This year's Comics and Pop Artist Alley is going to be bigger and better than ever. It is so great that we have dedicated this entire page to information concerning the Alley. What that means is we will list all attending artists and creators as well as include comics related programming updates.
Programming:
Dragon*Con Art Exhibit 2009
A must-see for fans of comics and illustration is the Comic Book & Fantasy Cover Gallery (celebrating its 10th Year at Dragon*Con!). Original artwork for more than 50 covers will be on display Saturday in Artists Alley. Impressive covers from EC, DC, Marvel, Warren and other favorites will be represented - from the Golden Age to today. Come see covers by Bode, Buscema, Cho, Craig, Finlay, Freas, Hughes, Jones, Kaluta, Kane, Kirby, Krenkel, Loehle, Severin, Stelfreeze, Tuska, Vess, Wood and Wrightson - to name but a few. You've got to see this exhibit!
Hosted by Richard Garrison, Dave Newton, Troy Pierce, and Benno Rothschild.
The Goon 10th Anniversary Inbred Hillbilly Hoedown
Celebrate a decade of Eric Powell's award-winning comic book masterpiece at The Goon 10th Anniversary Inbred Hillbilly Hoedown. Featuring music, contests, prizes and more, this is sure to be some foot-stompin', shine-swillin', knife-to-the-eye fun (no real eyes will be harmed before, during or after this event). Keep checking back for further details!
Dragon*Con Comics and Pop Art Reception
Mark your calendars for the Dragon*Con Comics and Pop Art Reception, taking place Friday evening, September 4, beginning at 8:30 PM in the Regency Ballroom of the Hyatt Regency.Celebrating an exciting and diverse array of talented creators at Dagon*Con, this annual event features live art, creator signings and sketches, music, and mingling - making it the perfect opportunity to kick off your convention experience! Also dropping at the reception will be the exclusive Mechtorians Stephan LePodd vinyl art toy, produced by MINDstyle and designed by Doktor A specifically for Dragon*Con attendees! The Comics and Pop Art Reception is free with your paid Dragon*Con membership. Don't miss it!
Dunny*Fest
Attendees of this year's reception will enjoy Dunny*Fest - a Toy Release Celebration with 7 Amazing Dunny Designers! Presented by Kidrobot and Dragon*Con, this special signing event will feature appearances by many of today's favorite vinyl artists, and an exclusive advance release of Dunny Series 2009. In addition, this event will mark the debut of the Dragon*Con exclusive Mechtorians Stephan LePodd art toy, designed for Dragon*Con attendees by Doktor A. (making his first US appearance) and produced by MINDstyle. Limited to only 100 pieces, this figure is sure to sell out quickly!
*We regret that Kathie Olivas will not be appearing at Dunny*Fest, Friday evening during the Comics and Pop Art Reception. Ms. Olivas will be appearing in the Comics and Pop Artist Alley throughout the weekend - please check back for times and location.
Dragon*Con Comics Sketch Jam
Running simultaneously will be the Dragon*Con Comics Sketch Jam, to benefit Hero Initiative. Many of the industry's top illustrators will be on hand to sketch for fans and raise funds and awareness for this vital organization.
*Please check back for further details and updates.
2009 Attendees:
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Doctor A
Raised by the military and monitored by men in white coats until he was 16, Doktor A has always scribbled monsters. "You will never make a living drawing little men," said a teacher once. They were nearly right. He has to draw, design, and build little men to make a living. These dubious skills have seen him work in theater, TV, advertising, magazines, toy design, merchandising, and the music industry. He lives under a hill in the UK. From there he monitors the world's off-kilter-culture and produces his dark twisted dreams, character-driven clashes of urban pop culture, classic children's stories, and neo-Victorian industrial neverlands.
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Heidi Arnold
Heidi Arnhold majored in Sequential Art at Savannah College of Art and Design and graduated in 2006. She made her comics debut as the illustrator for Tokyopop's "Legends of the Dark Crystal" in November 2007. In 2008, she illustrated "Inalienable Rights", written by Nate Bowden, in "Star Trek Uchu", Tokyopop's 3rd Star Trek anthology. Heidi is looking forward to making steps in her career and working on a variety of projects as the years progress. For more of Heidi's work, check out www.chibimaryn.deviantart.com.
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Art Institute of Atlanta
The Art Institute of Atlanta is one of The Art Institutes, a system of over forty For-Profit Colleges located in major cities throughout North America, all owned and operated by Education Management Corporation.
The Art Institute of Atlanta was founded in 1949 as Massey Business College, with diploma programs in basic business and secretarial skills. The school added liberal arts, fashion, and interior design during the next two decades. After becoming The Art Institute of Atlanta in 1975, the college shifted its focus to a creative applied arts curriculum. Accreditation by the Commission on Colleges of the Southern Association of Colleges and Schools soon followed. In 1999, the college moved to its current location; a 5-story building in Sandy Springs and has since expanded to a second building across the street. In 2004, the school added Audio Production to their growing list of programs. The newest program, Fashion & Retail Management, was added in January 2007.
AiAtlanta is currently located at 6600 Peachtree Dunwoody Rd. in Atlanta, Georgia. The student body numbers reached 3,200 as of fall 2007.
The Art Institute of Atlanta awards associate's and bachelor's degrees, including Bachelor of Fine Arts (BFA) degrees, Bachelor of Arts (BA) degrees, and Bachelor of Science (BS) degrees, and also offers diploma and non-degree programs.
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Attaboy
Attaboy is an internationally shown artist, creator and toy designer whose work is seen in galleries, museums, toy boutiques, magazines (Newsweek, Wired, Juxtapoz, Clutter, Playtimes, etc.), calendars, and art books. After years of creating, recreating, and inventing award-winning and best selling toys for Hasbro and Milton Bradley, he went AWOL to create his own art and licensing studio. His art work has been licensed to Dark Horse, Last GAsp, Tower Records, Kiss, the Dixie Chicks, Sony, and many more.
Atta is the co-founder of the critically acclaimed Hi-Fructose Under the Counter Culture Magazine which has grown to a world wide circulation which quickly sells out, Hi-Fructose features interviews and exposes with a growing echelon of pop and visual counter culture artists like Mark Ryden, Chris Ware, Jeff Soto, and Tim Biskup. The first four volumes of Hi-Fructose will be reprinted in book form later this year and will be published by Last Gasp.
Too Many Robots, an animation created and directed by Atta premiered in May on the Disney Channel. It is now downloadable on ITunes and seen on YouTube.
Attaboy's interpretation of all too literal abused punctuation marks is personified as vinyl toys in his Super Action Nub Nub series, which includes his most popular character with interchangable mouths, the Axtrx.
Atta's Art focuses on the disturbed childlike sensibilities that he values above all else and is centered in a world of goo filled creatures; lust filled and awkward, uneasy with their own cuteness or simply unaware of it or how it affects them or others, all imagined in a palette reminiscent of a rusted cruise ship. His images and collectables are glimpses into Atta's insecurities and currupt sensibility often times providing more of a physical diary to his day to day undertakings..
Yumfactory Design is currently designing several contemporary art books for publishers for artists like Gary Baseman and Ron English.
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Avatar Press
Avatar Press is a leading independent company, founded in 1996 by William A. Christensen, which publishes a wide variety of comic books — highly-regarded creator-owned titles such as Alan Moore’s The Courtyard, Warren Ellis’ Black Summer, and Garth Ennis’ Crossed; licensed comics such as Frank Miller’s Robocop, Stargate SG1, and George A. Romero’s Night of the Living Dead and a number of other current and upcoming titles.
Avatar initially published only mini-series, however, they have since begun to branch out. Currently, Avatar publishes several ongoing monthly titles, including Doktor Sleepless, a monthly by Warren Ellis, and "Gravel," also written by Ellis.
Avatar Press is most notable for their publishing of "Bad Girl" comics such as Pandora, who is considered by many to be their flagship character. Other bad girl books include Hellina, Lookers and The Ravening.
As part of an effort to expand beyond their reputation as a bad girl publisher, it offered a number of noted creators an opportunity to publish creator-owned books with no content restrictions whatsoever. Among the creators to take them up on their offer was Frank Miller, Warren Ellis, Alan Moore and Garth Ennis.
More recently the company has taken to licensed comics book adaptations of famous sci-fi and horror shows from movies and television, such as RoboCop, Stargate SG-1, or Friday the 13th.
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Laurie B!
Artist of Pure Heroine, guest cover artist on Witchblade
#126 Variant from Top Cow, self-published comic mini-series A Monk's
Tale, freelance illustrator and animator.
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Baby Tattoo Books
Baby Tattoo is a publishing company that strives to produce high quality illustrated books. Their goal in committing to a project is to ensure the integrity of the artist/author's vision as it is presented in book form. Their goal in completing a project (and offering it for sale) is to infiltrate the marketplace with fantastic, artist-driven products that both casual consumers and avid collectors can be passionate about.
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Eric Basaldua
Eric Basaldua is a mainstay of the Top Cow universe. He started working at Top Cow in 2000 under the direct tutelage of Top Cow founder Marc Silvestri. He has since become one of the Top Guns and Top Cow. A self-professed thong lover, Eric is known for his depictions of beautiful women and sexy artwork. Eric has worked on many fan favorite comic series, including Hunter-Killer, Witchblade, Tomb Raider, Freshman, The Magdalena, Blood Legacy: The Young Ones, The Darkness, Battle of the Planets, the Darkness/Vampirella crossover, and the Witchblade/Wolverine crossover. In 2006, Top Cow published a sketchbook of Eric's fabulous artwork. In 2008, Eric did the artwork for the first ever Virgin Comics/Top Cow crossover, Devi/Witchblade #1. Recently, he has provided various covers for Top Cow and Zenescope, as well as contributing to the recently released Witchblade Annual #1
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Jeremy Bastian
Jeremy Bastian has been called by many as a "crazy" person. His dedication of filling a page from gutter to gutter with delicate detail, whimsical characters, and strange creatures would not seem out of the norm. However, Jeremy draws his pages at 100 percent and does it all with a very small brush. If anything one might have to blow up the images that pour from his mind, just to be able to see them. His creator owned project Cursed Pirate Girl beckons to the 19th century in subject and style of illustration. Cursed Pirate Girl found the perfect home with the Century Guild (purveyors of Art Nouveau and Symbolist antiques and artworks) and their publishing house Olympian Publishing.
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Gina Biggs
Gina Biggs is a freelance artist and comic creator currently residing in the Atlanta, Georgia area. She has been creating comics for over ten years and has run the indy comic publishing group, StrawberryComics.com, since 2004. Strawberry Comics is an all-female group of creators banding together to help promote women in the comic industry as well as the neglected and often overlooked genre of love and romance in the medium.
Gina's current works include Red String, Erstwhile, and Love of Sausage. Red String is a romantic webcomic series that started in 2003 and continues to update three times a week. It is published by Dark Horse Comics. Erstwhile adapts lesser known Grimm's fairy tales into comic form. Gina works with another member of Strawberry Comics on this project, Louisa Roy. Together, they illustrate the series. And finally, Love of Sausage is an autobiographical tale of the love and loss in pet ownership.
Through her works Gina emotes a sense of warmth and kindness. She strives to bring emotional depth to the characters in her stories and shows a kind of innocence in the worlds she creates.
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Jennie Breeden
Jennie Breeden began her daily autobiographical webcomic The Devil's Panties in 2001 and released it in comic shops in 2006. With over two thousand free comics on the web she shares her adventures at conventions, comic shops, and pirate fun with the world. She brings her leaf blower and goes kilt hunting every night at Dragon con. With a reality like this, who needs to make up stories?
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Dan Brereton
Dan Brereton is an award-winning and critically acclaimed painter, illustrator, and comics writer from the West Coast. He is best known for his work on Nocturnals, a comic book property he created ten years ago, which is now published in various volumes by Oni Press and can best be described as "Spooky Noir Superheroes."
He's painted hundreds of comic book covers and over a thousand comic book pages, and worked on such titles as Buffy the Vampire Slayer, Clive Barker's Dread, Batman, Ultimate Spiderman, Justice League, Superman, Conan, Giantkiller, The Psycho, Birds of Prey, and many more. Outside the comics field, his work includes art for Rob Zombie's CD Hellbilly Deluxe and Toto's Tambu.
2004 marks the 10-year anniversary of Nocturnals with the release of the hardcover Nocturnals: A Midnight Companion, an RPG sourcebook and guide for readers of the Nocturnals trades. Additionally, his miniseries with Jim Hudnall, The Psycho, was recently acquired by Universal Pictures to be a major motion picture. Look for new Ghostbuster covers and two stories appearing in Michael Chabon's Adventures of the Escapist from Dark Horse comics.
