The Incal writer Alejandro Jodorowsky has received an honor few other comics creators can claim: He's had an asteroid named after him.

Agence France-Presse reports the International Astronomical Union's Minor Planets Center designated asteroid 261690 as Jodorowsky at the request of French astronomer Jean-Claude Merlin, who discovered the three-mile-wide object more than seven years ago. The name was approved July 24 by the Committee on Small Body Nomenclature following several years of observation of the asteroid.

The 84-year-old Jodorowsky, a Franco-Chilean filmmaker, comics writer, playwright and spiritual guru, co-created the acclaimed sci-fi comic The Incal with Moebius, before going on to write such titles as The Technopriests and Metabarons.

Hundreds of asteroids have been named after humans, rather than figures from Greek and Roman mythology, but only a few comics creators have been given the honor: J. Michael Straczynski (although it was in recognition of works in other media, like Babylon 5), Carl Barks and now Jodorowsky.