Comic-Con International has announced this year’s nominees for the Eisner Hall of Fame. They include two judges’ choices — who will be automatically inducted — and 14 other nominees, four of whom will be inducted based on voters’ choices.
The judges’ choices are Nell Brinkley and E. Simms Campbell, both of whom worked in the magazine industry. Brinkley, a.k.a. the “Queen of Comics,” created comics and illustrations for many Hearst newspapers, including the Denver Post and the New York Journal-America. She became well-known for her “Brinkley Girl” illustrations circa 1913 through the 1940s. Campbell, meanwhile, helped define the visual style of Esquire magazine and created comics for it, Life, Cosmopolitan and Playboy during his career. He was the first African-American cartoonist published in nationally distributed slick magazines.
The 14 nominees that voters will choose from include:
- Alison Bechdel
- Howard Cruse
- Moto Hagio
- Don Heck
- Jeffrey Catherine Jones
- Francoise Mouly
- Keiji Nakazawa
- Thomas Nast
- Lily Renée Wilhelm Peters Phillips
- Stan Sakai
- Louise Simonson
- Don and Maggie Thompson
- James Warren
- Bill Watterson
You can read about each of the nominees on the CCI website.