Visit Dan's website at: www.nocturnals.com
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Mark Brooks
Mark Brooks is an illustrator contracting with Marvel comics for the last four years, as well as recently becoming an authorized Lucasfilm artist. Mark has worked on dozens of titles, including Amazing Spider-man, Ultimate Spider-man, Ultimate Fantastic Four, New X-Men, and Cable/Deadpool, as well as co-creating the new Latina Spider-girl character, Arana. Past and current clients include DC Comics/DC Licensing, Darkhorse Comics, Capcom USA, Upperdeck, Devil's Due Publishing, Gentle Giant Studios, and Hasbro Toys.
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Bob Burden
Self-taught Atlanta writer and artist Bob Burden hit the comics scene in the 80's with his raw, primitive, and iconoclastic artwork just as a "new wave" of revolutionary independents were pioneering a creative renaissance. His seminal comic work includes Mystery Men (which was the basis for the $60 million Universal film), Flaming Carrot (the further adventures of the strangest man alive), and Gumby. Recently licensed by Burden for comics, the award-winning Gumby series was written by Bob and drawn by Rick Geary.
Burden's work has been honored with almost every major award in the comics industry, including the Inkpot Award, the Eisner Award, the ACE Award, the Ignatz Award, and several Kirby Award nominations. In between working on comic book stories, running an antique business, and preparing a book of his poetry, Burden is currently engaged in developing projects and screenplays for the big screen, and, in 2010, he is planning to introduce a number of properties on the Internet.
Websites: flamingcarrot.com, mysterymen.net, dynamitegirl.net, mulletforce6.com, and givemedanger.com.
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James Burns
James Burns is an illustrator, graphic designer and animator who lives in Avondale Estates, Georgia. As a graphic designer for television, James has created 3D animations for clients such as CNN, TBS and various television stations around the country.
In 2002, he was diagnosed with a detached retina, which threatened his eyesight. After recovering, and at age 45, he wrote and drew his first comic book, "Detached" about the experience, as well as the fear and doubts that were connected with it.
Since then James has been doing commercial illustration, as well as creating the weekly comic strip "Grumbles," which has been running for the last 4 years in Atlanta's "Sunday Paper." He was also included in the last 2 editions of the comic anthology "Not My Small Diary," as well as the recently published "Big Book of Fashion Illustration."
His first non-autobiographical comic, called "Daemon Process" is best described as a supernatural tale of death, love, computers, and an ancient, evil book. He's also recently finished a large anthology entitled "Real Magicalism," which contains 12 stories from a total of 14 contributers.
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Matt Busch
Regarded as one of the top entertainment illustrators, Matt Busch has made a career out of tapping into every expressive art imaginable, surprising even his die-hard fans what he does next.
In the early 90's, Busch began his career in Hollywood, working in every aspect of the movie business, from concept design work on THE MATRIX, to storyboards for CON-AIR, to poster design for THE DEVIL'S OWN. Simultaneously, he began illustrating books, magazines, posters, comics, trading cards and toys for notable pop culture properties, including LORD OF THE RINGS, INDIANA JONES, THE CROW, HEROES, G.I. JOE, NIGHT OF THE LIVING DEAD, The HULK, BATTLESTAR GALACTICA, RESERVOIR DOGS, BRUCE LEE, WITCHBLADE, ROBOCOP, The MUMMY, STARGATE SG-1, and STAR TREK.
Mostly known for his work with the STAR WARS universe, Busch has written and illustrated dozens of STAR WARS books and magazines. He created the cover of TALES FROM THE EMPIRE, which became a New York Times Bestseller. Busch has also been involved with creating artwork for advertising, marketing, and licensed products for all three STAR WARS prequels. Due to last year's 30th Anniversary of the saga, Busch produced 7 different STAR WARS posters that year alone!
Busch also provided nearly 400 drawings and paintings for the critically acclaimed YOU CAN DRAW STAR WARS book from DK Publishing. Busch has also extended his own unique drawing and painting tutorials to video, with episodes at StarWars.com. Later, these episodes topped the charts on MySpace.com, with several videos going straight to Number One. Further, the first two exciting (and hilarious) seasons of episodes have been collected on to limited edition DVDs!
A closet musician himself, Busch has also enjoyed producing art for major musical artists like ALICE COOPER, BEASTIE BOYS, BECK, BLACK SABBATH, CINDERELLA, FOO FIGHTERS, GARBAGE, KID ROCK, L.L. COOL J, BILLY JOEL, MEGADETH, MOTLEY CRUE, TED NUGENT, OZZY OSBOURNE, POISON, and JESSICA SIMPSON.
The first hardcover collection of his work, "FANTASTIC VISIONS: The Art of Matt Busch" was Published by Avatar Press, which included an Introduction by POISON's Rikki Rockett. SQP Publishing later released a follow-up hardcover collection titled "PUCKER: The Seductive Art of Matt Busch" which featured an Introduction by SYSTEM OF A DOWN's John Dolmayan. Last year Hermes Press published the quintessential collection, titled "THE WORLDS OF MATT BUSCH."
In 2006, Busch released his first independent movie, CONJURE, a film he wrote, directed, starred in, and even composed music for. Financing the entire movie himself, the unique film was met with critical acclaim and shattered records- becoming "The Highest Pre-Selling Movie of All Time" according to HorrorMovies.com.
For over a decade, Busch has also found success as a writer, having written numerous books and magazine articles on art techniques. Busch has also written and illustrated creator-owned comic books, including ALIZARIN'S JOURNAL and DARIA JONTAK, and a highly regarded graphic novel, CRISIS. One of Busch's biggest endeavors, a screenplay titled THE TAURUS FACTOR is currently in development with Producer Don Murphy (TRANSFORMERS, SHOOT 'EM UP).
Busch now resides in a multiple-facility home set up in Macomb Township, Michigan, complete with an art studio, digital editing suite, recording studio, product warehouse, and even a mini movie theater. Here, Busch continues to work on many 'Hollywood' projects via Internet and Fed Ex. However, Busch also spends a great deal of time on the road, and his most recent documentary collecting his travel adventures from around the world, ILLUSTRATION NATION, has just been released on DVD.
For more information, check out the official web site, MattBusch.com.
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Tommy Castillo
Tommy Castillo is a master artist of the twisted and the macabre. Whether creating a slimy corpse reaching for you or the gentle glance of a mighty dragon, Tommy will capture you with the dynamics of his penciling and the intensity of his palette. With a career spanning eighteen years, Tommy is famed and sought after for his dark humor, brilliant attention to detail, and his love of the darker side of art. Tommy has put paint and pencil to such titles as Batman Detective; Legends of the Dark Knight; Toetags, with Horror legend George Romero; Evil Ernie; Tales From the Crypt; Alice in Wonderland; King Kong; Dragons, Myths, and Mayhem; various storyboards and designs for films; and many more of the macabre based literature. Tommy has been sought out by the fields largest companies: DC comics, Paramount Pictures, Warhammer, Wizards of the Coast, and Image and as offbeat as Rolling Stone magazine. His diverse styling and insane line work have defined him as one of today's greatest in the field of comics and fine art...and y'know, he renders some of the scariest books of today, and the guy will get as giddy as a schoolboy on Sunday at the sight of a muppet. You gotta love that.
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Colin Christian
Niki de Saint-Phalle said of her husband and collaborator, Jean Tinguely: "We form a physical entity, the meeting of two energies which are complementary in the same interface." Sas Christian could say the same about her husband Colin Christian and vice versa.
Sas Christian was born in London in 1968, Colin in 1964. She was as timid and introverted as he was bold and outgoing. Sas took refuge from her rigid religious schooling in drawing, whereas Colin showed his rebellious side through music. In 1989 the couple met while Colin was just breaking out as a DJ in the trendy nightclubs of Bournemouth. In 1992 they moved to the United States and launched Hotbox Inc, a small latex clothing manufacturing business. Initially the majority of their customers consisted of fetishists, but they also received commissions from various museums and stores. Parallel to their business, both were continually devoted to their ever evolving artistic creativity, Sas through her painting and Colin through his sculpture.
In mastering the use of fiberglass material, Colin developed a fantastical universe, and in 1998 he created his first sculpture, Suki, a reference to the female archetype in Japanese Anime. Since 2004 he's been using silicone, a substance that is difficult to work with but enables him to obtain a more realistic result closer to skin. As a result he can reproduce, in three dimensions, the playful, sometime violent, personalities of his plastic heroines while keeping them physically erotic.
Sas defines her evolving style as influenced by the artist Tamara de Lempicka's "élégantes," which can be seen in Spun through the use of graphic line and hemmed eyelids. Like her husband, she is also inspired by the world of Anime and Japanese pop culture. Working in oil on linen, she expresses her doubts, desires, and hopes as well as those of her generation through a gallery of feminine portraits with ever changing moods but an unchanging aesthetic model. With round heads, and hypertrophied eyes, her models have the characteristics of articulated dolls, yet she does not hide their marks of manufacture (Jam Sandwich; The Uninvited). Their interrogative stares echo the humanistic photographs of Katya Legendre's series ANATOLE Inside. Sas Christian's models have the allure of mischievous Lolitas: the female longing to please combined with the childish fear of the unknown. In the face of a society that at times looses its way, Sas infuses her rebellious and melancholic spirit into her pretty avatars. They are scoundrels, humorous, dreamers or lovers (Firefly; Champion) unfortunate and even desperate (Frosty). The Lolitas of Sas's paintings can also become "femme fatales" (Luna), irritated, dangerous, and even crazy (Hacker). Beyond this psychological spectrum, she always manages to maintain the sensual aspect of her models through the hypnotic glances, the glossy mouths, and disconcerting attitudes (Candy Girl). Like a true Eve, one model appears sublime behind foliage (Supernature), two teenage vixens hide in the bushes (Entwined), and another flaunts her nudity in the tranquil shade (Snacktime). Blue green tones adorn their faces with infinite softness (Green Hour), while golden or metallic highlights illuminate their glances (Lazy Daize). An allusion to the erotic is always present. It remains subdued in Sas's paintings, while it is clearly exploited in Colin's sculptures. Colin is fascinated by the Harajuku Kids, young kids living in Tokyo disguised as Anime characters. He draws from the anime and provocative artistic characters of Takashi Murakami such as Hiropon and My Lonesome Cowboy. Colin shares Murakami's commercial principles and ideas as laid forth by Warhol's Factory, expressing himself through the universe of sadomasochism. This erotic practice remains a source of inspiration, and above all aesthetic, for certain artists like photographer Nobuyoshi Araki. Colin's rubber dolls wear very tight fitting romper suits (Mischief in Pink), donned with accessories suitable for bondage.
However Colin always treats his creations with a sense of humor, bringing him closer to artists such as Jeff Koons (Bunny Sees Boobs!). Colin combines eroticism with references to science fiction. He customizes his pin-ups in futuristic fashion, rendering them semi-cosmonaut, semi-robot (Cosmonaughty; Galactic Olympiad 3000). Colin creates their fashion according to a flashy neo-punk dress code, always suggesting their dominatrix spirit (Firecracker; Domina Doll). He sometimes concentrates on their capacity for seduction exemplified in beautiful voluptuous busts, as seen in his Solaris Bust series. In the silhouettes of these figures, the decorative aspect fades away and gives rise to the narration of a more human emotion: by wanting to touch the stars, does mankind risk losing its integrity (Supernova)?
Across their galactic, fictitious and erotic universe, Sas and Colin Christian rise to the level of some of the most famous artistic couples producing their work together: Christo and Jeanne-Claude, Gilbert and George, Eva and Adele, Jean Tinguely and Niki de Saint Phalle and Claus Oldenburg and Coosje van Bruggen. In the Christian's home everything is shared: love of art, sensuality, provocation, in short, life!
www.hotboxdesigns.com
* Colin Chrisitan appears courtesy of Circus Posterus Inc
www.circusposterus.com
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Sas Christian
Niki de Saint-Phalle said of her husband and collaborator, Jean Tinguely: "We form a physical entity, the meeting of two energies which are complementary in the same interface." Sas Christian could say the same about her husband Colin Christian and vice versa.
Sas Christian was born in London in 1968, Colin in 1964. She was as timid and introverted as he was bold and outgoing. Sas took refuge from her rigid religious schooling in drawing, whereas Colin showed his rebellious side through music. In 1989 the couple met while Colin was just breaking out as a DJ in the trendy nightclubs of Bournemouth. In 1992 they moved to the United States and launched Hotbox Inc, a small latex clothing manufacturing business. Initially the majority of their customers consisted of fetishists, but they also received commissions from various museums and stores. Parallel to their business, both were continually devoted to their ever evolving artistic creativity, Sas through her painting and Colin through his sculpture.
