Comic-Con International has announced that Barbara Friedlander and Sam Glanzman 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 the creation of Batman and related characters went unsung for several decades.
“Once again, we’re excited to honor two folks who wrote great comic books that perhaps didn’t receive the attention and recognition that their work deserved,” said Mark Evanier, who oversees the awards program. “Readers who only know from fictional superheroes should be aware of the excellent writing that has sometimes been found in comics about real-world romance and real-world war— two areas represented well by this year’s recipients.”
Barbara Friedlander, now Barbara Friedlander-Bloomfield, worked at DC and wrote for their romance line in the 1960s, including such titles as Young Love, Young Romance, Heart Throbs, Secret Hearts, Falling in Love, Girls’ Love Stories and Girls’ Romances. She oversaw their teen comics, including her creation Swing with Scooter, and she wrote the text and advice pages that ran in all these comics. She left DC in 1970.
Navy veteran Sam Glanzman (1924–2017) began working in comics in 1939 at Funnies, Inc., a “shop” that produced comic book material for several publishers. Over the span of his 75-year career in comics, Glanzman worked for Marvel, DC Comics, Charlton, Harvey and Dell, among others, on titles like G.I. Combat, Sgt. Rock, Hercules, Jonah Hex, Fightin’ Army, Savage Tales, Semper Fi, Zorro and Kona, Monarch of Monster Isle. Marvel published his A Sailor’s Story graphic novel in 1987, a personal account of his time on the U.S.S. Stevens during World War II. A sequel followed. New stories about his time on the U.S.S. Stevens appeared in DC’s Joe Kubert Presents six-issue anthology limited series, and those stories, along with the two volumes of A Sailor’s Story, were collected in U.S.S. Stevens: The Collected Stories.
The Bill Finger Award 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.