Eisner Awards 2026 Announce Their Hall Of Fame Inductees

Celebrating Creators’ Contributions To The Medium

So the Eisner Awards have just announced this year’s inductees into their 2026 Hall Of Fame…

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 Freidrich, Lee Marrs, Go Nagai, Bud Plant, Dave Sim, Carol Tyler and Rick Veitch plus a late addition with Mike Royer. Here’s the bios of everyone they picked

Bob Bolling (1928– )
Bob Bolling spent most of his career at Archie Comics and is best known for creating Little Archie. From its launch in 1956, the series was such a success that Bolling was assigned to the title full-time and was allowed to sign his name to his work. His versatile art played to diverse genres or settings, and his stories could be funny, scary, deeply moving, or bizarre—as likely to feature a pirate or spaceship as a walk home or a lost pet. Over the decades, he worked on such other titles as Archie’s Pals ’n’ Gals, Archie and Me, and Marvel’s Star Comics feature Wally the Wizard, but his achievement on Little Archie places him securely in company with Carl Barks and Walt Kelly.

Gerry Conway (1952– )
Gerard (“Gerry”) Conway has written numerous comics stories and created many characters, primarily for Marvel and DC. He is the co-creator of a plethora of characters at both companies, including The Punisher, Spider-Man’s clone Ben Reilly, and Ms. Marvel for Marvel and Firestorm, Power Girl, and Jason Todd for DC. Conway was the writer selected for the first intercompany crossover between DC and Marvel, Superman vs. The Amazing Spider-Man, in 1976. He is remembered for an eight-year narrative on Justice League of America and for one of the most groundbreaking two-issue stories in superhero comics: “The Death of Gwen Stacy” in The Amazing Spider-Man.

Denys Cowan (1961– )
Denys Cowan rose to prominence for his work on DC Comics’ The Question, beginning in 1987, which was followed by kinetic and inspired runs on Detective Comics, Black Panther, and Deathlok. In 1993 he was one of the co-founders of Milestone Media, a pioneering company that, in its comics division Milestone Comics, prioritized diverse representation in its characters, its creators, and its narratives. Cowan later worked as executive producer on Static Shock, an animated series based on a Milestone character that he had helped to create.

Edwina Dumm (1893–1990)
Edwina Dumm was a pioneering female cartoonist. Whereas Wikipedia says she was “America’s first full-time female editorial cartoonist,” it is for her dog-focused comic strips that she is best remembered. Tippie, Sinbad, and Alec the Great were her stars, and some Tippie strips were reprinted in comic books. With Hilda Terry and Barbara Shermund, Dumm was one of the first three women to be admitted to the National Cartoonists Society; in 1978, she was the first woman to receive the NCS Gold Key Award. She produced the syndicated Tippie strip until she retired in 1966.

Mike Friedrich (1949– )
Mike Friedrich began writing comics in 1967, including DC’s The Spectre, Batman, Teen Titans, Justice League, and The Flash, as well as Marvel’s Iron Man and Captain America. In 1974, he created Star*Reach, a pioneering independent comics publisher with titles including Star*Reach, Imagine, and Quack! along with Pudge, Girl Blimp by future wife and this year’s fellow Hall of Fame inductee Lee Marrs. When economic woes sank his company, rather than declare bankruptcy (and leave creators in the lurch), Friedrich paid his bills by working as Marvel’s first direct sales manager. He became an agent representing comic book creators and, after leaving the comics field, became a deacon in the United Methodist Church.

Ollie Harrington (1912–1995)
Langston Hughes called Oliver “Ollie” Harrington the greatest Black cartoonist of the twentieth century. Harrington used his expressive line to document Black life in America, primarily for the Amsterdam News and the Pittsburgh Courier, two of America’s historically Black newspapers. His 1935 comic strip Dark Laughter, chronicling Harlem life, featured a character named Bootsie, whose popularity led to the strip being renamed for him. Shortly before Pearl Harbor, Harrington introduced Jive Grey, a strip about a Black aviator. Harrington’s involvement in the American civil rights movement and his activism with the NAACP led to his investigation by the FBI and HUAC, causing him to emigrate to Paris in 1951.