In mastering the use of fiberglass material, Colin developed a fantastical universe, and in 1998 he created his first sculpture, Suki, a reference to the female archetype in Japanese Anime. Since 2004 he's been using silicone, a substance that is difficult to work with but enables him to obtain a more realistic result closer to skin. As a result he can reproduce, in three dimensions, the playful, sometime violent, personalities of his plastic heroines while keeping them physically erotic.
Sas defines her evolving style as influenced by the artist Tamara de Lempicka's "élégantes," which can be seen in Spun through the use of graphic line and hemmed eyelids. Like her husband, she is also inspired by the world of Anime and Japanese pop culture. Working in oil on linen, she expresses her doubts, desires, and hopes as well as those of her generation through a gallery of feminine portraits with ever changing moods but an unchanging aesthetic model. With round heads, and hypertrophied eyes, her models have the characteristics of articulated dolls, yet she does not hide their marks of manufacture (Jam Sandwich; The Uninvited). Their interrogative stares echo the humanistic photographs of Katya Legendre's series ANATOLE Inside. Sas Christian's models have the allure of mischievous Lolitas: the female longing to please combined with the childish fear of the unknown. In the face of a society that at times looses its way, Sas infuses her rebellious and melancholic spirit into her pretty avatars. They are scoundrels, humorous, dreamers or lovers (Firefly; Champion) unfortunate and even desperate (Frosty). The Lolitas of Sas's paintings can also become "femme fatales" (Luna), irritated, dangerous, and even crazy (Hacker). Beyond this psychological spectrum, she always manages to maintain the sensual aspect of her models through the hypnotic glances, the glossy mouths, and disconcerting attitudes (Candy Girl). Like a true Eve, one model appears sublime behind foliage (Supernature), two teenage vixens hide in the bushes (Entwined), and another flaunts her nudity in the tranquil shade (Snacktime). Blue green tones adorn their faces with infinite softness (Green Hour), while golden or metallic highlights illuminate their glances (Lazy Daize). An allusion to the erotic is always present. It remains subdued in Sas's paintings, while it is clearly exploited in Colin's sculptures. Colin is fascinated by the Harajuku Kids, young kids living in Tokyo disguised as Anime characters. He draws from the anime and provocative artistic characters of Takashi Murakami such as Hiropon and My Lonesome Cowboy. Colin shares Murakami's commercial principles and ideas as laid forth by Warhol's Factory, expressing himself through the universe of sadomasochism. This erotic practice remains a source of inspiration, and above all aesthetic, for certain artists like photographer Nobuyoshi Araki. Colin's rubber dolls wear very tight fitting romper suits (Mischief in Pink), donned with accessories suitable for bondage.
However Colin always treats his creations with a sense of humor, bringing him closer to artists such as Jeff Koons (Bunny Sees Boobs!). Colin combines eroticism with references to science fiction. He customizes his pin-ups in futuristic fashion, rendering them semi-cosmonaut, semi-robot (Cosmonaughty; Galactic Olympiad 3000). Colin creates their fashion according to a flashy neo-punk dress code, always suggesting their dominatrix spirit (Firecracker; Domina Doll). He sometimes concentrates on their capacity for seduction exemplified in beautiful voluptuous busts, as seen in his Solaris Bust series. In the silhouettes of these figures, the decorative aspect fades away and gives rise to the narration of a more human emotion: by wanting to touch the stars, does mankind risk losing its integrity (Supernova)?
Across their galactic, fictitious and erotic universe, Sas and Colin Christian rise to the level of some of the most famous artistic couples producing their work together: Christo and Jeanne-Claude, Gilbert and George, Eva and Adele, Jean Tinguely and Niki de Saint Phalle and Claus Oldenburg and Coosje van Bruggen. In the Christian's home everything is shared: love of art, sensuality, provocation, in short, life!
www.hotboxdesigns.com
* Sas Chrisitan appears courtesy of Circus Posterus Inc
www.circusposterus.com
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John Christopher (Studio Revolver)
John Christopher has worked as a commercial artist over the past several years. He has worked in a variety of mediums, including print, multimedia, broadcast, and video games. He recently became the newest member at Studio Revolver and is looking forward to having this opportunity to continue his growth as an artist. His passions include drawing and painting, and he hopes to continue his work in illustration and conceptual art.
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Brian Colin
Brian Colin is a painter, sculptor, illustrator, and writer. His primary focus lies in the realm of lowbrow art, where he realizes his vision in the mediums of three dimensional canvas paintings and vinyl toys. He has also written and illustrated a number of comic books, including “Jonas: Tales of an Ironstar” and “Serial Repercussions”.
After graduating from the Art Institute of Pittsburgh in 1996, he moved to Atlanta, Georgia and began creating comic books of his own. He wrote and illustrated the Noir-esque miniseries “Serial Repercussions” and published the anthology “Annex”. Later, he continued his work in the comics field by writing and illustrating “Jonas: Tales of an Ironstar”, a sci-fi western comic with lushly painted art.
His experiments with new art styles while working in the comic medium soon led to an increased interest in canvas painting. He discovered that Gorilla Glue could be used to layer his images on the canvas, creating three dimensional canvas scenes that leap from the canvas and draw the viewer into his world. Simultaneously, Brian discovered the burgeoning vinyl toy community and began creating custom toy art pieces. He quickly progressed from painting mass-market pieces to developing custom toy sculptures. Currently he is designing and developing a signature line of vinyl toys.
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Amanda Conner
Amanda Conner started out in comics working on small projects for Marvel and Archie. She had been working as an illustrator for New York ad agencies Kornhauser and Calene and Kidvertisers. She worked on a number of launches and campaigns such as Arm & Hammer, PlaySchool and Nickelodeon, to name a few.
However, loving comic books and cartooning the most, Amanda found herself working for Marvel on their Barbie line (many of Amanda's covers were made into designs for the line of Barbie toys), Disney line which inlcuded the Gargoyles books. At the same time she was illustrating Soul Searchers & Co. for Claypool Comics and worked on other Marvel projects, such as Excalibur for the X-Men line and Suburban Jersey Ninja She-Devils.
Amanda then moved on to do what is probably her best known work. She did several years as penciler on the hit series Vampirella for Harris Comics. While illustrating Vampirella, Amanda worked with the top writers in the field, Grant Morrison, Mark Millar and Warren Ellis.
Continuing to expand her horizons, Amanda illustrated the best selling Event Comic Painkiller Jane vs the Darkness and went on to work on Painkiller Jane #0 (the origin book). She also wrote and illustrated a story for Kid Death and Fluffy.
Since then, Amanda has moved on and has worked on many of the top titles in comics such as Lois Lane, Codename: Knockout, Terra and Birds of Prey for D.C. Comics Vertigo line, X-Men Unlimited for Marvel, co-created Gatecrasher for BlackBull Comics, and The Pro, a creator owned book for image with Jimmy Palmiotti and Garth Ennis.
Amanda's work can also be seen outside the comicbook community in such places as ABC'S Nightline, the New York Times, Mad Magazine, character designs for film and television, and Amanda is featured in a Biography magazine commercial on A&E.
Amanda’s current work can be seen in POWERGIRL monthly for d.c. Comics as well as the Supergirl series for Wednesday comics.
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Dave Cook
Zombies, Rollergirls and Rock N’ Roll Monsters! Local artist Dave Cook, brings his unique brand of illustration and design once again to DragonCon. Locally you’ve seen Dave’s work for the Atlanta Rollergirls, Netherworld Haunted House, and Dad’s Garage, to just name a few. Nationally you can see Dave’s work for rock bands like Ghoultown, Electric Frankenstein and Scum of the Earth. Want to be a Zombie? Dave can also draw a zombie portrait of you - known as a “Cadaviture”. Exactly like what you can get at a carnival – but with a lot of BLOOD. Stop by his booth and pick up original art prints and t-shirts or you can just hang out and watch Dave draw blood oozing zombies.
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Darwyn Cooke
In 1985, Cooke published his first comic book work as a professional artist in a short story in New Talent Showcase #19, but economic pressure made him leave the comic book industry, and he worked in Canada as a magazine art director, graphic and product designer for the next 15 years.
Cover to Solo #5, featuring Slam Bradley. In the early 1990s Cooke decided to return to comics, but found little interest for his work at the major publishers. Eventually he was hired by Warner Bros. Animation after replying to an ad placed by animator Bruce Timm.
He went on to work as a storyboard artist for Batman: The Animated Series and Superman: The Animated Series, and in 1999 he animated the main title design for Batman Beyond. He then worked as a director for Sony Animation's Men in Black: The Series for a year.
DC Comics then approached Cooke about a project which he had submitted to the publisher years earlier which eventually became Batman: Ego, a graphic novel published in 2000.
The critical success of that project led to Cooke taking on more freelance work, such as X-Force, Wolverine/Doop and Spider-Man's Tangled Web for Marvel Comics and Just Imagine...Stan Lee for DC.
In 2001, Cooke and writer Ed Brubaker teamed up to revamp the Catwoman character. They started with a 4 issue serial "Trail of the Catwoman" in Detective Comics #759-762 in which private detective Slam Bradley attempts to investigate the death of Selina Kyle (aka Catwoman).
The story led into a new Catwoman title in late 2001 by Brubaker and Cooke, in which the character's costume, supporting cast and modus operandi were all redesigned and redeveloped. Cooke would stay on the series, which was met with critical and fan acclaim, up until issue #4. In 2002 he would write and draw a prequel, the Selina's Big Score graphic novel which detailed what had happened to the character directly before her new series.
Cooke's next project was the ambitious DC: The New Frontier (2004), a six issue miniseries which sought to tell an epic storyline bridging the gap between the end of the golden and the start of the silver age of comic books in the DC Universe. The story, which was set in the 1950s, featured dozens of super-hero characters and drew inspiration from the comic books and movies of the period as well as from Tom Wolfe's non-fiction account of the start of the US Space Program The Right Stuff. The major DC characters are introduced in The New Frontier in the same order that DC originally published them, even down to the correct month and year in the story's timeline. In 2005, Cooke won an Eisner Award for "Best Limited Series", and a Joe Shuster Award for "Outstanding Canadian Comic Book Cartoonist" for his work on the series.
Cover to DC: The New Frontier #6.Most recently, Cooke contributed to DC's artist-centric anthology project Solo. His issue (#5, June, 2005) featured several different stories in different styles with a framing sequence featuring the Slam Bradley character. In 2006, Solo #5 won an Eisner Award for "Best Single Issue."
In July 2005, it was announced that in 2006 Cooke and writer Jeph Loeb would produce a Batman/Spirit crossover, to be followed shortly afterwards by an ongoing Spirit series written and drawn by Cooke. Batman/The Spirit was ultimately published in November 2006, followed in December by the first issue of Cooke's The Spirit. In June 2007, Cooke and J. Bone won a Joe Shuster Award for "Outstanding Canadian Comic Book Artists" for their work on "Batman/The Spirit", and Cooke won "Outstanding Canadian Comic Book Cartoonist" for his work on "The Spirit".
In July 2006, it was announced that Warner Bros. Animation and DC Comics would release a series of direct-to-DVD animated movies based on important DC comic books. One of the first comics to be adapted was Cooke's DC: The New Frontier. Cooke co-wrote the film with Stan Berkowitz and also provided art direction. The movie was produced by Bruce Timm.
Darwyn Cooke also wrote the first six-issue story arc of the new Superman monthly series, Superman Confidential, which debuted on November 1, 2006. Superman Confidential features stories set in the early years of Superman's career. In June 2007 Cooke was awarded the Joe Shuster Award for "Outstanding Canadian Comic Book Writer" for Superman Confidential.
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Steve Cumings
Steven Cummings has been working in comics and manga since returning from Japan in 2002. He has worked for all the major publishers in America, including Marvel, DC, Image, Devil's Due, and Humanoids. He is a part of the Canadian publisher Udon's crew of artists working on a variety of titles and projects, starting with Street Fighter and moving through to work on art for the Exalted roleplaying system for White Wolf. For the last several years, he has returned to his roots in manga, first by creating the three-part original manga Pantheon High for Tokyopop with Paul Benjamin, and has continued in that vein by handling the art chores on Tokyopop's upcoming CSI: the Manga. He is undoubtedly one of the best looking men in manga
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Jeremy Dale
Jeremy Dale is a comic book artist most known for his work on G.I. Joe comics for Hasbro with creator Larry Hama as well as the 2008 Harvey Award-winning Popgun v.1 from Image Comics. He is currently working on several projects, including the upcoming Carter Kain: Rocket Ranger and Miserable Dastards, and is working on some work for the big two. He is a featured guest at several shows every year, and looks forward to his first as a guest at this year's Dragon Con.
More info can be found at www.jeremy-dale.com.
