In a ceremony held earlier today at the San Diego Comic-Con, the Will Eisner Comic Awards Hall of Fame added 23 new inductees into their ranks.
The Hall of Fame committee chose most of those inductees earlier this year, while voters chose four to join them from a field of 16.
The four who were voted in are:
Colleen Doran (1964– )
Award-winning writer/artist Colleen Doran came on to the comics scene in the early 1980s with her creator-owned series A Distant Soil. Her published works now number in the hundreds, with clients such as The Walt Disney Company, Marvel Entertainment, DC Comics, Image Comics, Lucasfilm, Dark Horse, Harper Collins, Houghton Mifflin, Sony, and Scholastic. Her credits include Amazing Spiderman, Guardians of the Galaxy, Sandman, Wonder Woman, The Legion of Superheroes, Walt Disney’s Beauty and the Beast, Clive Barker’s Hellraiser, A Distant Soil, The Silver Surfer, Neil Gaimon’s Chivalry, and Amazing, Fantastic, Incredible Stan Lee, among many others.
Jeff Smith (1960– )
Jeff Smith is the creator of the award-winning comic book series Bone. He and his wife Vijaya Iyer established Cartoon Books in 1991 to self-publish the series. Jeff was a pioneer in comics publishing for kids when Bone launched Scholastic’s graphic novel imprint Graphix Books in 2005. Smith’s other award-winning and acclaimed comics include SHAZAM! The Monster Society of Evil, RASL, Little Mouse Gets Ready!, ROSE, and Bone: Tall Tales. His most recent project, TUKI, ran as a webcomic series from 2013 to 2016, followed by two graphic novels. In 2015 Jeff helped found the annual Cartoon Crossroads Columbus festival.
Akira Toriyama (1955–2024)
Akira Toriyama became well known for creating the popular manga series Dr. Slump and Dragon Ball. In 1981, he won the Shogakukan Manga Award for Dr. Slump, which sold over 35 million copies in Japan and was also made into a successful anime TV show. Dragon Ball has become one of the most popular manga worldwide. It sold 260 million copies, making it one of the bestselling manga series ever. The Dragon Ball anime shows helped make anime popular in Western countries. Toriyama also designed characters for many popular video games.
Chris Ware (1967– )
Known for his New Yorker magazine covers, award-winning cartoonist Chris Ware is hailed as a master of the comics artform. His complex graphic novels tell stories about people in suburban Midwestern neighborhoods, poignantly reflecting on the role memory plays in constructing identity. Stories featuring many of Ware’s protagonists—Quimby the Mouse, Rusty Brown, and Jimmy Corrigan—often first appeared in serialized form, in publications such as The New York Times, the Guardian, or Ware’s own ongoing comic book series Acme Novelty Library, before being organized into their own stand-alone books. His work has appeared in many national and international art exhibits, including solo exhibitions at the Gavle Kunstcentrum in Sweden, the Centre Pompidou in Paris, and as part of the Masters of American Comics traveling exhibit.
The other pre-chosen inductees include:
- Edwina Dumm
- Oliver Harrington
- Don Heck
- Abe Kanegson
- Paul S. Newman
- Hector German Osterheld
- Tom Palmer Sr.
- Jimmy Swinnerton
- Bob Bolling
- Gerry Conway
- Denys Cowan
- Mike Friedrich
- Lee Marrs
- Go Nagai
- Bud Plant
- Dave Sim
- Carol Tyler
- Rick Veitch
Congratulations to everyone who was inducted this year!
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