Comic-Con International has announced that Bob Bolling and Don Rico will receive the 2022 Bill Finger Award. The award recognizes creators who made lasting contributions to comics that went largely “unsung,” as Bill Finger’s contributions to Batman went unsung for several decades.
“We’re excited to be back presenting awards in our original format,” Evanier noted. “And we couldn’t have better recipients than these two men, whose work in comics never received the recognition it deserved. Too often, they worked in utter anonymity, creating work that is fondly remembered even if those who enjoyed it were unaware of its authors’ names.”
Bolling spent the majority of his long career creating comics for Archie Comics, including stories featuring Pat the Brat, Little Archie, Life With Archie, Betty, Betty and Me, Sabrina and more. he also drew Wally the Wizard for Marvel’s Star line. Rico, meanwhile, wrote stories for Marvel/Timely back in the 1940s, working on Captain America, the Human Torch, Sub-Mariner and more. In the 1960s, he scripted the Iron Man story in Tales of Suspense #52 that introduced Black Widow, who he co-created with Stan Lee and Don Heck.
The Bill Finger Award was created in 2005 via a proposal from the late comic book legend Jerry Robinson and honors William Finger, who was the first writer of Batman. His contributions to the character went unrecognized, though, with Bob Kane being listed as Batman’s sole creator until 2015. Previous recipients of the award include William Messner-Loebs, Elliot S! Maggin, Steve Gerber, Archie Goodwin, Bob Haney, Don McGregor, John Stanley and Robert Morales.
The awards will be presented during the Eisner Award ceremony at Comic-Con International next month.
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