Eisner Hall of Fame Nominees Announced
Online Voting Now Open through March 26
Comic-Con International (Comic-Con), the largest comic book and
popular arts event in the United States, announced today that voting is now open
for the Hall of Fame category of the Will Eisner Comic Industry Awards.
To vote, you must be a professional working in the comics industry, whether as a
creator (writer, artist, cartoonist, colorist, letterer), a publisher or editor,
or a retailer (comics store owner or manager). Eligible voters can visit
eisnervote.com
to register and then select up to four picks in the Hall of
Fame category. The deadline for voting is March 26. Further eligibility
information is provided on the
Eisner Voting page.
The 2009 Hall of Fame nominees are:
»
Click here for bios for Hall of Fame Nominees
Judges' Hall of Fame Selections for 2009
The judges have also selected two individuals to automatically be inducted into
the Hall of Fame:
Harold Gray, the creator of Little Orphan Annie, and
Graham "Ghastly" Ingels, famed EC comics horror artist.
The 2009 Eisner Awards judging panel consists of Amanda Emmert (owner of Muse
Comics & Games in Missoula, MT), Mike Pawuk (teen services public librarian for
the Cuyahoga, Ohio County Public Library), John Shableski (Diamond Book
Distributors sales manager), Ben Towle (graphic novelist and comics arts
educator), and Andrew Wheeler (comics and manga reviewer at ComixMix.com).
The judges were assisted by students at Vermont's Center for Cartoon Studies,
who made suggestions for Hall of Fame nominees and provided background
information on the people they suggested. Eisner Awards administrator Jackie
Estrada notes that the contributions of the students was very helpful and is
looking forward to working with CCS instructor Steve Bissette and his students
again next year.
About the Voting
The online voting process is being conducted by Mel Thompson and Associates, the
official tabulators of the Eisner Awards. The rest of the categories will be
available for online voting in mid-April. In addition, paper ballots will still
be mailed out and a pdf version will be available for downloading; the paper
ballots will be tabulated along with the online votes for the other categories.
The Will Eisner Comic Industry Awards
are underwritten by Comic-Con, the
nonprofit educational organization dedicated to creating awareness of and
appreciation for comics and related popular art forms, primarily through the
presentation of conventions and events that celebrate the historic and ongoing
contributions of comics to art and culture.
Questions about the awards can be addressed to Jackie Estrada, 619-414-1020,
jackie@comic-con.org
» Click for information on Hall of Fame voter eligibility
2009 Will Eisner Comic Industry
Hall of Fame Nominees
Matt Baker
Golden Age artist
Matthew Baker (1921–1959) is best known as a master of "good girl" art. Baker
started his career in the Iger Studio, working on titles for Fox, Fiction House,
and Quality. He later went on to work for St. John and Atlas, as well as drawing
the
Flamingo newspaper strip. Although he drew a variety of western, romance,
and adventure titles, he is best remembered for his work on the
Phantom Lady
series. Baker was the artist on the arguably first graphic novel,
It Rhymes with
Lust, by Arnold Drake and Leslie Waller. Unfortunately, his career ended
abruptly in 1959, when he died at the young age of 37. He was one of the first
major African American comic book artists.
Bill Blackbeard
Comics historian/archivist
Writer/editor/archivist
Bill Blackbeard has contributed to over 200 collections
of comic strips. The one that tops the list is
The Smithsonian Collection of
Newspaper Comics, published in 1977, co-edited by Blackbeard. Since its release
this book has been consistently referred to as the perfect introduction to comic
strip art. In the 1960s Blackbeard formed a nonprofit organization called the
San Francisco Academy of Comic Art. He began collecting discarded newspapers
from California, later extending his rescue operation nationwide. The collection
(now housed at Ohio State University's Cartoon Research Library) consists of
clipped comic strips, whole comics pages, and complete Sunday sections. The
collection consists of over 2.5 million clippings and tearsheets. These archives
have been used for award-winning collections of
Popeye, Krazy Kat, Yellow Kid,
and other classic newspaper strip reprints.
