Winners and nominees for several special awards to be presented at San Diego Comic-Con have been announced.

Mike Friedrich and E. Nelson Bridwell will receive the 2019 Bill Finger Award for Excellence in Comic Book Writing, created to honor bodies of work by writers that have not received their rightful reward and/or recognition.  Friedrich wrote for DC and Marvel in the 70s, founded alternative publisher Star*Reach, created the Marvel Direct Market Sales Department in 1980, and more.  Bridwell wrote for Mad and DC Comics, co-created The Inferior Five, the Secret Six, and The Angel and the Ape, and had notable runs on Shazam! and Super-Friends.

The pair was unanimously selected by a blue-ribbon committee chaired by Mark Evanier.  "Once again, we have two winners who are way past-due for some rightful recognition," Evanier said.  "Both were among the first human beings who went from reading comics to writing letters-to-the-editor that were published in comics and then on to writing the comics themselves.  And both wrote some very fine comics that were appreciated at the time and appreciated in reprints—but, we think, not enough."

Edgardo Miranda-Rodriguez, Kyung Jeon-Miranda, and Lisa Wood will receive the 2019 Bob Clampett Humanitarian Award, created to honor people in comics and the popular arts who have worked to help others.  Miranda-Rodriguez independently published the benefit comics anthology Ricanstruction: Reminiscing & Rebuilding Puerto Rico, which raised over $200,000 to date for the La Borinquena Grants Progtram, run by Kyung Jeon-Miranda, which awarded grants to local grassroots organizations in Puerto Rico.

Lisa Wood created Thought Bubble, which runs a yearly comics festival, supports a young people’s comic book awards at select schools, special autism services, Rainbow Age LGBTQ reading group events, a two-day academic conference, an annual anthology to support a disadvantaged children’s charity, and distributes free graphic novels to libraries.

Nominees for the 2019 Russ Manning Promising Newcomer Award have been announced. 

• Lorena Alvarez, writer/artist of Hicotea and Nightlights (Nobrow)
• Ellen T. Crenshaw, artist of Kiss Number 8 (First Second)
• M. J. Kim, artist of Faith: Dreamside (Valiant)
• Sumit Kumar, artist of These Savage Shores (Vault Comics) and Ruin of Thieves (Action Lab)
• Kieran McKeown, artist of Halo: Lone Wolf (Dark Horse)

The full roster of 2019 Eisner Award Nominees was announced last month (see "The 2019 Eisner Award Nominees"), and the initial new members picked for the Eisner Hall of Fame were also announced (see "Four Picked for Eisner Hall of Fame").