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Brian Denham
Brian Denham is the artist of The X-Files and StarCraft comic books from Wildstorm/DC Comics. His credits also include Star Trek, Iron Man: Hypervelocity, Nova, and Thunderbolts.
As an approved Lucasfilm artist, his work was featured during the 30th Anniversary of Star Wars. He has also designed toys and merchandise for the Star Wars saga.
His work has also been featured in the Indiana Jones, Star Wars, and Iron Man trading cards.
Brian is the new artist on IDW's "Angel", written by Bill Willingham"
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Desperado Publishing
Desperado Publishing was formed in 2004 by comics veteran, Joe Pruett, as a venue and outlet for creators who have a strong and passionate desire to see their own personal creative visions and inspirations brought to life on the printed page.
At Desperado Publishing, artists and writers are only limited by their imaginations, as no boundaries or conditions are set upon them to stifle their craft. We do not believe that to be successful a specific genre or formula must be followed. Instead, our only criteria is one of quality. Focusing primarily on recognized and established creative talent, the buyer (fans and retailers) can be assured that whatever is published by Desperado Publishing will adhere to presenting the finest quality in talent, in stories and in production values.
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Paul Dini
Paul Dini is an American television producer of animated cartoons. He is best known as a producer and writer for several Warner Bros./DC Comics series, including Star Wars: Ewoks, Tiny Toon Adventures, Batman: The Animated Series, Superman: The Animated Series, The New Batman/Superman Adventures, Batman Beyond, and Duck Dodgers. He also developed and scripted Krypto the Superdog and contributed scripts to Animaniacs (he created Minerva Mink), Freakazoid, Justice League, and Justice League Unlimited. After leaving Warner Bros. in early 2004, Dini went on to write and story edit the popular ABC adventure series Lost.
Paul Dini was born in New York City. He attended the Robert Louis Stevenson school in Pebble Beach, California on an art scholarship. He attended Emerson College in Boston, where he earned a BFA degree in creative writing. (He also took zoology classes at Harvard University.)
During college, he began doing freelance animation scripts for Filmation, and a number of other studios. In 1984, he was hired to work for George Lucas on several of his animation projects.
The episodes of the He-Man and the Masters of the Universe cartoon that were written by Dini have become favorites amongst the show's fans over the internet, although despite this as well as contributing to interviews on the released box sets of the series, Dini has made no secret of his distaste for Filmation and the He-Man concept. He also wrote an episode of the Generation 1 Transformers cartoon series, and contributed to various episodes of the Ewoks animated series, several of which included rare appearances from The Empire.
In 1989, he was hired at Warner Brothers Animation to work on Tiny Toon Adventures. Later, he moved onto Batman: The Animated Series, where he worked as a writer, producer and editor, later working on Batman Beyond. He continued working with WB animation, working on a number of internal projects, including Krypto the Superdog and Duck Dodgers, until 2004. He has earned five Emmy awards for his animation work. In a related effort, Dini was also the author of Batman Animated, a 1998 non-fiction coffee table book about the animated Batman franchise.
Dini has also written several comics stories for DC Comics, including an acclaimed oversized graphic novel series illustrated by painter Alex Ross. (A hardcover collection of the Dini and Ross stories was published in late summer 2005 under the title The World's Greatest Superheroes.) Other books written by Dini for DC have featured his Batman Animated creation Harley Quinn as well as classic characters Superman, Batman, Captain Marvel and Zatanna.
Best known among Dini's original creations is Jingle Belle, the rebellious teen-age daughter of Santa Claus. Dini also created Sheriff Ida Red, the super-powered cowgirl star of a series of books set in Dini's mythical town of Mutant, Texas.
His series of animated cartoons starring DC Comics characters is sometimes known to fans as the Diniverse.
In 2006, Dini became the writer for Detective Comics. This is Dini's first regular comic assignment.
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Casey Edwards (Studio Revolver)
Part of the Atlanta based Studio Revolver, Casey Edwards is a graphic designer/illustrator as well as creative director for Mowie, Inc. Some of his clients include Geffen Records, Warner Music Group, UMG Music Group, Karen Hunter Publishing, Markosia Enterprises, and White Wolf Publishing. Providing cover art for Joseph Gauthier's Lazarus, Immortal Coils from Markosia Enterprises, and for the Mad Scientist card game Mwahahaha! for White Wolf Publishing, his work can be seen at www.studiorevolver.net and www.mowieinc.com. He believes in the Tooth Fairy but not the Easter Bunny, and he is definitely a cat person.
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Egg Embry
Egg Embry's writing has been printed by Viper Comics [Dead@17], Arcana Studios [Dark Horror Anthology and Ezra], Sky-Dog Press/CBLDF [Kamen] and Ronin Studios [Ezra]. He's edited comics for Arcana Studios [ANT, Dead Men Tell No Tales and Ezra] and Thr3d World Studio [Omega Chase]. His comic journalism and reviews have appeared on the websites Newsarama, Comicon and ComicBulletin.
Egg's long-form series, Global Freezing, marks his debut as a one-stop-shop taking a project from concept to finish. Following the adventures of Jaia and her imaginary friend as they are chased by monsters through an ice age, Global Freezing is updated three times a week at ComicsByEgg.com as well as printed in The Burner anthology produced by 4Js Publishing. Egg can be reached at Egg@ComicsByEgg.com.
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Tom Feister (Studio Revolver)
Tom Feister is currently inking WildStorm's Eisner Award-winning series Ex-Machina. His work has appeared in the pages of Legion, G.I. Joe Frontlines, and Justice League Adventures. His collaborations with Tony Harris have appeared on covers for Legion, Fantastic Four, Iron Man, Exiles, and Captain Marvel. Tom has been a member of Jolly Roger Studio since 2001.
Most recently, Tom's clients have included Cartoon Network, Marvel Comics, Devil's Due Publishing, Dark Horse Comics, DC Comics, Turner Studios, Primal Screen, WildStorm Publishing, and Wild Hare Studios, among others. Tom loves to talk about his iPod whenever asked.
In 2005 and 2006 Tom's work on Ex-Machina was recognized with five Eisner Award nominations and the 2005 Eisner Award for Best New Series.
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GW Fisher
The 2009 Con season marks GW.Fisher's 10th consecutive appearance here at Dragon Con. Over the last 12+ years the NJ native has quietly carved out his niche in the comics field, first with a stint on Image Comics' The Intimidators, and later moving on to one of the flagship Image titles, Jim Valentino's Shadow Hawk. Currently he is one of 2 comic artists (Greg Horn being the other) providing complete art for a series of Marvel licensed full-torso shirts through Yellow River Inc.
To date he has produced over 25 different pieces, including Fantastic Four, X-Men, Gambit/Rogue, Iron Fist, Dr. Strange, Punisher, Wolverine, Iron Man, and the Black Panther to name a few.
GW apears as a guest at more than a dozen comic conventions each year where he features over 150 pieces of original art, combining a variety of classic cover re-creations with wonderfully detailed original works. When you factor in the 90+ full color prints with GW's rather gregarious nature you'll find there are no quick gettaways from his table no matter how hard you try!
GW lives in southern NJ with his wife Fran & his daughter Jessica. He has 2 other grown daughters Stephanie & Keri, 2 grown step-daughters Julie & Lauren, and a 3 year-old grandson Nathaniel. He also has phobias about bathroom time as a result, but that's another story for another time...
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Jason Flowers
Jason Flowers has always had a love for art and comic books. At the early age of 15, he started creating and self publishing his own ideas and hasn't looked back. Heavily influenced through horror and sci-fi, he has built a reputation from his unique and dark style of art throughout the Atlanta, GA area. He has had art published in HorrorHound Magazine, following a short story in a horror anthology Velvet Rope, for Arcana Comics. Recently he rapped up completion on a 120 page full color time traveling graphic novel called: RIPPED, also for Arcana Comics, that has been optioned as a motion picture from Romark Films. Currently his time is split between being the poster artist for the Atlanta based horror show: SPLATTER CINEMA, doing art for the ATLANTA HORRORFEST, ATLANTA ROLLERGIRLS, and working on a few new horror graphic novels, BLOODY OLDE ENGLUND and THE STRANGE ADVENTURES OF EMORY FALLS.
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Francesco Francavilla
A native of Italy , Francesco is probably best known for his brushy ink style and love of everything pulp. He is currently illustrating Dynamite's Zorro series with comics legend Matt Wagner and just completed a stint as guest artist on Vertigo's critically acclaimed series Scalped with writer Jason Aaron.
Francesco also has a new co-creator series, Garrison, debuting from Wildstorm this summer with writer Jeff Marriotte. When he's not hard at work on comics, Francesco manages to find time to work on concept art & storyboards for film & TV (Wolverine & the X-Men, American Idol) and also illustrates a variety of books.
Many believe Francesco perfected the cloning process and is slowly using it to take over the (illustration) world.
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Michael Golden
Michael Golden is an American comic-book artist and commercial artist best known for his late-1970s work on Marvel Comics' The Micronauts.
Golden drew a number of Marvel series throughout the 1970s and 1980s, including Doctor Strange, She-Hulk, the Howard the Duck black-and-white comics magazine, and The 'Nam. He drew covers for the licensed series G.I. Joe, ROM, and the lesser-known U.S. 1, Nomad, and The Saga of Crystar. Golden also penciled parts of the Marvel No-Prize Book and a Beavis and Butt-head comic. In the 2000s, he drew covers for DC Comics' Nightwing, Superman: The Man of Steel, and Vigilante.
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Rob Granito
Rob Granito, internationally known artist and illustrator, has worked for over 15 years in the fields of science fiction, fantasy, horror, and comic art. His name can be found alongside such companies as Warner Brothers, DC comics, Disney, MTV, and VH1, where he worked on cartoons and comics as well as book, magazine, and novel covers.
Rob's latest work has been on Teen Titans Go!, Justice League Unlimited, and Batman: The Shadow of the Bat, and he is currently working on Superman: The Women we Love and the Murphys Lore book series. He is also working with Noel "Lois Lane" Neill on a project as well as designing Scared, the TV series' RPG Game, and is one of the artists for the upcoming movie, Bubba the Red Neck Werewolf. Some of Rob's other projects are A Diamond in the Rough book and movie adaptation.
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Sanford Greene
Sanford Greene has worked in comics and animation for several years. His projects list includes cover artist for Batman Strikes, The LEGION OF SUPERHEROES ( comic based on the hit animated series), Army of Darkness, Star Wars Tales and The Ride. He also did comic cover art for SONIC and Killer 7 the comic based on the hit video game. He has also done work for PLAY MAGAZINE, HASBRO, NICKELODIAN, UPPER DECK and SEGA. His most recent work can be seen in the pages of the successful new mini series Wonder Girl and the successful graphic novel METHOD MAN. He is at the moment at Marvel comics working on Marvel Adventures Spider Man. Look for his arc on this title on #49 - #52, a Hulk team up special and a Deadpool special.
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Chris Hamer
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Cullly Hamner (Gaijin Studios)
Cully Hamner is these days mainly known for drawing DC Comics' latest BLUE BEETLE series, and as the co-creator, with Warren Ellis, of RED, now in development as a feature film from Summit Entertainment. In 2006, he re-teamed with Ellis on the well-regarded DOWN for Top Cow. For years, though, he's also been the go-to guy for a long list of projects likes of BATMAN: TENSES, THE RIDE, THE TITANS, GREEN LANTERN, X-MEN, DAREDEVIL, SPIDER-MAN UNLIMITED, and many others. In January 2009, DC began releasing his six-issue, bi-weekly project with writer Jen Van Meter, BLACK LIGHTNING: YEAR ONE. In June, his feature with writer Greg Rucka, "The Question," begins monthly in DETECTIVE COMICS. He brings the ruckus.
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Tariq Hassan (Studio Revolver)
Tariq Hassan is the artist behind Arkadian: No Witness, a noir style thriller published by Devils Due. A member of Studio Revolver, his work can also be found in the recent Mutants and Masterminds Manual, as well as in his colorist work over Sanford Greene's drawings on a recent Killer 7 Poster. Tariq has been published in Girls of Ninja High School 93, Daemonstorm, Negative Burn "Monster Truck," and Pinup Legendlore.
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HERO Initiative
In late 2000, a consortium of comic publishers came up with the idea to create a financial safety net for comic creators, much in the same fashion that exists in almost any other trade from plumbing to pottery. By March of 2001, the federal government approved The Hero Initiative as a publicly supported not-for-profit corporation under section 501 (c) (3).
Since its inception, The Hero Initiative (Formerly known as A.C.T.O.R., A Commitment To Our Roots) has had the good fortune to grant over $200,000 to the comic book veterans who have paved the way for those in the industry today.
