Brian Fies (pronounced "feez" )
is an American cartoonist.
Early life and influences
Fies "grew up on newspaper comics and superhero comic books";
his influences include
Charles M. Schulz,
Walt Kelly
Walter Crawford Kelly Jr. (August 25, 1913 – October 18, 1973) was an American animator and cartoonist, best known for the comic strip ''Pogo (comic strip), Pogo''. He began his animation career in 1936 at The Walt Disney Company, Walt Disney S ...
,
Milton Caniff
Milton Arthur Paul Caniff (; February 28, 1907 – April 3, 1988) was an American cartoonist known for the ''Terry and the Pirates'' and ''Steve Canyon'' comic strips.
Biography
Caniff was born in Hillsboro, Ohio. He was an Eagle Scout and a re ...
,
Alex Raymond
Alexander Gillespie Raymond Jr. (October 2, 1909 – September 6, 1956) was an American cartoonist and illustrator who was best known for creating the ''Flash Gordon'' comic strip for King Features Syndicate in 1934. The strip was subsequently a ...
,
Winsor McCay
Zenas Winsor McCay ( – July 26, 1934) was an American cartoonist and animator. He is best known for the comic strip ''Little Nemo'' (1905–1914; 1924–1927) and the animated film ''Gertie the Dinosaur'' (1914). For contractual reasons, he w ...
,
Cliff Sterrett
Clifford Sterrett (; December 12, 1883 – December 28, 1964) was an American cartoonist best known as the creator of the comic strip '' Polly and Her Pals''.
Biography
Born in Fergus Falls, Minnesota, where his father was a druggist, Cliff Sterr ...
,
Jack Kirby
Jack Kirby (; born Jacob Kurtzberg; August 28, 1917 – February 6, 1994) was an American comics artist, comic book artist, widely regarded as one of the medium's major innovators and one of its most prolific and influential creators. He grew ...
,
,
Neal Adams
Neal Adams (June 15, 1941 – April 28, 2022) was an American comic book artist. He was the co-founder of the graphic design studio Continuity Associates, and was a Creator ownership, creators-rights advocate who helped secure a pension and re ...
, and
Alex Toth
Alexander Toth (; June 25, 1928 – May 27, 2006) was an American cartoonist active from the 1940s through the 1980s. Toth's work began in the American comic book industry, but he is also known for his animation designs for Hanna-Barbera through ...
.
His first job out of college was as a reporter for a small local newspaper.
Career
Fies is the creator of ''
Mom's Cancer
''Mom's Cancer'' is an autobiographical graphic medicine webcomic by Brian Fies which describes his mother's fight against metastatic lung cancer, as well as his family's reactions to it. ''Mom's Cancer'' was the first webcomic to win an Eisner ...
'', which was the first webcomic to receive an
Eisner Award
The Will Eisner Comic Industry Awards, commonly shortened to the Eisner Awards, are awards for creative achievement in American comic books. They are regarded as the most prestigious and significant awards in the comic industry and often referred ...
.
Fies won the Eisner in 2005 under the newly created category "
Best Digital Comic". ''Mom's Cancer'' also won Fies a
Harvey Award
The Harvey Awards are given for achievement in comic books. Named for writer-artist Harvey Kurtzman, the Harvey Awards were founded by Gary Groth in 1988, president of the publisher Fantagraphics, to be a successor to the Kirby Awards, which were ...
, in the Best New Talent category'','' as well as the
Lulu Blooker Prize
Lulu Press, Inc., doing business under trade name Lulu, is an online print-on-demand, self-publishing, and distribution platform. By 2014, it had issued approximately two million titles.
The company's founder is Red Hat co-founder Bob Young (bu ...
in its Comics category. The German edition of the graphic novel received the
Deutscher Jugendliteraturpreis
The (German Youth Literature Award) is an annual award established in 1956 by the Federal Ministry of Family Affairs, Senior Citizens, Women and Youth to recognise outstanding works of children's and young adult literature. It is Germany's only ...
(German Youth Literature Prize) in the Non-Fiction category. ''Mom's Cancer'' was also nominated for a
Quill Award
The Quill Award was an American literary award that ran for three years, from 2005 to 2007. It was a "consumer-driven award created to inspire reading while promoting literacy".
The Quills Foundation, the organization behind the award, was supp ...
and two further Eisner Awards.
Fies is also the creator of ''The Last Mechanical Monster'', which was also nominated for an Eisner Award in 2014.
Other works by Fies include ''Whatever Happened to the World of Tomorrow?'' and the 18-page webcomic ''A Fire Story'' (later expanded to a 154-page book) which recounts the devastation caused by
California wildfires in 2017 which destroyed his home.
Fies was given an
Inkpot Award
The Inkpot Award is an honor bestowed annually since 1974 by Comic-Con International. It is given to professionals in the fields of comic books, comic strips, animation, science fiction, and related areas of popular culture, at Comic-Con Internati ...
in 2018.
Published works
* ''Mom's Cancer'' (webcomic, 2004–; Harry N. Abrams, 2006)
* ''Whatever Happened to the World of Tomorrow?'' (Harry N. Abrams, 2012)
* ''The Last Mechanical Monster'' (webcomic, 2013–; Harry N. Abrams, 2022)
* ''A Fire Story'' (webcomic, 2017; Abrams ComicArts, 2019)
References
External links
*
Interviews
*
1960 births
Living people
American comics artists
American comics writers
American graphic novelists
American webcomic creators
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