Black Eisner Award Winners (1988-Present)
The following list compiles all of the Black Will Eisner Award Winners; creators of African decent, including creators of mixed heritage and members of the Black Diaspora, since its inception in 1988.
The Will Eisner Comic Industry Awards, considered the “Oscars” of the comic book community, are awarded each year at San Diego Comic Con.
Named after the renowned cartoonist Will Eisner (The Spirit), the awards are given out to the best creators and luminaries in more than two dozen categories.
Key Points
34 titles by Black creators (writers, artists, cartoonists and scholars) have won an Eisner Award.
Three (3) Black individuals have won Humanitarian Awards (Calvin Reid, Regine Sawyer). And there have been four (4) Black inductees into the Will Eisner Hall of Fame.
No African American has ever won the most coveted categories such as Best Writer, Best Writer/Artist, Best Penciler, etc.
Research Notes
This list was compiled from a Wikipedia post listing all of the Eisner Award Winners since 1988. You can view that post here. Winners were confirmed with additional research.
According to Google, this may be the first list to compile all of the African-American Winners (including creators of mixed heritage and members of the Black Diaspora).
This list is a good companion piece to our historic timeline of Black Women Comic Book Creators (1936-2016).
Black Eisner Award Winners (1988-Present)
Best Writer/Artist: Humor
1999 Kyle Baker, You Are Here (DC/Vertigo)
Kyle Baker is the FIRST African American to win an Eisner Award
2004 Kyle Baker, Plastic Man (DC); The New Baker (Kyle Baker Publishing)
2005 Kyle Baker, Plastic Man (DC); Kyle Baker, Cartoonist (Kyle Baker Publishing)
2006 Kyle Baker, Plastic Man (DC); The Bakers (Kyle Baker Publishing)
Best Single Issue/One-Shot
2021 Sports Is Hell, by Ben Passmore (Koyama Press)
Best Short Story
2000 “Letitia Lerner, Superman’s Babysitter”, by Kyle Baker, in Elseworlds (DC)
2020 “Hot Comb”, by Ebony Flowers, in Hot Comb (Drawn & Quarterly)
Best Continuing Series
2011 Chew (Just Desserts and Flambé), by John Layman and Rob Guillory (Image)
2020 Bitter Root, by David Walker, Chuck Brown and Sanford Greene (Image)
2022 Bitter Root, by David F. Walker, Chuck Brown, and Sanford Greene (Image; tied with Something Is Killing the Children, by James Tynion
Best Limited Series or Story Arc
2018 Black Panther: World of Wakanda, by Roxane Gay, Ta-Nehisi Coates, Yona Harvey, and Alitha E. Martinez, (Afua Richardson, Cover Artist; Marvel)
Roxane Gay, Yona Harvey are the first Black women comic book authors to win an Eisner.
Best New Series
2004 Plastic Man, by Kyle Baker (DC)
2010 Chew (Taster’s Choice and International Flavor), by John Layman and Rob Guillory (Image)
Best Title for Younger Readers/Best Comics Publication for a Younger Audience
2005 Plastic Man, by Kyle Baker and Scott Morse (DC)
Best Anthology
2018 Elements: Fire – A Comic Anthology by Creators of Color!, edited by Taneka Stotts (Beyond Press)
2019 Puerto Rico Strong, edited by Marco Lopez, Disiree Rodriguez, Hazel Newlevant, Derek Ruiz and Neil Schwartz (Lion Forge)
Best Reality-Based Work
2006 Nat Turner, by Kyle Baker (Kyle Baker Publishing)
2014 The Fifth Beatle: The Brian Epstein Story, by Vivek J. Tiwary, Andrew C. Robinson, and Kyle Baker (M Press/Dark Horse)
2016 March: Book Two, by John Lewis, Andrew Aydin, and Nate Powell (Top Shelf/IDW)
2017 March: Book Three, by John Lewis, Andrew Aydin, and Nate Powell (Top Shelf/IDW)
2022 The Black Panther Party: A Graphic History, by David F. Walker and Marcus Kwame Anderson (Ten Speed Press)
Best Graphic Album: Reprint
2020 LaGuardia, by Nnedi Okorafor and Tana Ford (Berger Books/Dark Horse)
Best Archival Collection/Project
2003 Krazy & Ignatz by George Herriman (Fantagraphics)
2004 Krazy and Ignatz, 1929–1930, by George Herriman, edited by Bill Blackbeard (Fantagraphics)
Best Archival Collection/Project—Strips
2020 Krazy Kat: The Complete Color Sundays, by George Herriman, edited by Alexander Braun (TASCHEN)
Best Archival Collection/Project — Comic Books
2024 All-Negro Comics 75th Anniversary Edition, edited by Chris Robinson (Very GOOD Books)
Best Adaptation from Another Medium
2018 Kindred, by Octavia Butler, adapted by Damian Duffy and John Jennings (Abrams ComicArts)
Best U.S. Edition of International Material
2018 Run for It: Stories of Slaves Who Fought for the Freedom, by Marcelo D’Salete, translated by Andrea Rosenberg (Fantagraphics)
Best Academic/Scholarly Work
2014 Black Comics: The Politics of Race and Representation, edited by Sheena C. Howard and Ronald L. Jackson II (Bloomsbury)
Dr. Sheena Howard is the first Black woman to win an Eisner Award.
2016 The Blacker the Ink: Constructions of Black Identity in Comics and Sequential Art, edited by Frances Gateward and John Jennings (Rutgers)
2020 EC Comics: Race, Shock, and Social Protest, by Qiana Whitted (Rutgers University Press)
2021 The Content of Our Caricature: African American Comic Art and Political Belonging, by Rebecca Wanzo (New York University Press)
Best Comics-Related Book
2017 Krazy: George Herriman, A Life in Black and White, by Michael Tisserand (Harper)**
2021 Invisible Men: The Trailblazing Black Artists of Comic Books, by Ken Quattro (Yoe Books/IDW)
Bob Clampett Humanitarian Award
2006 Calvin Reid
2012 Morrie Turner
2024 Regine Sawyer (Women in Comics Collective International)
The Will Eisner Award Hall of Fame/Judges’ Choices
2000 George Herriman**
2009 Matt Baker
2024 Billy Graham, E. C. Stoner