The Hero Initiative is the first-ever federally chartered not-for-profit corporation dedicated strictly to helping comic book creators in need. Hero creates a financial safety net for yesterdays' creators who may need emergency medical aid, financial support for essentials of life, and an avenue back into paying work. It's a chance for all of us to give back something to the people who have given us so much enjoyment.
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Bill Holbrook
Bill Holbrook grew up in the Space Age atmosphere of Huntsville, Ala. in the 1960s. Upon graduating from Auburn University in 1980 he was hired by The Atlanta Constitution as an editorial staff artist. After several attempts at syndication, his office strip "On the Fastrack" was picked up by King Features and debuted in 150 papers on March 19, 1984.
Eleven days before that he'd met Teri Peitso on a blind date. They were married on Pearl Harbor Day, 1985, and now have two daughters. They also gave birth to a second strip about kids called "Safe Havens".
In September 1995 he began a new strip called "Kevin & Kell" and sold it exclusively to online clients, which collectively get over 3 million page views a month. It has been featured in fourteen book collections, the latest being "Rules of Engagement.". He was named Cartoonist of the Year at the 1998 Pogofest, an annual gathering in Waycross honoring the great Walt Kelly and "Pogo." "Kevin & Kell" was given the Ursa Major Award in 2003 for Best Anthropomorphic Comic Strip. In 2004 it entered the newspaper domain by appearing daily in The Atlanta Journal-Constitution.
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Georges Jeanty (Studio Revolver)
Georges Jeanty has quietly built a substantial body of work in little over a decade. He apprenticed on titles like Dogs of War (Defiant, 1994) and various mid-90’s London Night titles before picking up some short or single-issue assignments from DC Comics (including Tales of the Green Lantern, a Tangent/DC comic). Readers may also know Jeanty for such Marvel series work as Bishop the Last X-Man, Gambit (2003), and Weapon X. Jeanty worked with screenwriter John Ridley on the eight-issue Wildstorm mini-series The American Way (also available as a trade paperback).
Without fanfare, Jeanty developed considerable storytelling skills and eventually attracted the attention of the powers behind Dark Horse Comics’ Buffy the Vampire Slayer Season 8 – Joss Whedon’s comic book continuation of his popular, long-running TV series, “Buffy the Vampire Slayer.
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Paul Jenkins
Paul Jenkins is one of the premier creators and writers of comic books, graphic novels and video games in the world today. After five years working with the creators of the Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles, he began his freelance writing career in 1993 as scribe of the DC Comics Hellblazer.
In 1997 Paul won an Eisner for his work on Marvel comics Inhumans series. He has since worked on virtually every comic character in the business, including Spider-Man and The Incredible Hulk, and the smash hit Wolverine: Origin, for which he won five Wizard Fan Awards. His latest work for Marvel includes the blockbuster Frontlines series, a part of the Civil War event, and the Mythos series. In addition, his creation The Sentry has become a mainstay of the Marvel Universe.
Paul’s work as Writer and/or Creative Director in the video game genre includes Twisted Metal: Black, Soul Reaver, Incredible Hulk: Ultimate Destruction and others. 2007’s The Darkness earned him a BAFTA nomination for storytelling and characterization. His latest work, Activision’s Prototype, hit stores in June.
Paul has written a number of movie screenplays including Tatua, to be produced by Rick Schwarz (Departed, Aviator, Gangs of New York), which Paul will co-direct in early 2010.
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Rich Larson
Rich Larson's fantasy art is heavily influenced by his early exposure to MAD magazine, 60's Marvel superhero comics, and obscure 50's horror and SF movies on late night TV. He began his career as an advertising artist, and broke into comics in 1976, illustrating ghost stories for Charlton Publications. Soon, he and fellow Minneapolis fan/airbrush artist Steve Fastner teamed to produce the first Marvel superhero portfolios, as well as covers for Warren's horror and SF magazines, SQP's Hot Stuf', and the first Paperback Price Guide. Over the last thirty years, Fastner & Larson have done ground level and underground comics, paperback and album cover art, t-shirt, collector card and movie prop design, and numerous comic and paperback book covers. Their work has been collected into thirteen volumes, including the Haunted House of Lingerie, Little Black Book, and Bed & Bondage series.
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Leo Liebelman
Born in Moscow in 1972, Leo Liebelman moved around a lot as a child from Italy to Canada to finally settling in Brooklyn NY where he grew up, all undoubtedly adding to and inspiring the tapestry of work that would end up in his paintings.
Being led to study at the HS of Music and Art, he graduated in 1990 and later attended the School of Visual arts for a year, taking a comic arts class with the legendary DC comics artist Carmine Infantino.Taking what he learned in that class he went to his first comic book convention ,and as luck would have it the editor who was doing the portfolio reviews for Marvel was also the editor for Conan! His fate had found him.
The editor did indeed see something in Leo's work and decided to give him a shot .. and thus began his career in comics . Following this fortuitous meeting came many covers covers and pinups for "Savage Sword of Conan," and that work opened the door for Leo to go to Acclaim comics as well, where he worked on Turok and Magic The gathering.
Other comics work included pieces for Topps Comics on "Hercules," NBM Publishing, Penny Farthing Press, Black Ice Comics and Arcana Comics.
The year 1996, brought more changes to Leo's life, as he moved to Toronto to be with his family, and he's been living there ever since. The move opened new doors artistically for him as well, as he branched out into other types of art work--mainly film and traditional illustration.
It was also around this time that Leo met two other artists that would greatly inspire him--Legends in their field. Stve Assael helped Leo hone his realistic painting techniques, while Boris Vallejo also gave invaluable advice. "I've always admired Vallejo since I picked up his first art book," says Leo.
For the next ten years Leo did every thing from romance novels to childrens books to paintings for movies .In fact, he's worked on over a dozen movies ranging from Disney, live action, to low budget horror films! "You'll see the later on the Sci-Fi network at three in the morning," he laughs.
Some of this film and TV work adding to Leo's credit's include: "Gene Roddenberry Earth Final Conflict," "Devil's Pass," "Mutant X," "Chicago," "Cube Zero," "Child Star," "Wild Card," "Codebreakers," "Skinwalkers," "The Way," "Sanctum," "American Pie 5," "Aaron Stone," "Sky Runners," "Aqua," and many more.
During those years he also got married and started a business in 2005, "I decided to try something different from art so I bought an 18 wheeler truck and drove across the U.S. and Canada.I did that for about a year and realized its a lot less dangerous drawing comicbooks," Leo explains.
An avid gym-goer and basketball palyer, these days, Leo is perfectly content to be pursuing his art full-time, finishing up a book for Arcana Comics and also doing some riveting covers for "Heavy Metal," and a secret "Planet of the Apes project. Recent work has appeared for Forest Primevil and Radical Publishing. "The diversity of driving a truck was nice," he explains. "But deep down inside I wanted to work in comics. That's what I was meant to do."
For more information on Leo and his work, contact: evaink@aol.com
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John Lotshaw
Unlike the other kids at Pleasant Grove Elementary School, John Lotshaw was certain about only one thing concerning his future: it would not involve a carpet mill. Considering that he grew up in Dalton, Georgia—the Carpet Capital of the World—this tended to set him apart somewhat.
John always knew that his future would involve some combination of cartoons (he learned to draw by copying Charles Schulz's Peanuts out of the newspaper, and had created his own comic strip by the age of 4), computers (John's father had been programming computers before John was born), and television (which John had watched far too much of as a child).
After graduation from high school, he attended the University of Georgia's Grady School of Journalism and Mass Communication, where he was introduced to a magical device: an Amiga computer running VideoScape 3D animation software. Using this primitive animation system, he produced graphics for the Journalism School and the Center for Continuing Education and was paid for it. Also, while at Georgia, John drew a comic strip for a local entertainment weekly, which was also seen in North Carolina. Any hopes for a life as a normal, well-adjusted member of society were dashed at this point.
By 1994, John was offered a position with Gulliver Ritchie Associates producing, creating and animating a series of safety videos for children starring a lovable talking kangaroo named Troo the Traumaroo. Three shorts were produced in the series, which blended live action and computer animation. John also drew all the artwork for the support materials , including a coloring book and a really cool poster.
In 1996, John started The Toon Factory, and began to work as a freelance computer animator. His clients have included clients such as MCI, Coca-Cola, IBM, Nortel Networks, Ford Motor Company, First USA Bank and the National Football League. In 1997, the company contributed computer generated imagery for Fernbank Museum of Natural History's exhibit "Planet Dinosaur". More recently, his clients have inclued TIAA-CREF, Emory University and the University of Georgia (for which he produced scoreboard graphics "between the hedges" at historic Sanford Stadium). He was also post-production supervisor of "Damn Good Dog", a documentary about Uga, the bulldog mascot of the University of Georgia.
In 1999, John launched Not (Exactly) Human, a website that featured art aimed at fans of fantasy and science fiction. In 2002, that evolved into "Accidental Centaurs", a webcomic featuring two scientists who are propelled into an alternated reality and transformed into mythical creatures. It is the first of a series of future Internet content projects.
In 2008, John embarked on a new course into publishing when he undertook the publication of Bill Holbrook's pioneering webcomic "Kevin & Kell", in addition to publishing "Accidental Centaurs" and several other webcomics.
John currently lives in the Atlanta area.
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Travis Louie
Travis Louie was born in Queens, New York, about a mile from the site of the 1964 World's Fair. His early childhood was spent making drawings and watching "Atomic Age" Sci-Fi and Horror movies. There were many Saturday afternoon trips to the local comics shop and noon matinees at the RKO Keith's cinema on Northern Blvd. , where he marveled at the 1950's memorabilia: the rocket ships, the superheroes, the giant monsters, and old pulp art covers. He did thousands of sketches of genre characters like Godzilla, King Kong, and a host of creatures from Ray Harryhausen movies. After high school, he went to Pratt Institute in Brooklyn, New York, and graduated with a degree from the communication design dept. with the intent on pursuing a freelance illustration career. The work wasn't as rewarding as he had anticipated. After a few years freelancing, he created a body of paintings and began showing them in local art galleries. The response was very encouraging. He stopped actively pursuing illustration work and began taking on more private commissions and concentrating his efforts on gallery shows.
The visual style of his work is mostly influenced by the lighting and atmosphere of German Expressionist and Film Noir motion pictures from the Silent Era to the late 1950's. Films from directors like F W Murnau, Fritz Lang, Orson Welles, Robert Siodmak, Robert Aldrich, Jacque Tourneur, and cinematographer, Greg Toland, had a great effect on the way he wanted his paintings to look.To achieve the dramatic "mood" in his paintings, they are produced primarily in black and white or limited color. He uses acrylic paints over tight graphite drawings on smooth grounds, like "plate" finish illustration board or finely sanded, primed wood panels. When he is not painting, his time is spent writing in his notebooks and journals. Many little drawings and sketches are made from those writings, most of which are less than 10 centimeters square. The influences for his work are many; the genre films, his fascination with human oddities, circus sideshows, old Vaudeville magic acts, Victorian portraits, and things otherworldly, are all blended together to enable him to bring life to the characters and stories he writes in his journals.
www.travislouie.com
* Travis Louie appears courtesy of Circus Posterus Inc
www.circusposterus.com
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David Mack
David Mack is the creator, author, and artist of Kabuki published by Image Comics and the writer and artist of Marvel Comics' Daredevil, one of the top ten best selling comics in the United States.
Mack's work has garnered nominations for two 1999 International Eagle Awards in the categories of Favorite Comic Artist (Painted) and Best Cover Art of the Year (Painted), the Eisner Awards in the category of Best Painter, and both the Harvey and Kirby awards in the category of Best New Talent, as well as other awards and nominations.
Kabuki has earned Mack international acclaim for its innovative storytelling, painting techniques, and page design. It is available in seven different languages in addition to well over a million copies of Kabuki comics, paperbacks, and hardcovers in print in the U.S. alone. Mack has toured and exhibited throughout Europe, Asia, and America.
Mack did not attend a specialized art school but earned a full scholarship to a university for five years. There, he studied multiple disciplines in art and academics, including world history, anatomy and physiology, and Japanese. He graduated with a BFA in graphic design and a minor in English. His books have been the subject of undergraduate and graduate university courses in art and literature and listed as required reading. His work has been studied in graduate seminars at USC and hung in the Los Angeles Museum of Art.
David Mack is listed in Wizard Magazine's Top Ten Writers List. In addition to the writing and cover art for Daredevil, and writing and painting the Kabuki comic books, he has also written the treatment for the Kabuki film which is in preproduction with Fox Animation, a division of Twentieth Century Fox. Along with writing duties, his film credits will include visual designer, creative consultant, and coproducer.
Mack has illustrated and designed jazz and rock albums (including work for Paul McCartney) for both American and Japanese labels and worked as a designer for companies in Hong Kong.