Alberto Breccia
South American comics artist
Alberto Breccia (1919–1993) was an Argentinean artist who worked from the 1940s through
the 1980s. Starting out in commercial illustration for magazines, juvenile
tales, and genre stories, Breccia's initial adaptation of a highly detailed,
realistic black and white art led to experiments in more impressionistic styles
and techniques. His first major character, a detective named Sherlock Time,
appeared in the late 1950 and was written by Héctor German Oesterheld,
considered perhaps the most important comics writer from South America, who
would become a long-time collaborator. Their "masterpiece" is considered
Mort
Cinder, produced from 1962 to 1964. Breccia worked with and was influenced by
Hugo Pratt and was made a member of the "Venice Group" that Pratt and other
European artists created. One of Breccia's last works was a series called
Perramus, a critique of life under dictatorship, that was begun when Argentina
was still under the control of the dictatorship that was very likely responsible
for the disappearing of writer Oesterheld. This act of artistic courage with
such an intimate knowledge of the risks led to an award from Amnesty
International in 1989.
Reed Crandall
Golden/Silver Age artist
Reed Crandall (1917-1982) started with the Eisner/Iger Studio, where he worked
primarily on titles for Quality Comics, including
Hit, Crack, Smash, and
Uncle Sam (which became
Blackhawk), where he drew such features as "The Ray,"
"Dollman," and "Firebrand," as well as some terrific covers. When Quality scaled
down their line, Crandall began doing work at EC. He drew everything from
science fiction to suspense to horror. When EC folded comics production in
1955/56, he did occasional work for Atlas/Marvel and
Classics Illustrated. In
1960 he landed a contract with
Treasure Chest Comics and drew stories for them
for twelve years. Then in 1964 he began working for Warren and delivered some of
the best work of his career for
Creepy and
Eerie. His last contribution to
comics was published in 1973.
Rudolph Dirks
Pioneer comic strip creator
Rudolph Dirks (1877–1968) was working for the
New York Journal in 1897 when his
editor asked him to create a strip that could compete with the popularity of
The
Yellow Kid by Outcault, published in a rival newspaper,
The New York World.
Dirks came up with
The Katzenjammer Kids, one of the first strips to use a
permanent cast and a frame sequence. It also featured speech balloons, in which
Dirks made use of German slang (for instance, "Katzenjammer" means hangover). In
1912, Dirks wanted to go to Europe to devote himself to painting, and his strip
was taken from him by the publisher, William Randolph Hearst. A legendary court
battle followed, after which Dirks regained the right to draw his characters,
but the use of the title remained the sole right of the newspaper. The result
was that a different cartoonist continued
The Katzenjammer Kids in the
New York
Journal, while Dirks resumed the strip in the
New York World under the title
Hans und Fritz, later renamed
The Captain and the Kids. Dirks retired in 1958.
Russ Heath
Golden/Silver Age artist
Born in New York in 1926,
Russ Heath joined Timely in 1946, where he began drawing
for several different genres but particularly westerns, including
Arizona Kid,
Two-Gun Kid, and
Kid Colt Outlaw. Heath went on to draw science fiction stories
for Avon, romance stories for Lev Gleason, and
Plastic Man for Quality. In the
early 1950s, he worked on such EC titles as
Mad and
Frontline Combat for editor
Harvey Kurtzman, with whom he also worked on Trump. During the 1950s, he worked
for DC/National, where he drew for the full range of adventure features, such as
"Golden Gladiator" and "Robin Hood" in
Brave and the Bold. But he was
particularly noted for drawing war titles such as
Sea Devils,
Our Army at War
(Sgt. Rock), and
G.I. Combat ("The Haunted Tank"). From 1981 to 1984, he worked
on a revived version of
The Lone Ranger for the New York Times Syndicate. In
1991 he drew the official adaptation of the movie version of
The Rocketeer.
Since then, Heath has spent most of his time in the animation industry.
