We're getting an earlier start this year on the Bill Finger Award for Excellence in Comic Book Writing…
Each year at Comic-Con International in San Diego, 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.
Mr. Finger's name now does appear 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 2020 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 doggedly nominate their favorite artist. One guy steadfastly refuses to understand how we haven't given it to Curt Swan already. It might have something to do with the fact that Mr. Swan, though a brilliant artist. never wrote a comic book in his life. Here, once again in boldface and italics: It's for a body of work as a comic book writer.
- "A body of work" is not one or two comics you liked written by someone relatively new to the field. Our judges do not take seriously nominations for someone who's been in comics less than twenty years.
- This award is for a writer who has received insufficient reward for his or her splendid body of work. "Reward" can mean insufficient recognition or insufficient financial compensation or it can be, and often is, for both.
- And it's for writing comic books, not comic strips or pulps or letters to your grandmother 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, Dorothy Roubicek Woolfolk, Mike Friedrich and E. Nelson Bridwell. Those folks, having already won, cannot win again.
- If you have already nominated someone in years past, you need not nominate them again. You can if you want but either way, they will be considered for this year's awards.
- If you nominate someone for the posthumous award, it would really help if you also suggest an appropriate person to accept on the honoree'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 person we would honor.
Here's the address for nominations. They will be accepted until March 15 at which time 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…and please stop nominating your favorite artists.