The Harvey Awards Steering Committee has announced it is inducting seven comic creators into the Hall of Fame during the Harvey Awards ceremony on Friday, October 4, 2019.
According to the press release, Mike MIgnola, and Alison Bechdel will be honored at the ceremony, while Will Elder, Jack Davis, John Severin, Marie Severin, and Ben Oda will be honored posthumously.
“My very first comic industry award was the 1994 Harvey Award for Best Artist on Hellboy. I never expected that award, but I took it as a sign that I might actually be on to something,” says Mignola. “It is a great honor to be inducted into the Harvey Awards Hall of Fame—something I certainly never could have imagined. And I’ll take it as proof that I haven’t embarrassed myself too badly over the last 25 years.”
“As someone who existed for so long on the crumbling newsprint margins, it’s surprising and a bit unsettling to receive this recognition from the corridors of comics power. Where did I go wrong?” says Bechdel. “No, just kidding. If you had told me when I was reading Kurtzman parodies in my playpen that I would one day be inducted into the Harvey Awards Hall of Fame, I would have plotzed. I cannot imagine a greater nor a more furshlugginer honor.”
Paul Levitz, longtime DC Comics executive, including 17 years as the publisher of MAD magazine, who will induct Elder, Davis, the Severins, and Oda during the ceremony, adds, “Inducting these five contributors to the Harvey Awards Hall of Fame is both redundant and obvious. As collaborators with Harvey on so much of the great work he did at E.C. Comics, they are already enshrined in every comics scholar and fan’s hall of fame as legends, so they are certainly deserving of the honor of formal induction here. I had the honor of working and being friends with three of the five (Jack, Marie, and the inimitable Ben), and loved the work of the other two (Will and John). I can confidently say that they’d be amazed and ever so pleased.”
The Harvey Awards will take place during the New York Comic Con.
