Carol Kalish and Jackie Ormes will be inducted into the Will Eisner Hall of Fame in 2018. They were selected by the Eisner judge panel for the honor.

Kalish is a well-regarded pioneer of the direct market. She served as Direct Sales Manager and Vice President of New Product Development at Marvel Comics between 1981 and 1991, during which time she was a driving force behind a program to provide comics retails with cash registers and she steered Marvel’s distribution into other retail outlets. Kalish has previously been awarded an Inkpot and the first-ever ComicsPRO Industry Appreciation Award for her contributions to the comics marketplace.

Ormes was the first black female syndicated cartoonist, whose work was published nationwide in the black press between 1937 and 1955. She is best known as the creator of Patty-Jo ‘n’ Ginger, a single panel cartoon that frequently commented on racial and gender inequality, and Torchy Brown, a Southern transplant to New York who first starred in Torchy Brown in Dixie to Harlem and wrapped up her comics page run in Torchy in Heartbeats.

The Eisner judges nominated 16 other individuals for the Hall of Fame, four of whom will be chosen based on the votes of industry professionals: Charles Addams, Jim Aparo, Gus Arriola, Karen Berger, Howard Cruse, Carlos Ezquerra, Dave Gibbons, Paul Levitz, Tarpe Mills, Francoise Mouly, Thomas Nast, Lily Renee Wilhelm Peters Phillips, Posy Simmonds, Rumiko Takahashi, John Wagner, and S. Clay Wilson.

The winners will be announced at San Diego Comic-Con during the Eisner Awards ceremony on July 20 at the Hilton San Diego Bayfront Hotel.

In past years, judges have elected two automatic inductees for the Hall of Fame, but an exception was made in 2017 due to the Will Eisner centennial celebration (see "Eisner Awards Hall of Fame Adds Gross, Peter, Prohias, Seda").