Don Heck (1929–1995)
As a key agent in Marvel’s Silver Age, artist Don Heck co-created Tony Stark, Hawkeye, Black Widow, The Mandarin, Wonderman, The Swordsman, Lorna Dane, Havok, and Sunfire during his formative runs on Iron Man, The Avengers, and X-Men. He was more than proficient at working via the “Marvel Method” and was, therefore, one of the Marvel Universe’s earliest architects. Before Marvel, he was also one of Atlas’s most versatile staff artists, adept at romance, war, horror, science fiction, and westerns. He also ghosted Lee Falk’s Phantom strip for five years and drew DC’s Batgirl, Wonder Woman, The Flash, and Justice League of America.

Abe Kanegson (1921–1965)
If Will Eisner was the brains behind The Spirit, Abe Kanegson was the voice. From 1947 to shortly before the feature ended in 1952, Kanegson was the primary letterer for the acclaimed series. Eisner roughed out the letters of the feature famous for its lush splash pages and intricate display lettering; Kanegson then executed Eisner’s vision with skill. He also sometimes contributed by inking backgrounds or figures and occasionally editing a caption. Kanegson also lettered “The Secret Files of Dr. Drew” in Fiction House’s Rangers Comics #47–60 and such other Eisner Studio projects as John Law.

Lee Marrs (1945– )
Beginning her comics career assisting on Little Orphan Annie, Prince Valiant, and Hi & Lois, Lee Marrs went on to co-found Alternative Features Service. She is one of the godmothers of the underground comix movement, a “founding mommy” for underground women cartoonists. Creator of the underground comic The Further Fattening Adventures of Pudge, Girl Blimp, she also contributed to a variety of series, notably including DC’s Plop!, but also Wimmen’s Comix, Wet Satin, and Gay Comix, as well as Star*Reach, which was published by future husband and fellow Hall of Fame inductee Mike Friedrich.

Go Nagai (1945– )
Of the many genres of manga popular today in the United States, there are few that Go Nagai (Kyoshi Nagai) has not either influenced or outright created. On Mazinger Z, he created the first mecha robots—a genre centered on piloted giant robots—popular now more than ever. With Cutie Honey, he helped pioneer the “magical girl” genre. The postapocalyptic visions, dark violence, and psychological depth present in works such as Violence Jack and Devilman were hugely influential, not only in his native Japan, but also the world over. Much of his work continues to be adapted across other media to this day.

Paul S. Newman (1924–1999)
When Paul S. Newman died at age 75, The New York Times and CNN carried the news, including that he had been listed in Guinness Book of World Records as the world’s most prolific comic book writer. His official credits began with DC in 1947, and the man whom historian Robin Snyder dubbed “King of the Comic Book Writers” often worked without credit on a variety of story types for a variety of publishers. To put his work in perspective, Newman said in 1977 that, to get his 4,121 stories approved for publication, “I had to submit an additional 5,000 plot ideas, which were rejected.”

Héctor Germán Oesterheld (1919–1977[?])
Lambiek describes Héctor Germán Oesterheld as “the most important comic writer from South America.” The Argentinian tackled almost every genre, instilling each with social and political substance. His works between 1952 and 1968 include the revisionist Western El Sargento Kirk, the war comic with no battles Ernie Pike, the popular El Eternauta science fiction strip, the horror-adventure title Mort Cinder, and the biography Vida del Che. Oesterheld was subsequently arrested and presumed killed. An Italian journalist was later told, “We did away with him because he wrote the most beautiful story of Che Guevara ever done.” Oesterheld understood the risks he was taking but always wrote what he believed.

Tom Palmer, Sr. (1942–2022)
Tom Palmer Sr. was an accomplished penciler, colorist, and painter, as well as a successful advertising illustrator, but he will best be remembered in the comics world for his transformative inking. Arriving at the end of classic 1960s-era Marvel, then-newcomer Palmer’s mix of commercial and ad agency experience and art studio training brought an illustrative sophistication to his inks, combining a painterly sensibility in his brushwork with a fine-line pen technique that was perfect for artists as varied as Gene Colan, Neal Adams, and John Buscema. Palmer’s work during this period challenged the more traditional styles of established inkers and inspired the Bronze Age Marvel style of inkers like Klaus Janson.

