Michael Cavna over at the Washington Post interviews Art Speigelman on being first cartoonist to receive the award.
From the story:
The MacDowell Colony arts organization in New Hampshire wanted to bestow upon the legendary cartoonist its 2018 honor, which has previously gone to such creative titans as Stephen Sondheim, Georgia O’Keeffe, Toni Morrison and David Lynch. The award once went to the great Looney Tunes animator Chuck Jones, but Spiegelman would be the first person in the event’s nearly six decades to receive the Edward MacDowell Medal for achievement in comic art.