The following two videos deal with the Bill Finger Award for Excellence in Comic Book Writing. It’s a prestigious award that honors the body of work created over a lifetime. This year, the decision was unanimous: Frank Jacobs, the poet laureate of and long-time writer for MAD magazine, and John Broome, a man whose work in comics during the silver age left an indelible fingerprint on many familiar characters, won the honor.
Curious about the Bill Finger Awards? Here’s a quick definition about them from Comic-Con’s official site:
The Bill Finger Award honors the memory of William Finger (1914-1974), who was the first and, some say, most important writer of Batman. Many have called him the “unsung hero” of the character and have hailed his work not only on that iconic figure but on dozens of others, primarily for DC Comics.
What it doesn’t say is this (Kyle’s addition): after creating Penguin, Riddler, Catwoman, Two-Face, the Bat Cave, the Batmobile, the Batplane, and the Batsignal, named Batman’s hometown Gotham City, and having an involved say in how Batman was shaped, Bill Finger was essentially screwed out of the credits for Batman. For years, his contributions went unrecognized. So, the purpose of the Bill Finger Awards is to recognize great comics writing, attempting to ensure that past writers get their due.
Murphy Anderson Accepts the Award for the Late John Broome
John Broome helped make comics what they are today. At the very least, he helped to forge the stories of many characters we know today. His resume included work on The Flash, Green Lantern, and “The Justice Society of America” to name just a few.
Frank Jacobs Accepts His Bill Finger Award
Now, I think it’s hard enough trying to decide, definitively, who should win a regular Eisner on a year-to-year basis, so the thought of considering the volume of work compiled for the nominees for this award strikes me as particularly daunting. But, I’ve also grown up reading Frank’s work, so I was pretty happy (and a little excited) when I heard the news that he’d be the one receiving the award.
Frank mentions Spy vs. Spy in his speech. If you’re interested (and many of you were at Comic-Con), Crown publishes the Spy vs. Spy collections. You can find them here.
And the concluding piece…