Bud Plant (1952– )
Bud Plant has been collecting, buying, and selling comics since 1968. In 2010’s Founders of Comic Fandom, Bill Schelly wrote, “Few comic art enthusiasts have had a more visionary and entrepreneurial impact on the hobby than Plant.” Even in high school, the pioneering retailer ran a mail-order comics sales business. He co-founded comics shops in 1968 and 1969, began exhibiting at Comic-Con at its start in 1970, and, more than half a century ago he established Bud Plant, Inc. He published comics and a retailing trade publication and eventually became an independent comics distributor himself. After selling that portion of his business in 1988, he continued to provide mail-order comics catalogs, now available via Bud’s Art Books.

Mike Royer (1941– )
Michael (“Mike”) Royer is a comics penciler, inker, and letterer known for being Jack Kirby’s main artistic collaborator at DC Comics in the 1970s. Those works include the Fourth World Saga (Mister Miracle; Superman’s Pal, Jimmy Olsen; Forever People; New Gods), The Demon, and Kamandi, among many others. When Kirby returned to Marvel Comics later that decade, Royer was there with him as well, inking and lettering dozens of titles. A man to whom Kirby would refer as “my favorite inker,” Royer is also highly regarded for his work with Russ Manning on Magnus, Robot Fighter and as a staff artist and designer at The Walt Disney Company for more than 14 years.

Dave Sim (1956– )
Dave Sim is the outspoken Canadian creator of Cerebus the Aardvark, a black-and-white, 300-issue comic book, self-published from 1977 to 2004 through his own Aardvark-Vanaheim Inc. What began as a funny-animal parody of 1970s sword-and-sorcery comics evolved into a complex commentary on politics, society, and religion. Noted for his artistic experimentation, trenchant satire, and self-publishing advocacy, Sim helped shape the 1988 Creator’s Bill of Rights and, through his Cerebus “phone books” provided an early model of the industry’s shift towards perennial publishing in addition to traditional periodicals. Following Cerebus, Sim produced the serious Judenhass and the satirical Glamourpuss comics and in 2021 (with Carson Grubaugh) the hardcover The Strange Death of Alex Raymond.

Jimmy Swinnerton (1875–1974)
James “Jimmy” Swinnerton was a prolific newspaper strip creator whose career began with comics targeted to children, which was unusual for the period. He was still a teenager when the San Francisco Examiner carried his Little Bears strip, inspired by the bear on the California flag and/or the bear mascot for the San Francisco Mid-Winter Exposition of 1894. An early multi-panel strip using speech balloons, Little Bears might be considered the first “talking animal” comic. For the New York Journal, Swinnerton introduced The Little Tigers and, later, Little Jimmy. While in New York and after a move to Arizona, he introduced Mr. Jack, Mount Ararat, and Rocky Mason, Government Marshal, and painted backgrounds for dozens of Warner Bros. cartoons.

Carol Tyler (1951– )
Carol Tyler is a cartoonist, painter, and comics educator whose interest in undergrounds led her to San Francisco and her 1987 debut in Weirdo magazine. Collections of short pieces such as The Job Thing and Late Bloomer would follow, setting the groundwork for her first long-form narrative, the Eisner Award-nominated biography of her father, whose three color volumes were collected as Soldier’s Heart. The New York Times described it as “a vivid, affecting, eccentrically stylish frame built around a terrible silence.” Married to Comics, a 2023 documentary about Tyler’s life with her late husband, fellow cartoonist Justin Green, was released to rave reviews. Her 2025 work The Ephemerata is a sensitive reflection on the nature of grief.

Rick Veitch (1951– )
A member of the inaugural class of the Joe Kubert School, Rick Veitch was the 2020 Vermont Cartoonist Laureate. His career extends over 50 years in a wide variety of comics, from mainstream to underground, educational, and beyond. In high school, he and his older brother Tom created Crazymouse, which was published in The Vermont Cynic. His credits include Heavy Metal, Marvel’s Epic Comics, Army@Love, and a well-known run on Swamp Thing, both with Alan Moore and as a solo writer/artist. Through his own King Hell Press, he’s published such innovative titles as Brat Pack, The Maximortal, and Roarin’ Rick’s Rare Bit Fiends. His Greyshirt series was created as an homage to Will Eisner.