Carol Kalish, Jackie Ormes Selected for Eisner Hall of Fame
The Will Eisner Awards judges have selected Carol Kalish, former Marvel direct sales manager, and Jackie Ormes, the first black female syndicated newspaper cartoonist, for automatic induction into the Will Eisner Hall of Fame.
Ormes, who died in 1985, is best known for creating the comics strip Dixie in Harlem (starring the main character Torchy Brown), which first appeared in the Pittsburgh Courier in 1937. It is the first syndicated comics strip by a black woman.
Kalish died in 1991. She was an editor, comics retailer and direct sales manager at Marvel Comics and is credited with pioneering and supporting the development of the direct sales market, aka the comics shop market, during its early years.
Kalish and Ormes will be inducted into the Will Eisner Hall of Fame at the 2018 San Diego Comic-Con International in July. In addition the Hall of Fame Judges have also chosen 16 nominees from which four will be selected by voters to be inducted alongside Ormes and Kalish.
Among the nominees are Charles Adams, Howard Cruse, Rumiko Takahashi, Francoise Mouly, Thomas Nash, and Posy Simmonds. The complete list of nominees can be found on the Eisner Awards website.
All voting is online. To vote, you must work as a professional in the comics industry and related industries (retail, librarian or historian). The deadline for voting is March 16
