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The Will Eisner Comic Awards quietly announced the first 18 people to be inducted into the 2026 Hall of Fame. These are the Judges Choice inductees chosen by a committee consisting of co-chairs Jim Thompson and Alonso Nunez, and judges Karen Green, Maggie Thompson, Michael T. Gilbert, and Diana Schutz, and administrator Jackie Estrada.
The announcement didn’t include bios so here are my own Wikipedia-aided brief IDs after each name. (This is not exhaustive and I’ll swap out more complete bios when they are available, so take it to the comments.)
- Edwina Dumm – cartoonist on the comic strip Captain Tubbs and Tippie
- Oliver Harrington – pioneering African-American cartoonist. Seriously read his bio.
- Don Heck – famed superhero artist on Iron Man and much more
- Abe Kanegson – letterer and background artist on The Spirit
- Paul S. Newman – prolific writer who claimed to have written more comics than anyone else
- Hector German Osterheld – author of The Eternaut (reprint available now from Fantagraphics)
- Tom Palmer Sr. – prolific inker on Tomb of Dracula and much more
- Jimmy Swinnerton – creator of The Little Bears, Mr Jack and more
- Bob Bolling – the genius behind Little Archie
- Gerry Conway – co-creator of the Punisher, Firestorm and many other characters
- Denys Cowan – co-founder of Milestone Comics, co-creator of Static, artist on the Question and more
- Mike Freidrich – pioneering indie publisher (Star*Reach) and agent
- Lee Marrs – early feminist cartoonist and creator of Pudge Girl Blimp
- Go Nagai – creator of Devilman, Mazinger Z, Cutie Honey
- Bud Plant – pioneering underground comics publisher and distributor
- Dave Sim – creator of Cerebus
- Carol Tyler – I don’t mean to play favorites but everything she’s ever done is a treasure
- Rick Veitch – artist and writer on Swamp Thing, creator of the Heroica and still going strong. (Also the founding publisher of the Beat, so thank you, Rick!)
In case you don’t like my capsules, Paul Levitz has a series of mini-essays on the inductees on his FB page that is far more insightful.
I’m sure some people will be upset by the Dave Sim selection, and speaking as someone who had many run ins with him and was publicly mocked by him…..I’ll stand pat. He’s a god-tier cartoonist who invented small press comics events like SPX.
But don’t let that mini controversy overshadow what an amazing group of creators and visionaries this is. They are all deserving. Congrats to those still with us.
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