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Jim Mahfood
im Mahfood aka Food One is a muralist, comic book artist, painter, live art show rocker and drunken freestyler extraordinaire. He has been working professionally as an artist since 1997, amassing an impressive cult following across the globe. His comic book work includes: lllustrating filmmaker Kevin Smith's "Clerks" comics and illustrating various Spider-Man projects at Marvel Comics.
His creator-owned comic books include: GRRL SCOUTS, KICK DRUM COMIX, STUPID COMICS, FELT, ONE PAGE FILLER MAN, 40oz COLLECTED, PUTTIN' THE BACKBONE BACK, BAD IDEAS, CLASSIC 40 Ounce, and many more.
He can be seen rocking the live mural art at various hip hop and funk shows around the country. Food's art was featured in SLUG (Atmosphere) and MURS' (Living Legends) music video for the track "Early Morning Tony" off of their successful Felt 2 album: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TzVl3gLQWdc
His recent projects have included doing all the murals and menu art for the coffee shop in the Sarah Silverman Program on Comedy Central and doing all the art and ads for the new COLT 45 malt liquor ad campaign. WWW.TALESOFCOLT45.COM
Mahfood is also a member of the prestigious new Artsprojekt community.
Check out www.artsprojekt.com for exclusive gear and products. Jim is listed in the Artists section under "40oz Comics."
Clients: Playboy, Colt 45 (Pabst Blue Ribbon), The Sarah Silverman Program, MTV, Okay Player, View Askew, Rhymesayers, Hollywood Records, Cartoon Network, Disney, Armani, URB, Spin Magazine, Phoenix New Times, Mad Magazine, Marvel Comics, Ubiquity Records, Star Wars Gamer, Def Jux, DC Comics, etc.
NEWEST PROJECTS:
* MIXTAPE VOL. 2: a brand-new, full-color hardcover art book out on Sept. 3rd! Classy! 48pgs. Published by Image Comics.
* KICK DRUM COMIX: a brand-new, full-color two issue mini-series. All new comics and stories. Each book is 48 pages and features exciting art and amazing colors. #1 drops on Sept. 10th, #2 is out on Oct. 29th. Published by Image Comics.
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Laura Martin (Gaijin Studios)
Laura Martin makes delicious colors. Her seminal work on PLANETARY, THE AUTHORITY, and RUSE earned her many awards. More recently, she has worked on ASTONISHING X-MEN, THE ULTIMATES, THOR, STEPHEN KING'S THE STAND, and BLACK LIGHTNING. Currently, Laura is re-coloring all of Dave Stevens' seminal series THE ROCKETEER, and teaming up with Cully Hamner again on the "Question" co-feature in DETECTIVE COMICS. She hopes to eventually finish her own book, Telling Stories with Color, one day when she has a chance to come up for air.
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Randy Martinez
Randy Martinez is a Southern California Illustrator whose art has depicted everything from Star Wars, rocks stars to Monsters and Aliens. Martinez, who has been working professional since age 16, got his big break in 1999 with Star Wars Kids Magazine, He specialized in Caricatures and Cartoon Gags. Unfortunately Star Wars Kids stopped production but that opened up the door to the Star Wars Insider. Randy wrote and illustrated hundreds of Gag Cartoons and back page illustrations for the Insider in 3 short years. In 2004 Topps Trading Cards came calling and invited Randy to produce "Sketch Cards" for their "Star Wars: Heritage" Collection. That started a truly unbelievable run of 7500 Sketch Cards for Topps Trading Cards over the next 2 years including "Revenge of the Sith" and "Lord of the Rings: Evolution" collections. Since then Martinez's name has been a Sketch Card fixture for Topps' most popular titles such as Star Wars, Lord of the Rings, Heroes, and Indiana Jones. In 2008 Randy finally got the call to create an original piece of art for Topps' much anticipated "Star Wars Galaxy: 4". This card, "Tusken Hero" is part of the base set for the Star Wars Galaxy 4 collection.
In 2007 Martinez was given the great honor of illustrating the Official program cover and posters for both Star Wars Celebration IV (Los Angeles) and Star Wars Celebration Europe (London, England). The Star Wars Celebration Europe piece was particularly notable as it celebrated 30 years of Star Wars and 40 years of the Beatles album "Sgt. Peppers Lonely Hearts Club Band". For this piece Randy recreated a scaled version (card board cut outs, flowers and all) of the famous album cover, but used Star Wars Characters in place of the original icons from the "Sgt. Peppers" album.
2007 also brought the start of Martinez's relationship with Acme Archives, Who produce fine art giclee prints. Acme has produced 5 of Randy's designs including "Star Wars: Bounty Hunters", "Star Wars: Scoundrels", "Boba Fett: Legacy", "Eyes on Adventure: Raiders of the Lost Ark", and "Eyes on Adventure: Crystal Skull".
2009 marks a big year for Martinez, as 11 books that feature his art will hit bookstore shelves nationally and in parts of Europe.
The first to be released is a ten book story by Scholastic Books titled "Star Wars: Rebel Force" to which Martinez Illustrated the front and back covers.
Next to hit shelves is Randy's first how to draw book titled "Creature Features: How to draw Amazing Monsters and Aliens". Randy Authored and Illustrated this entire book with Impact Publishing. "Creature Features" boasts over 150 different illustrations, over 30 different how to draw lessons, and a special artists gallery!
Randy has also illustrated over a half dozen games for Playroom Entertainment. Most notably the hit game "Sitting Ducks" and this years "Scary Tales".
Martinez's Illustration credits also include art for Star Wars.com, Lucas Arts, Red 5 Comics, Inkworks, Gag Magazine, Cracked Magazine, Green Ronin Games, The Los Angeles Times, and Guitar Center.
Randy Martinez is a BFA graduate of the Kansas City Art Institute and now lives in Ventura CA with his girlfriend Denise Vasquez.
You can see lots of Randy Martinez's art at www.randymartinex.net.
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Nathan Massengill
Nathan Massengill is a comic book brush inker, best known for his work on Deadpool, JSA, Detective Comics, and Tellos. His work was recently featured in the JSA Kingdom Come sequel over artist Dale Eaglesham. He also recently worked on Indiana Jones: Tomb of the Gods, and Marvel Adventures titles such as Spider-Man.
Check out his website: nathanmassengill.com!
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Menton J. Matthews III
Menton J Matthews III is the creator, writer, and artist of his new graphic novel series Ars Memoria. Menton has been painting and illustrating since he was a child. Growing up with comic books only adds to his excitement to bring his unique art, style, and vision to one of his favorite mediums. Ars Memoria is a dark and visually captivating story that he hopes others will enjoy as much as he has creating it.
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Tyson McAdoo
No one has the ability to combine the essence of 1950's housewife, 1960's sexpot, 1970's exploitation femme fatale, and modern day pin-up quite like Tyson McAdoo. His ladies, teetering on impossibly high heels, seem as likely to screw you, as shoot you or cook you some bacon in nothing but an apron. Tyson is one of the few modern day artists whose work I keep close tabs on, and he never fails to thrill!
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Mike Mignola
Mignola was born in Berkeley, California. He began his career in 1980 by illustrating spots in the Comic Reader. His first published piece was in the Comic Reader #183, a spot illustration of Red Sonja (pg. 9). His first published front cover was the Comic Reader #196; Dominic Fortune, the Spirit, and Doc Savage in November 1981.
In 1983 he accepted an inking spot at Marvel Comics working on Daredevil and Power Man & Iron Fist for Marvel Comics, and later worked on titles such as "The Incredible Hulk", Alpha Flight and the Rocket Raccoon limited-series.
After some initial work for DC Comics, such as 1987's Phantom Stranger and The World of Krypton, Mignola began to attract greater notice at DC. 1988 featured several high-profile assignments, including covers for Batman: A Death in the Family and pencilling Cosmic Odyssey, a galaxy-spanning 4-issue mini-epic featuring an ensemble cast of DC heroes, and Gotham by Gaslight, in which a Victorian version of Batman faces Jack the Ripper. The success of that 52-page one-shot inspired DC to launch the "Elseworlds" concept.
Mignola drew covers for several Batman storylines, including A Death in the Family and Dark Knight Dark City.
Through the early 1990s, Mignola worked on covers and backup features for various DC and Marvel comics. Mignola did the art on Wolverine: The Jungle Adventure for Marvel, and, with Howard Chaykin and P. Craig Russell, he worked on Fafhrd and the Gray Mouser and Ironwolf: Fires of the Revolution for DC. He also illustrated the comics adaptation for Bram Stoker's Dracula for Topps Comics, having assisted with design and storyboarding for the Francis Ford Coppola film.
Previously, Mignola had always worked on characters and properties owned by others. He deviated from that practice in 1994, when Mignola's first Hellboy story, The Seed of Destruction, was published by Dark Horse Comics. Hellboy draws heavily on Mignola's own interests — folklore, B-movies, ghost stories, monsters and pulp stories — and the series about a paranormal investigator from Hell, the eponymous Hellboy, soon proved to be a popular and critical success with its abstract artwork and H. P. Lovecraft-style horror. It has since been the endeavour Mignola has been most closely connected with, and he has kept up a steady stream of Hellboy stories and merchandise.
Prior to Hellboy, Mignola was not experienced in writing his own stories, and thus, at Mignola's request, the first series was scripted by John Byrne. However, the next Hellboy story, Wolves of St. August, was scripted by Mignola, who also wrote the majority of the subsequent Hellboy tales, though other writers and artists have also worked on the character since. All major story arcs were drawn by Mike Mignola himself, but in 2007 artist Duncan Fegredo took over drawing duties with Mignola remaining on as the writer and cover artist. He also writes the popular spin-off BPRD with John Arcudi; it is drawn by Guy Davis with Mignola as the cover artist. With all of his various commitments, Mignola has had less opportunity to write and draw Hellboy, so the release of the 2008 one-shot "In the Chapel of Moloch" was the first Hellboy comic he had provided the script and art for since "The Island" in 2005.
According to Mignola, much of Hellboy's personality was based on his father.
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Tara McPherson
Tara McPherson is a painter, poster artist and freelance illustrator based out of New York City. Creating art about people and their odd ways, her characters seem to exude an idealized innocence with a glimpse of hard-earned wisdom in their eyes. Recalling many issues from childhood and good old life experience, she creates images that are thought-provoking and seductive. People and their relationships are a central theme in her work.
Tara's array of art includes painted comics and covers for DC/Vertigo, advertising and editorial illustrations for companies such as Pepsi and Spin?magazine, and numerous gig posters for rock bands such as Beck, Modest Mouse, Mastodon, and Death Cab For Cutie. She exhibits her paintings and prints in fine art galleries all over the world.
Currently she is working on a painted graphic novel for DC/Vertigo Comics, paintings for gallery exhibitions, designing a new line of toys for Kidrobot based on her characters, and teaches a Concept Illustration class at Parsons in NYC.
McPherson's art has been included in books such as Lonely Heart: The Art of Tara McPherson (Dark Horse Press), Fables: 1001 Nights of Snowfall (DC), The Art of Modern Rock (Chronicle), Illustration Now! (Taschen), SWAG and SWAG 2 (Abrams), and more. She has lectured at the School of Visual Arts, AIGA NYC, AIGA Austin, The University of Arizona, MADE in Edmonton, Foyles London, and San Diego Comic-Con International.
Tara was born in San Francisco in 1976 and raised in Los Angeles. She received her BFA from Art Center in Pasadena, Californa, in August 2001 with honors in Illustration and a minor in Fine Art. She interned at Rough Draft Studios, working on Matt Groening's Futurama during college.
She has been featured and/or interviewed by Juxtapoz, Bust, Magnet, Spin, TV 3, Current TV, CBC Radio, Super7, Paste, HOW, Step, Communication Arts, International Tattoo Art, AIGA, Seattle Times, LA Weekly, Gothamist, DC Comics, Punk Planet, Savage Tattoo, and many more.
Some of her clients include DC Comics, Warner Brothers, Dark Horse Comics, KidRobot, Spin, Pepsi, Fanta, Goldenvoice, Harper Collins, Bloomsbury, Revolver, Knitting Factory, Playstation 2, House of Blues, Punk Planet, Dogfish Head Brewery, and Nike/Wyden & Kennedy, among others.
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Dean Motter
DEAN MOTTER, artist/writer/designer, while not known particularly for super-hero comics, authored the award-winning 'film-noir' graphic novel, Batman: Nine Lives, the Dominic Fortune serial appearing in Marvel's Tales to Astonish, and is currently scripting a Wolverine Noir book for Marvel.
