Since the founding of the Will Eisner Comic Industry Awards (and their previous incarnation, the Kirby Awards), the following individuals have been inducted into the Hall of Fame.
Sheldon Moldoff, Bob Kane's first assistant on Batman, worked on the character off and on for 30 years. He is credited with co-creating Bat-Girl, Bat-Woman, Poison Ivy, Mr. Freeze, Bat-Mite, and Ace the Bat Hound, and he was the regular artist on the Golden Age Hawkman. He was also a prolific cover artist, with credits including the first Green Lantern cover (All-American #16).
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.
British writer Alan Moore is best known as the creator of Watchmen, V for Vendetta, and From Hell. In the early 1980s he worked primarily for 2000AD (creating such series as Skiz,D.R. & Quinch, and The Ballad of Halo Jones), Marvel UK, and Warrior Publications. Moore hit the American comics scene in 1983 as the writer of DC’s Swamp Thing. The success of that title led to DC’s recruitment of more British writers, the founding of the Vertigo imprint, and Moore’s going on to create such enduring titles as Watchmen, Batman:The Killing Joke, V for Vendetta, The League of Extraordinary Gentlemen, and Lost Girls.
Editor and publisher Françoise Mouly founded Raw Books and Graphics in 1978. With her husband, Art Spiegelman, she launched Raw magazine in 1980, which is perhaps best known for serializing Spiegelman’s award-winning Maus. A lavishly produced oversize anthology, Raw published work by Lynda Barry, Charles Burns, Kim Deitch, Ben Katchor, Richard McGuire, Lorenzo Mattotti, Gary Panter, Joost Swarte, Jacques Tardi, and Chris Ware, to name but a few. When Mouly became art director at The New Yorker in 1993, she brought a large number of cartoonists and artists to the periodical's interiors and covers. In 2008 she launched TOON Books, an imprint devoted to books for young readers done by cartoonists.
Editorial cartoonist Thomas Nast) is often considered to be the "Father of the American Cartoon." He started out as an illustrator in 1856 while still a teenager and became a staff illustrator for Harper’s Weekly in 1860. His cartoons advocated the abolition of slavery, opposed racial segregation, and deplored the violence of the Ku Klux Klan. In the 1870s he used his cartoons to crusade against New York City’s political boss William Tweed, and he devised the Tammany tiger for this crusade. He popularized the elephant to symbolize the Republican Party and the donkey as the symbol for the Democratic Party, and he created the "modern" image of Santa Claus.
Marty Nodell co-created the Green Lantern in 1940 with writer Bill Finger. He drew Green Lantern in various titles until leaving DC in 1947 to work for Timely Comics. At Timely he drew Captain America, The Human Torch, and the Submariner, among others, until 1950 when he left the comics business for good.
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.
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.
In addition to Osamu Tezuka, Katsuhiro Otomo is the creator most responsible for popularizing anime and manga in the Western world. Akira, his landmark achievement, revitalized the anime and manga industry, building an entire new anime empire on the groundwork laid by Tezuka. Otomo’s other famous work is Domu, which began being serialized in 1980 and ran for two years. Next came Akira, which ran to over 2,000 pages serialized over eight years (1982–1990). The anime adaptation was released in 1988. Following the success of Akira, Otomo continued work in film as a director and screenwriter.
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.
In 1968 DC editor Julius Schwartz asked Dennis O'Neil to revamp Batman. O’Neil and artist Neal Adams took the character back to his roots and created the version of Batman that has been an inspiration for many of the Warner Bros. films and current comics. In 1970, Dennis again collaborated with Adams and Schwartz to produce the Green Lantern/Green Arrow series. Among his other lauded works for DC are The Shadow with Michael Kaluta and The Question with Denys Cowan.
The first issue of Harvey Pekar‘s American Splendor appeared in 1976. Between then and 1991 he self-published 16 issues, drawn by a variety of artists, most notably R. Crumb and Frank Stack. Subsequent issues were published by Dark Horse and Vertigo. His book with Joyce Brabner Our Cancer Year garnered numerous awards, and Harvey became somewhat of a celebrity by appearing on the Letterman show. In 2003 a film version of American Splendor brought Harvey back into the spotlight.
George Pérez started drawing comics at Marvel in 1974. After working on such titles as Fantastic Four, The Inhumans, and The Avengers, he developed a reputation as the artist who liked to draw group books. In addition to his Marvel stints, he is best known for his work on DC’s The New Teen Titans,Wonder Woman, and Crisis on Infinite Earths.
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.
Lily Renée Wilhelm Peters Phillipswas the star artist for comics publisher Fiction House, where she worked from 1943 until 1948. She drew such strips as Werewolf Hunter, Jane Martin, Senorita Rio, and The Lost World. She was known for her striking covers and “good girl” art. She later drew Abbott & Costello Comics with her husband at the time, Eric Peters, and Borden’s Elsie the Cow comics. She left comics in the 1950s; she is still living and was a guest at Comic-Con in 2007.
