The full list of award winners were announced for the 38th Will Eisner Comic Industry Awards at San Diego Comic-Con 2026, which included wins for the Purgatory Funeral Cakes supernatural fantasy manhwa and ero guro manga artist Shintaro Kago.
Sanho‘s Purgatory Funeral Cakes manhwa series was awarded the “Best U.S. Edition of International Material–Asia” award. It was published in English by Dark Horse Comics and translated by Danny Lim.
The other nominees in the category included:
- • Hirayasumi Volumes 4–7, by Keigo Shinzo, translated by Jan Mitsuko Cash (VIZ Media)
- • Land Volume 1, by Kazumi Yamashita, translated by Kevin Gifford (Yen Press)
- • Tokyo Alien Bros. Volumes 1–3, by Keigo Shinzo, translated by Casey Loe (VIZ Media)
- • Yan, Volumes 1-2, by Chang Sheng, translated by Vanessa Liu (Titan Manga)
Kago’s “Blood Harvest” short manga won the “Best Short Story” award, which was translated by Zack Davisson and came from his latest work Brain Damage. Another story from the collection, “The Curse Room” was also nominated in the same category.
Other 2026 Eisner award winners include Kodansha USA’s five-volume hardcover collection of Katsuhiro Otomo’s Akira manga series in “Best Archival Collection/Project—Comic Books” and Andrea Horbinski’s Manga’s First Century: How Creators and Fans Made Japanese Comics, 1905–1989 in “Best Academic/Scholarly Work,” which was published by the University of California Press.
Late manga artist Akira Toriyama (Dragon Ball, Dr. Slump) was also inducted into the Will Eisner Comic Awards Hall of Fame, along with Go Nagai. Nagai had been pre-selected for induction earlier this year, whereas Toriyama was one of 16 nominees that were announced for the honor this past February.
Other manga artists in the Eisner Comic Awards Hall of Fame include Osamu Tezuka (2002), Kazuo Koike (2004), Goseki Kojima (2004), Katsuhiro Otomo (2012), Rumiko Takahashi (2018), Moto Hagio (2022), Keiji Nakazawa (2024), Junji Ito (2025), and Shigeru Mizuki (2025).
Toriyama was previously inducted into the Harvey Awards Hall of Fame in October 2024.
Source: San Diego Comic-Con Official Website (via The Beat)
