“It’s a great honor to receive an award named for the man who unknowingly set me on the path to cartooning in the mid-1950s when MAD Magazine was my life raft out of suburban Long Island,” said Griffith in a statement accompanying the announcement. “Not only that, but it looks like him! I had the great pleasure of knowing Harvey, if only slightly. So this feels personal.” This is the third major comics honor of the year for Griffith, who received the Reuben Award (see “‘Zippy’ Creator Bill Griffith Named Cartoonist of the Year by NCS”) and was named to the Eisner Awards Hall of Fame along with his late wife, Diane Noomin (see “Bud Plant, Phil Seuling Nominated for Eisner Hall of Fame”).
“We have an outstanding class of inductees from 2023, with a focus on creators whose influence on the books they created transcended the medium and serve as key examples of comic books’ influence on larger pop culture,” said Harvey Awards Committee Co-Chair John Lind.
The Harvey Awards Committee is co-chaired by Lind, Nellie Kurtzman, and Chip Mosher. Chris D’Lando and Camilla Di Persia of ReedPop and Eden Miller coordinate the awards.
The nominees for the Harvey Awards were announced in April (see “2023 Harvey Awards Nominations Announced”).
