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As is tradition, this year’s Eisner Awards judges have selected two cartonists to be automaticallyinducted into the Will Eisner Comic Awards Hall of Fame for 2016: Carl Burgos (Golden Age creator of The Human Torch) and Tove Jansson (cartoonist of the internationally popular “Moomins”).

An additional 14 nominees were announced, from which four will be selected: Lynda Barry, Kim Deitch, Rube Goldberg, Edward Gorey, Bill Griffith, Matt Groening, Jack Kamen, Francoise Mouly, George Pérez, Antonio Prohias, P. Craig Russell, Rumiko Takahashi, Jacques Tardi, and Herb Trimpe. MOre information on all the nominees is in the above link.

The selection of Jansson, whose Moomins are internationally beloved, might come as a shock to some, revealing as it does a history of women cartoonists.

The 2016 Eisner Awards judging panel consists of journalist/reviewer Brian Doherty, comics writer/editor Danny Fingeroth, retailer Jason Grazulis (BSI Comics, Metairie, LA), librarian Jason M. Poole (Webster Public Library, Webster, NY), Comic-Con International board member Natalie Powell, and academic/scholar Carol Tilley (University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign).

Online voting will be open to comics professionals. Submissions are currently being accepted in the other Eisner categories; the deadline is March 18. The nominees for these categories will be announced in mid-April.