Comic-Con International has announced that the Eisner Awards judges have nominated manga creators Akira Toriyama and Naoki Urasawa for the Will Eisner Comic Awards Hall of Fame for 2019. They are part of a selection of 16 nominees, four of whom will be selected by vote to be inducted into the Hall of Fame.

Creative professionals working in the comics or related industries, publishers, editors, retailers (comics store owner or manager), graphic novels librarians, and comics historians/educators can vote online now for four nominees, and the vote will continue until March 15, 2019.

Other nominees for this year include Brian Bolland, Kevin Eastman, Jose Luis Garcia-Lopez, Lynn Johnston, Jenette Kahn, Paul Levitz, Alex Niño, Lily Renée Wilhelm Peters Phillips, Wendy and Richard Pini, P. Craig Russell, Bill Sienkiewicz, and Don and Maggie Thompson. The judges also picked four creators to be automatically inducted: Jim Aparo, June Tarpé Mills, Dave Stevens, and Morrie Turner.

The previous Japanese inductees of the Eisner Hall of Fame were Osamu Tezuka (2002), Kazuo Koike (2004), Goseki Kojima (2004), Katsuhiro Otomo (2012), and Rumiko Takahashi (2018).

Source: ANN

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