Marjorie “Marge” Henderson Buehl, the magazine cartoonist who created Little Lulu, and Bill Woggon, creator of Katy Keane, an early example of crowd sourced comics, have been selected for the Will Eisner Comic Awards Hall of Fame by this year’s judges. An additional 13 names will be on the ballot for the awards: Lynda Barry, John Byrne, Chris Claremont, Howard Cruse, Kim Deitch, Matt Groening, Denis Kitchen, Frank Miller, Francoise Mouly, Paul S. Newman, Lily Renée Peters Phillips, Bob Powell, and Frank Robbins. Four will be selected for the Hall and announced at the ceremony at Comic-Con.

Online voting is now open for industry professionals (writer, artist, cartoonist, colorist, letterer, editors, publishers) as well as retailers, graphic novels librarians, and comics historian/educators. The deadline is March 31.

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Marjorie Henderson Buell (“Marge”) (1904–1993)
Marge started drawing Little Lulu for the Saturday Evening Post in 1935, creating a mischievous tot with a spark for ingenuity that we know to this day. Lulu was created as a foil to the existng character Henry. It was turned into a comic strip eventually and the comics by John Stanley and Irving Tripp. Although the Stanley Lulu stories are the best known today, Marge’s Lulu was very popular in its own right, with many licensing deals—including one as the mascot for Kleenex from 1952-1965–and an animated series. Marge was a cartoonist from the age of 16 and created other comic strips and illustrated many books.

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Bill Woggon (1911–2003)
Bill Woggon created “Katy Keene, the Pinup Queen” for Archie Comics in 1945, a fashionable character far above the usual Riverdale shenanigans. readers were encouraged to send in their own designs for clothes and other series props, and Keene would use them in the strips, giving credit to readers. The strip was revived in the 80s with some newer artists but Woggon was still around to take an active hand. He also worked on Millie the Lovable Monster for Dell, and his elegant, streamlined style for perfect for the fashions that the strip spotlighted.
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2 COMMENTS

  1. Shouldn’t the voters select the Hall of Fame inductees? (Especially when Buell appeared once before on the regular HoF ballot in 2013?) Why are some historical creators given automatic induction, while others like Toepffer and Nast, are placed on the general ballot?

    Françoise Mouly (note the cedilla) is one of the rare editorial nominees.

    Wow… a lot of freshmen nominees! Some qualified years ago.
    Denis Kitchen and John Byrne should have been on the ballot in 2005 and 2006.

    Claremont, Phillips, Deitch and Buell appear for the second time, Cruse for the third consecutive year. Powell and Newman makes their third appearances. Both Powell and Phillips first appeared on the ballot in 2007, Newman way back in 1997. Newman is the oldest nominee not yet inducted. Everyone else from that class has been inducted. (Bill Everett, Gardner Fox, Joe Simon, Al Feldstein, Bill Finger, E. C. Segar, art spiegelman, Carmine Infantino, Gil Kane, Paul S. Newman, Charles Schulz, Curt Swan.)

    If I voted, I’d select: Cruse, Kitchen, Miller, Mouly.

  2. African American Disney Legend Floyd Norman’s first cartooning work was for Bill Woggon. At his SDCC Spotlight panel, Floyd said he was always drawing during high school. One of his teachers who noticed was a golfing buddy of Bill Woggon and introduced Floyd to the artist.

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