Each year at Comic-Con, we hand out the Bill Finger Award for Excellence in Comic Book Writing. In fact, we hand out two of them — one to someone we hope will be with us to accept it and one, posthumously, to someone who left us but is worthy of recognition. The award was founded by the late Jerry Robinson and it recognizes a writer of comics who produced a splendid body of work but who did not receive proper recognition and/or financial reward. At the time Jerry proposed this award, that was all too true of his late friend, Bill Finger.
These days, Finger gets his name on his great co-creation Batman but since others do not receive their due recognition, the awards continue. This is the annual announcement that as its Administrator, I am now open to receive nominations and suggestions for the 2019 presentation. Here's what you need to know…
- This is an award for a body of work as a comic book writer. Every year, a couple of folks nominate their favorite artist. Sometimes, they don't get that "writer" part and sometimes, they argue that their nominee qualifies because their favorite artist has done so many comics, he must have written one or two of them so we can give him this trophy, right? Wrong. It's for a body of work as a comic book writer. Got that? Also, "a body of work" is not one or two comics you liked written by someone relatively new to the field.
- This award is for a writer who has received insufficient reward for his or her splendid body of work. It can be insufficient in terms of recognition or insufficient in terms of financial compensation or it can, of course, be both. But this is not just an award for writing good comic books or a lot of them.
- And it's for writing comic books, not comic strips or pulps or anything else. We stretch that definition far enough to include MAD but that's about as far as we'll stretch it.
- To date, this award has gone to Jerry Siegel, Arnold Drake, Harvey Kurtzman, Alvin Schwartz, Gardner Fox, George Gladir, Archie Goodwin, Larry Lieber, John Broome, Frank Jacobs, Otto Binder, Gary Friedrich, Bob Haney, Del Connell, Frank Doyle, Steve Skeates, Steve Gerber, Don Rosa, Robert Kanigher, Bill Mantlo, Jack Mendelsohn, Don McGregor, John Stanley, Elliot S! Maggin, Richard E. Hughes, William Messner-Loebs, Jack Kirby, Joye Hummel Murchison Kelly and Dorothy Roubicek Woolfolk. Those folks, having already won, cannot win again.
- If you have already nominated someone in years past, you need not nominate them again. They will be considered for this year's awards.
- If you nominate someone for the posthumous award, try to also suggest an appropriate person to accept on that person's behalf. Ideally, it would be a relative, preferably a spouse, child or grandchild. It could also be a person who worked with the nominee or — last resort — a friend or historian who can speak about them and their work. And if it's not a relative, we would also welcome suggestions as to an appropriate place for the plaque to reside — say, a museum or with someone who was close to the honoree.
Would you like to nominate someone? If so, here's the address for nominations. Nominations will be accepted until April 15 and you can remember that because it's when your taxes are due. Of far greater importance is that it's also when all reasonable suggestions will be placed before our Blue Ribbon Judging Committee. Their selections will be announced soon after and the presentations will be made at the Eisner Awards ceremony, which is, as it always is, Friday evening at Comic-Con. Thank you.