He is best known as the creator of the '80's comic book sensation Mister X. Dark Horse commemorated the 25th anniversary with a newly-restored archive collection and an all-new four-issue reboot, Mister X: Condemned, which is being released as a trade paperback this fall. Dark Horse will follow with a collected edition of Electropolis. His two acclaimed Vertigo mini-series, Terminal City and Aerial Graffiti were nominated for Eisner and Kurtzman Awards. Dean is also known for his DC Comics graphic novel The Prisoner: Shattered Visage, based on the classic '60s British cult TV series.
In the 90's Dean served on staff at both DC Comics and Byron Preiss Visual Publications supervising graphic novel projects such as the Ray Bradbury Chronicles, Hitchhikers Guide to the Galaxy and Nine Princes in Amber. Currently he is designing the new Ray Bradbury graphic novels for FSG, and Joe Kubert's How to Draw from Life from Vanguard. Recently he designed and contributed to The Definitive Frazetta Reference.
He has also designed a number of award-winning album covers and book jackets.
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Eric Morin
What were you doing when you were a kid? Playing baseball with the neighborhood kids? Flying kites? Not Eric, he was in front of the tube watching old horror flicks on Saturday afternoons. Call him strange, he wears that badge with pride. After all, how many kids do you know that could tell you who Boris Karloff and Bela Lugosi were at the age of six? Not many I dare say. That was the was the start of a life long fascination of spooky stuff for Eric.
Eric currently lives in NC, writing stories that would be deemed off kilter at the least and working on the web comic, NORMAN. A large portion of what he does was self taught. But, he couldn’t have done it without a lot of help along the way from friends, giving him hints and pointers on how to do little stuff. If it wasn’t for those little tips, he wouldn’t be able to do half of what he does now.
There is an ever growing arsenal of stories in his head that he is just waiting to unleashed. Lord only knows what might pop up next and goodness help us all when it does!
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Kathie Olivas
Sugary treats, dichotomous dreamlands, the cute and the corrupted, all find their way into the brief calm before the rebellion that feature Olivas‘s series of characters known as the misery children. The cast is inspired by early American portraiture that often depicted children as small adults in an idealized new land. The series focuses on imperfect characters that parallel this vision within their own sense of post-apocalyptic conformity, uniquely documenting their own stories in a mysterious brave new world.
As children, they evoke a sense of temporality; childhood serves as a starting ground, a place where things begin. At the same time, children personify 'cuteness' as more of a representation of projected innocence. The comfort in this ideology comes into question when these sweet creatures have other ideas. Confronted with how to protect themselves, just how would they be able to adapt if they chose to be independent? Once isolated in to a war torn environment, they are forced to develop their own defense mechanisms.The series focuses on the ambiguity and fleeting moments surrounding the uprising. The unapologetic anti-heroes guide us through the mysterious lands questionably untouched by human destruction. A minimalist haze fogs what could be the illusion of this dreamland or what could possibly be the reality of destruction and decay, and the now silent moments after complete and utter annihilation.Through these ever evolving portraits, our gentle guides take time out to document their evolving status and sophistication. The characters are meant to evoke a nostalgic reaction that reflects isolation, fear, and an uncertainty; yet, at the same time they serve as empowered alter egos. Their mutated limbs, empowered sidekicks, or improvised armor present a satirical look at how fear affects our sense of reality.
Kathie Olivas is a multi-media artist who resides with her husband and fellow artist, Brandt Peters, in Tampa, FL and Albuquerque, NM. At 31, she has been featured in numerous galleries across the globe and is represented in the permanent collection at the Tampa Museum of Art. She received her bachelor's degree in visual arts from the University of South Florida.
* Kathie Olivas and Brandt Peters not only appear as artist guests of DragonCon but also bring their collective limited edition company, Circus Posterus Inc. Circus Posterus is an artist and designer showcase that produces limited edition projects such as professional fine art printing, sculpture/toy base and traditional print based projects from stationary to books and catalogues. The Circus represents artists projects from Sas and colin Christian, Chris Ryniak, Travis Louie, Kukula, Liz McGrath and Morgan Slade and has worked with such industry greats as: Joe Ledbetter, Naoto Hattori, TADO, Chris Lee and many, many others. CP has selected DragonCon as their first debut to the public under their company name and will be bringing in Sas and Colin Christian, Travis Louie and Chris Ryniak as guests with loads of releases, exclusives and signings.
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Annie Owens
Annie was born in Alabama, “parcel posted to the Philippines,” and after three years, was returned to the States and educated in the San Francisco Bay Area where she earned her BFA in film and video. She is a fan of old horror films, the art of Charles Addams and Edward Gorey and the writings of Roald Dahl, Edgar Allan Poe, and H.P. Lovecraft.
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Jason Palmer
Jason began working in the comic book industry painting covers for Star Trek and Star Wars in 1990. Since then, he's worked as an illustrator on a vast variety of projects, including art for TV shows, story boards, advertising, concept work and collectibles. His recent projects include Indiana Jones concept designs for Lucasfilm, and licensed work for Warners Brothers and Universal Studios.
After becoming a huge fan of the Firefly series, Jason created a print of the show cast for a local LA convention. Encouraged by Joss Whedon, Jason has since been working together with Universal Studios producing licensed artwork for Serenity, the movie that was made, in no small part, as a result of unprecedented efforts of Firefly fans. Jason has recently completed a line of popular limited edition Serenity collectible portraits, which are now available as an album set, including exclusive character sketches and convention slipcase tote carrier.
www.jasonpalmer.net
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Jimmy Palmiotti
Multi Award winning character creator with a wide range of experience in advertising, production, consulting, editorial, film writing, development and production, media presentation and video game development. Just a few of his clients include Nike, Nickelodeon, Universal pictures, Disney, Warner Brothers, DreamWorks, Lion's Gate, Vidmark, Starz, Fox Atomic, Alliance films, New Line, Spike TV, MTV, 2kgames, Midway, Radical games, Activision and THQ games.
Co founder of such companies as Event Comics, Black Bull Media, Marvel Knights, a division of marvel comics, and the current Paperfilms, where he is partners with Amanda Conner and Justin Gray. Together they have created and co created numerous universes, comics , TV series and characters including: The New West, Monolith, 21 Down, The Resistance, The Pro, Gatecrasher, Beautiful killer, Ash, Cloudburst, Trigger Girl 6, Thrill Seeker, Trailblazer, Ballerina, The Twilight Experiment and the TV series, Painkiller Jane.
Current work includes : Powergirl , Jonah Hex and Prototype for D.C.COMICS, The last Resort for I.D.W, Back to Brooklyn for Image comics and Vampire Hunter D for Devils Due.
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Jason Pearson (Studio Revolver)
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Bob Pendarvis
Bob Pendarvis taught the Savannah College of Art and Design's first comic book illustration class and was the original founder of their Sequential Art Department. When Bob went looking for other professors to help teach in the department, he came directly to Dragon*Con, where he recruited comics professionals Beau Hampton and Mark Kneece.
Over the years, Bob has taught classes in storytelling, penciling, inking, fantasy illustration, life drawing, cartooning, animation character design, storyboard design, children's picture book illustration, and manga. Some of Bob's successful students include Jennie Breeden (The Devil's Panties), Christy Lijewski (Re:Play), Heidi Arnhold (The Dark Crystal), Erica Reis (Sea Princess Azuri), Ross Campbell (Wet Moon), Christiawan Lie (Return to Labyrinth), Brad Wallker (Superman), Barbara Chapman (The World of Pumpernickel), Jarrett Williams (Lunar Boy), Phil Craven (Kung-fu Panda), and Tracy Yardley (Sonic the Hedgehog).
Bob's graphic novel, The Bristol Board Jungle (co-written by fellow professor Mark Kneece), was recently named a top ten recommended non-fiction graphic novel for young readers by the Public Schools Library Association. His newest projects include an all-new art textbook called Ana Teaches Kittens How To Draw, as well as Sugar/Spice, a massive all-girls comics anthology featuring over fifty of Bob's former students.
Bob also writes and records his own music CDs, including his latest release, Midnite Garden Party.
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George Perez
Pérez's early work included Sons of the Tiger (a serialized action-adventure strip published in Marvel's long-running Deadly Hands of Kung Fu magazine and authored by prolific comics writer Bill Mantlo. He and Mantlo co-created the White Tiger, a character that soon appeared in Marvel's color comics, most notably, the Spider-Man titles. Pérez came to prominence when he started illustrating The Avengers for Marvel Comics, starting with vol. 1 #141. His early style seemed very much influenced by Jack Kirby, one of Marvel's leading creators from the 1960s, albeit with more realistic anatomy and a penchant for making his worlds seem bright and beautiful. In the 1970s, Pérez illustrated several other Marvel books, including Fantastic Four, where he began working with Marv Wolfman, and Creatures on the Loose featuring the Man-Wolf.
Pérez soon moved over to work for DC Comics. Following a popular stint on Justice League of America, Pérez's career took off with the launch of The New Teen Titans, written by Wolfman. This incarnation of the Teen Titans was intended to be DC's answer to Marvel's increasingly-popular X-Men comic, and Wolfman and Pérez indeed struck gold. Moreover, Pérez's facility with layouts, details, and faces improved enormously during his four years on the book, making him one of the most popular artists in comics.
Wolfman and Pérez followed this with DC's 50th-anniversary event, Crisis on Infinite Earths, which purportedly featured every single character DC owned in a story which radically restructured the DC universe's continuity. Pérez was inked on the book by two of the best inkers in comics at the time: Dick Giordano and Jerry Ordway. After Crisis, Perez inked the final issue of Superman (issue #423) in September 1986, over Curt Swan's pencils for Part 1 of the 2-part story Whatever Happened to the Man of Tomorrow? by writer Alan Moore.
Following Crisis, Pérez and Greg Potter were responsible for relaunching Wonder Woman, tying her more closely to the Greek gods and jettisoning many of the extraneous elements of her history. Pérez at first worked with Len Wein on the stories, but eventually took over the full scripting chores. While not as popular as either Titans or Crisis, the book was a very successful relaunch of one of DC's flagship characters, and many fans agree that his run on Wonder Woman is one of the finest moments in his career, a stint that would last 5 years from 1987-1992. Among the signs of his tenure's influence is that the upcoming Wonder Woman animated film borrows much of its plot from Pérez's first major story with the character, Gods and Mortals.
Pérez returned as co-plotter/penciller with the New Teen Titans with issue #50 (Dec. 1988), the series again being renamed, this time to The New Titans, as some of the characters were no longer teenagers. Issue #50 tells a new origin story for Wonder Girl, her link to Wonder Woman having been severed due to retcons in Crisis on Infinite Earths. Pérez remained as penciller with the book through to issue #55, 57 and 60, while only providing layouts for issues 58-59, and 61, with artist Tom Grummett finishing pencils and Bob McLeod as inker (Pérez plotted issue #56 only, as well as providing cover art). Perez remained as inker for the cover art to issues 62-67 (and co-plotting the stories for 66-67) before departing from the Titans book once again. He would later on return to the series' final issue with #130 (Feb. 1996) providing cover art.
Pérez would be involved with Superman in various times over his career. In Action Comics #544 (June 1983), he designed Superman villain Lex Luthor's trademark battlesuit, — a heavily-armored, flight-capable suit with kryptonite fixtures embedded in its gauntlets. These new designs for the villain were featured as part of the DC Comics licensed action figure toyline the Super Powers Collection as well in 1984 (Luthor's armor battlesuit would remain in use in today's DC Comics continuity). He pencilled DC Comics Presents #61 (Sept. 1983) which featured Superman teamed up with OMAC. Perez provided inks/finishes for the lead story in Action Comics #600 in 1988, over John Byrne's pencils which featured Superman and Wonder Woman teaming-up. From 1989-1990, Pérez later had a stint working on Superman, writing & pencilling Action Comics (and providing cover art for every issue he worked on). Pérez had first worked on the second annual issue of Action Comics (published in 1989) before taking over that title when it was brought back as a regular monthly series with issue #643 (July 1989). His work duties on Action Comics would change from writer/penciller, to co-writer/breakdowns, and towards the end restricted to providing breakdowns, with writer Roger Stern scripting stories. Artists Brett Breeding and Kerry Gammill provided finishing art from Pérez' breakdowns (Issue #646 was the only issue during his run where he was not involved with interior work of any sort, except for doing the cover art). Pérez managed to provide pencils & inks for an 8-page sequence for issue #650 (Feb. 1990). Pérez also had a short stint working on another Superman title, writing Adventures of Superman, providing plots for issues #457-459 (Aug. 1989-Oct. 1989), and inks for issue #461 (Dec. 1989). Due to an already heavy workload while doing both Wonder Woman and Superman at the same time, Pérez left Action Comics with issue #652 (April 1990) being his last.
