The Most Famous Comic Book Creators in the World
Top 29 of 29 ranked · August 2026 · See today's live standing →
First issue under methodology v5.62. Movement begins with the next issue frozen under the same version.
Stan Lee leads comics from the grave, a tenth ahead of Mark Hamill
iFAMOUS Editorial Desk · 1 min read
Marvel's co-creator leads the August 2026 Western comics table at 11.8, a hair ahead of Mark Hamill, and three more of the medium's founding artists sit among the top eleven.
Stan Lee is the most famous figure in Western comics for August 2026 at 11.8, and Mark Hamill, the actor and voice artist best known as Luke Skywalker, is second at 11.7. That tenth of a point is the narrowest gap at the top of any list in this issue, separating the man who co-created much of Marvel's superhero line from a performer the sector tag gathers for his decades of voice work in animated adaptations.
The list is small, 29 names across ten countries, with the United States supplying eleven and the United Kingdom four. Twenty-five of the names are living, but the four who are not are the people who built the medium. Steve Ditko, the artist whose work defined Marvel's early look, is fourth at 8.6. Jack Kirby, who shaped the visual language of superhero comics, is eighth at 7. Joe Shuster, the Canadian-American co-creator of Superman, is eleventh at 5.7.
Among living creators, Frank Miller, the writer, artist and film director, is third at 8.7. Garth Ennis, the Northern Irish writer, is tenth at 6, and Chris Claremont, the English-born writer whose work defined the X-Men, is fifteenth at 3.8. Joss Whedon, sixth, moves between television, film and comics writing. Michael Waldron, the screenwriter, is fourteenth.
Thomas Jane is fifth, Iman Vellani, the Canadian actress of Pakistani descent who also writes comics, seventh at 7.1, Avi Arad, the Israeli-American producer, ninth, and Brandon Routh and David Dastmalchian tied at 4.9. The scores are low compared with film or music sectors, and the ranking measures worldwide fame rather than craft. Even so, the shape is clear: the four dead artists at fourth, eighth and eleventh and the man at first still carry more of the medium's fame than most of the people adapting their work.
About this list
This list ranks the most famous comic book creators in the world as of August 2026, by overall global fame rather than one month's attention. It is the top 29 of 29 names the rankings measured in this sector, frozen as the permanent record of that edition. This is the standard reading: everyone, living or dead, on one scale. 25 of the 29 listed are living; the Alive reading restricts the same ranking to living people.
Stan Lee is No. 1 on this list for August 2026. Behind Stan Lee come Mark Hamill and Frank Miller.
What famous means here
Fame, in iFAMOUS, is how widely the world knows a name: how recognisable a person's name, face or work is, and how well people know who they are. It is assessed from extensive historical and current public data, some of it reaching back more than twenty years, and it is not merit, talent, importance or popularity on iFANN. The rankings model real-world global fame, not internet fame; the data is the instrument, not the subject. Activity on iFANN itself is excluded.
The month in the title is the date of this edition, not the period measured. The list is a snapshot of overall fame as it stood when the issue was frozen: a name does not lose its place because one month was quiet, and a trending moment alone does not put a name here. Trending attention is published separately on ifann.net.
How the list was ranked
The iFANN Global Fame Rankings combine worldwide Wikipedia readership across languages, worldwide news coverage and search interest anchored against stable reference names, with search history reaching back to 2004. A twelve-month baseline sits behind the current reading and short-lived surges are capped, so the list reflects durable recognition rather than one week of headlines. Rankings are computed daily on ifann.net and frozen on the second day of the following month as that month's issue; a published issue never changes.
About Western Comics
Western Comics is one of the sectors the journal ranks every month, alongside every country, origin and region list in this issue. Sector lists use the same rankings and the same scale as The 100, so a name can be compared across sectors and against the world. American and European comics outside the Marvel / DC umbrella.
Powered by iFANN
iFAMOUS is published by iFANN and powered by the iFANN Global Fame Rankings v5.62. Today's live standing for this list is on ifann.net; the journal freezes it once a month so it can be cited permanently.
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"Stan Lee, No. 1 on The Most Famous Comic Book Creators in the World", iFAMOUS No. 1 (August 2026), ifamous.org