Jerry Iger
Golden Age writer/artist/entrepreneur
Jerry Iger (1903–1990) had no formal art training, but in 1925 he broke into the
field as a news cartoonist for the
New York American. In the early 1930s, he was
involved in the creation of such features as
The Flamingo and
Inspector Dayton
for Editors Press Service. He soon became one of the first people involved in
the comic book business, founding his own Phoenix Features Syndicate. His strips
"Bobby," "Peewee," and "Happy Daze," published in
Famous Funnies, are among the
first ever produced especially for comic books. Iger was the editor of
Wow! What
a Magazine in 1936 and published the first work of Bob Kane, Dick Briefer, and
Will Eisner. With Eisner, he formed the S.M. Iger Studios in 1937, which
eventually became known as the Eisner-Iger Shop. Under Iger's guidance, the shop
produced a large amount of comic books, for which Iger often provided the
scripts. Titles included
Jumbo, Jungle, Planet, and Wings for Fiction House, and
series like "Shark Brodie," "Neon," "Firebrand,' and "Sheena." When Eisner left
in 1939, the studios continued as the Iger Shop. A true comics factory, the
studios worked for such companies as Fox, Quality, Harvey, Holyoke, MLJ, Crown,
EC, and Farrell. He closed his studio in 1955 and went to work as an advertising
artist, teacher, and editorial director at Ajax.
Jack Jackson
Underground comix pioneer
Jack Jackson (1941–2006), aka "Jaxon," while a student at the University of
Texas created, wrote, drew, and self-published what comics historians and
scholars acknowledge as one of the first underground comix,
God Nose. He was
there from the beginning of the underground comix movement as art director at
Family Dog (producing rock posters, many now considered classics of that form)
and co-founder of Rip-Off Press (with Gilbert Shelton, Dave Moriarty, and Fred
Todd). As a cartoonist he contributed works to such premiere underground
anthology titles as
Skull, Slow Death, and
Tales of the Leather Nun. With his
short pieces in the later issues of
Slow Death, specifically "Nits Breed Lice,"
Jackson introduced historical comics to the underground movement, which he
expanded upon in his next phase of work, the innovative
Comanche Moon series
(1975-78) for Last Gasp. With that series he adopted a longer-format commitment
to the medium via his historical nonfiction works. He continued delineating his
home state's history via graphic novels
El Alamo, Los Tejanos, Indian Lover: Sam
Houston and the Cherokees, and
Lost Cause.
Paul S. Newman
Golden/Silver Age writer
Credited in the
Guiness Book of World Records as the most prolific comic book
writer, with more than 4,100 published stories totaling some 36,000 pages,
Paul
S. Newman (1924–1999) is otherwise best known for scripting the
Turok comic book
series for 26 years, as well as the
Lone Ranger newspaper strip for 14 years.
Newman broke into comic books in 1947 with DC's teen humor series A Date with
Judy. He went on to script for Avon Comics, Fawcett, Hillman, St. John, Ziff
Davis, and Timely, just to name a few. At Marvel he wrote
Patsy Walker and other
teen titles. In the Silver Age he wrote hundreds of Gold Key comics and co-created
Dr. Solar. Well into the 1980s he was still writing comic books for DC
(
GI Combat, House of Mystery) and such offbeat titles as
Darkwing Duck.
Bob Oksner
Golden/Silver Age artist
Bob Oksner (1916–2007) was a rare artist who could draw both superhero material
and humor comic books. His early work included creating the second version of
Marvel Boy in 1943 for Timely Comics. He went on to write and draw the
syndicated newspaper comic strip
Miss Cairo Jones (1945–1947), after which DC
editor Sheldon Mayer hired him as an artist on comics adapted from other
media. After a short time he moved from adventure strips to teen-oriented
strips, most notably
Leave It to Binky. And when DC began taking on the
publication of comics based on comedians and TV sitcoms, Oksner found himself in
natural element, drawing
Dean Martin & Jerry Lewis,
The Adventures of Bob Hope,
Dobie Gillis, and
Sgt. Bilko, Over the years he also produced romance comics as
well as
Angel and the Ape, Stanley and His Monster, Lois Lane, and
Shazam.
Antonio Prohías
MAD cartoonist
Antonio Prohías (1921–1998) is best known for his 30 years of work with
Mad magazine on his comic feature
Spy Vs. Spy, which continues to this day
(currently drawn by Peter Kuper).
Spy Vs. Spy has been adapted into a series of
animated shorts, several video games, a series of live-action television
commercials, and a Sunday strip. Prohías' two feuding spies stand among the
handful of comics characters with an immediate, globally recognized iconic
meaning. In the late 1940s Prohías 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. He
has stated that the premise of black-and-white spies forever plotting to kill
each other came from his frustration over the radical polarization that occurred
in his homeland, where everyone who was not enthusiastically in support of the
new regime was seen as a dangerous enemy.
