Sunday strip through 1979. He created the comic book series Magnus, Robot Fighter for Gold Key in 1963 and continued to write and draw it through 1968. He wrote and drew the syndicated Star Wars strip in 1979–1980. Inducted 2006

“MAD’s maddest artist” Don Martin delighted decades of readers with his goofy strips featuring oddball characters and demented sound effects. Who could forget Fonebone or Fester Bestertester? And what kind of imaginative mind did it take to add “Glabadap,” “Schloot,” “Sklishk,” “Sploydoing,” and “Thwizzik” to the sound effects lexicon? There could only be one Don Martin. Inducted 2004

Winsor McCay‘s Dream of the Rarebit Fiend and Little Nemo set unparalleled standards for fantasy artwork on the Sunday comics page early in the 20th century. McCay was also a pioneer in animation with his “Gertie the Dinosaur” short film. Inducted 1998

Cartoonist Bob Montana is famed for co-creating the character of Archie for MLJ Publications in 1941. He drew Archie’s first appearance in Pep and the first Archie comic books, and he was the writer/artist of the Archie newspaper strip from 1946 until his death in 1975. Inducted 2010

Joe Orlando started out as an assistant to Wally Wood in the late 1940s and became one of EC’s top sf/fantasy illustrators in the early 1950s. After a stint drawing for Classics Illustrated, he freelanced for MAD and Warren Publications in the 1960s. In 1968 he went on staff at DC, where he edited such titles as House of Mystery, The Witching Hour, Weird War Tales, and Plop! and went on to become vice president and coordinator of special projects. Orlando is credited with designing much of DC’s distinctive typography. Inducted 2007

Richard Felton Outcault was one of the pioneers of the American comic strip, having created The Yellow Kid (1894) and Buster Brown (1902), among other early titles. Inducted 2011

Hugo Pratt was an Italian who grew up in both Venice and Ethiopia. The aspiring cartoonist moved to Argentina in 1950, where he created a number of adventure comic strips. He returned to Italy in 1965, and in 1970 he created Corto Maltese, an adventure series set in the South Seas, for the French comics weekly Pif. This strip became very successful, and Pratt’s distinctive art style became highly influential on cartoonists around the world. Inducted 2005