Unfortunately it was during this run in 1991 that Pérez hit a snag working with DC. Pérez has stated that since the storyline's inception (which ran through the Wonder Woman comic and crossed over into others), he had trouble writing the War of the Gods storyline, mostly due to editorial problems. Pérez felt that DC wasn't doing enough to celebrate Wonder Woman's 50-year anniversary. To make matters worse in his eyes, DC didn't place Wonder Woman in newsstand distribution, which meant that the comic book could only be found in comics specialty shops. Pérez had also built up a plot to marry the characters Steve Trevor and Etta Candy in his final issue. When he discovered that DC editors had decided to not only pass the Wonder Woman title's writing to William Messner-Loebs but also have Messner-Loebs write the final wedding scene, Pérez quit the title and separated himself from DC for several years.
Also in 1991, Pérez signed on to pencil the six-issue limited series Infinity Gauntlet for Marvel Comics, which was written by Jim Starlin. However, due to the turbulence happening concurrently with War of the Gods, this was a very stressful personal period for Pérez, and he was not able to finish penciling the entire run of Infinity Gauntlet, leaving the project part way through issue #4. The Infinity Gauntlet editorial team decided to find a replacement artist to finish the miniseries, and Ron Lim was the artist chosen (although Pérez offered to remain on as the inker over Lim's cover art for the remainder of the miniseries).
Because of the debacles over War of the Gods and Infinity Gauntlet, it was during this time that Pérez began to gain a reputation as a creator who could not finish projects as planned. Furthering that impression, he went on to work with independent comic book publishers Malibu Comics, drawing Break-Thru and Ultraforce (both titles were part of Malibu's Ultraverse imprint), and then working at Tekno Comix drawing I-Bots. However, despite being paid well by both publishers, he had no enthusiasm drawing the characters, and lost interest in drawing the titles.
In the 1990s, Pérez left the spotlight, although he worked on several popular projects, most notably at Marvel Comics with Sachs and Violens and Hulk: Future Imperfect, both written by Peter David. Pérez first returned to DC Comics in fall 1996, returning to another incarnation of the Teen Titans. Teen Titans (vol. 2) was written & penciled by Dan Jurgens, with Pérez as inker for the first 15 issues (of its twenty four-issue run). The series debuted in October 1996, and ended in September 1998. Jurgens' run was unpopular with readers due to the use of new characters that had no ties with previous incarnations of the team.
Pérez finally returned to a major ongoing title for the third series of The Avengers, written by Kurt Busiek, where he remained for nearly three years, again receiving critical and fan acclaim for his polished and dynamic art. After leaving the book, he and Busiek worked to produce the long-awaited JLA/Avengers inter-company crossover, which saw print in late 2003. This provided closure for Pérez, since a JLA/Avengers crossover was originally supposed to be published in the 1980s, but differences between DC and Marvel forced the comic to be canceled. As the artist on the story, he had drawn approximately 21 pages of the crossover, which were not published until recently.
Pérez has one creator-owned comic, the unfinished Crimson Plague. A science fiction story about an alien with ultra-toxic blood, the first (and for years, only) issue was published in the late Nineties by the now defunct Event Comics. In 2000, the original first issue was published by Image Comics (under the Gorilla imprint) with additional material and pages, with a follow up issue published soon after. Due to the extreme high costs of being a self publisher, which ended up being a financial burden (and putting himself in major debt), Pérez ended Crimson Plague a second time. It is unknown if Pérez intends to do anything else with the comic.
Also in the late Nineties, Pérez provided artwork for various titles for CrossGen. Although he provided covers, pin-ups and pencils for various titles, his main project was penciling the interiors for Solus. Although intended to be an ongoing series, it only lasted for eight issues before it was canceled due to CrossGen's bankruptcy.
In May 2006, Perez illustrated the cover art to one of the alternate covers to the Direct Market release of the annual Official Overstreet Comic Book Price Guide (36th edition) featuring Wonder Woman. He recently came off a successful opening run on DC's The Brave and the Bold (vol. 2, 2007-present) with writer Mark Waid. Perez also worked on Infinite Crisis, the follow up to Crisis on Infinite Earths, as a fill in artist. He is currently working on Final Crisis: Legion of Three Worlds, meaning he has worked on every chapter of DC's official Crisis trilogy. He is also working with Marv Wolfman on a direct-to-DVD movie adaptation of the "Judas Contract" story arc from Teen Titans. However work on this project has stalled.
He is currently co-chairman of the board of comic industry charity The Hero Initiative.
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Brandt Peters
Born in 1974 - Santa Monica, CA - Brandt Peters is an Illustrator, Character, Film and Animation designer who’s commercial work has thrust him to the attention of the fine art gallery circuit… an internationally exhibited self-taught artist whose work is formed from the eclectic backdrop of his childhood, his work is filled with ancient cartoons, Victorian toys and pre-WWII vintage ’Pop’ ephemera.
The Subject of Brandt’s paintings is a world of creepy side-show icons, deviant Animalia, and ‘masked’ glorified cartoon alter egos. Peters utilizes these icons and character cultures as antithetical counterparts to what we are lead to believe as being innocent and socially acceptable. Although misfits on the surface, a sense of relation is understood, secret from the public - we are all misfits; hiding behind animated personas, odd and beautifully unusual. Who is it that we relate to? The lonely little boy hiding in a bear suite, the evil lustful pool-hall wolf, the sexualized little girl who secretly wants more. The environment and its limited population are meant to conjure these questions; the viewers are confronted with finding their own answers.
Brandt is currently working on several designer toy projects with MINDstyle and Wheaty Wheat Studios as well as developing his own animation projects including his well known Slap-Happy! property. He lives in Tampa, FL & Albuquerque, NM with his wife, fellow internationally acclaimed artist, Kathie Olivas and their two dogs Bailey and Diego. Peter’s work can be found in numerous galleries across the US, Canada and the UK.
*Brandt Peters and Kathie Olivas not only appear as artist guests of DragonCon but also bring their collective limited edition company, Circus Posterus Inc. Circus Posterus is an artist and designer showcase that produces limited edition projects such as professional fine art printing, sculpture/toy base and traditional print based projects from stationary to books and catalogues. The Circus represents artists projects from Sas and colin Christian, Chris Ryniak, Travis Louie, Kukula, Liz McGrath and Morgan Slade and has worked with such industry greats as: Joe Ledbetter, Naoto Hattori, TADO, Chris Lee and many, many others. CP has selected DragonCon as their first debut to the public under their company name and will be bringing in Sas and Colin Christian, Travis Louie and Chris Ryniak as guests with loads of releases, exclusives and signings.
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David Petersen
David Petersen was born in 1977. His artistic career soon followed. A steady diet of cartoons, comics, and tree climbing fed his imagination and is what still inspires his work today. He is the creator of the Mouse Guard series and is excited to be working on projects he dearly loves doing. David was the 2007 Russ Manning Award recipient for Most Promising Newcomer and in 2008, won the Eisners for Best Publication for Kids (Mouse Guard Fall 1152 & Winter 1152) and Best Graphic Album – Reprint (Mouse Guard Fall 1152 Hardcover). David and his wife Julia reside in Michigan with their dog Autumn.
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Brandon Peterson
Brandon Peterson has been working professionally as a comic book illustrator for over 15 years. Although he has worked primarily as a penciller, he has also exhibited his talents in every other job associated with making a comic book.
He was VP of Special Projects and Art Director for CrossGen Comics, where he worked on titles like Mystic and Chimera. He also spent a long time working for Top Cow Productions, where he did runs on comics like Codename: Strykeforce, Cyberforce, Ripclaw, MedievalSpawn/Witchblade, and his own book, Arcanum.
Brandon is currently exclusively working for Marvel Comics, and has worked on titles that include; X-Force, Ultimate Vision, Ultimate Extinction, Strange, Ultimate X-Men, Astonishing X-Men, Magneto Rex, X-Men, Uncanny X-Men, and covers on numerous other books published at Marvel. He is currently drawing a number of covers for Marvel comics, an X-Force one shot, and preparing to work on a Wolverine/Black Widow miniseries that he will be drawing while sharing the writing chores with his friend Jimmy Palmiotti.
To commemorate "Dragon*Con Thriller 2009", Brandon Peterson has created an exclusive, limited edition print. Available in Comics and Pop Artist Alley at table #72 , the print is 11x17, signed and numbered and limited to 100 pieces. Selling for $20 each. Click here for a preview of the print.
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Michelle Poust
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Eric Powell
Although eking out a meager living in the comics field since 1995, Eric Powell didn't find true success until he launched his critically acclaimed dark comedy series The Goon. The five time Eisner Award winning series celebrates it's 10th anniversary this year, and has been optioned by David Fincher, Blur Animation, and Dark Horse Entertainment to be produced as an animated feature film.
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Jeff Preston
Jeff Preston was born in Ohio in 1958 and bred in Tennessee. A mixed breed of designer, musician (if 5-string banjo counts), educator, haunted attraction designer, and aging weightlifter, Jeff is above all an illustrator.
"You don't choose illustration, it chooses you," he often tells his illustration students at the Nossi College of Art in Nashville, Tennessee. Monsters held an inexplicable fascination to him as a child, and he drew them constantly. Where most boys in his neighborhood grew up idolizing sports figures, the names of Gogos, Frazetta, and Rockwell were the giants he looked up to. After a stint in the Navy he went back to school and studied illustration with a vengeance at the Columbus College of Art and Design in Columbus, Ohio, graduating in 1985. A freelance career started immediately after and continues to this day.
"Name it and I've probably illustrated it," he says, and with a client list as varied and diverse as his that's probably very true. What he relishes the most has been the opportunities to illustrate horror, his first love. Monsterscene and Little Shoppe of Horrors magazines have both carried his covers and interior illustrations in the past. Issue #21 of Little Shoppe of Horrors will feature Hammer's "The Curse of Frankenstein," the cover illustration he recently completed. The California-based band "The Ghastly Ones" commissioned Jeff for its CD "Unearthed" just this past year. The German-based Virus Magazine has also featured his work, along with an interview issue #19.
This year for the first time he entered the prestigious Spectrum competition and his "Caretaker of the Crypt" (which bears an uncanny resemblance to "Uncle Creepy") was chosen for inclusion in Spectrum 15. That also proved to be somewhat prophetic, as he has the honor and distinction of being the very first illustrator published as a new Creepy artist (now under Dark Horse ) in over a quarter of a century. He is also a very proud artist member of the New York Society of Illustrators.
You can find him on the web at:
www.myspace.com/oldschoolillustrator
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Brian Pulido
Pulido wrote and directed the feature film “The Graves”, starring Tony Todd (Candy Man), Bill Mosley (The Devil’s Rejects) and D. Randall Blythe (Frontman, Lamb of God).
Pulido has created and written several hundred comic books including: Lady Death, Evil Ernie, Purgatori, Chastity, Smiley, the Psychotic button, Bad kitty, Jade, Lady Demon, Bedlam, Unholy, War Angel, Mischief Night, Bad Moon Rising, Gypsy, Belladonna and The Undead as well as stories based on New Line Cinema's Nightmare on Elm St, Friday The 13th and Texas Chainsaw Massacre and Chucky.
As the President of Chaos! Comics, Pulido was the number one independent comic publisher of the 1990's, achieving over thirty million dollars in sales in eight different languages.
For Turner broadcasting and Gametap, Pulido wrote two stories for the Lara Croft: Re-imagined animated project.
On the motion picture front, Pulido created, produced and wrote the story for ADV Film's animated feature, Lady Death, its top selling title to date.
In 2006, Pulido co-wrote Gone, a horror screenplay that won grand prize at the Fade In Awards, considered one of the top screenwriting contests in the world. Gone is the first horror screenplay ever to win grand prize in Fade In's ten year history.
Pulido wrote, produced and directed the award winning short horror film, There's Something out There (www.theressomethingoutthere.com), which has played at forty film festivals and has eight wins.Pulido co-founded the International Horror and Sci Fi Film Festival (www.HorrorSciFi.com) which is a competitive three day event in Phoenix Arizona, produced in cooperation with the Phoenix Film Festival. He is also the festival Director.
In October 2006, Pulido earned two nominations for his comic book work at Spike TV's Scream awards.
Pulido was the recipient of the Comic Book Legal Defense Fund's Defender of Liberty award for his fundraising efforts.
He is on the Board of Directors of The Hero Initiative, a not-for-profit organization the raises and disperses money for comic book creators in financial need. Among his creations for THI is the Spiderman Ultimate #1 Ultimate Edition.
Pulido resides in Arizona with his wife Francisca and their dogs, Raven and Midnight.
For more info, visit: www.LadyDeathUniverse.com, www.TheGraveMovie.com & www.BrianPulido.com
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Humberto Ramos
In the early 1990s Ramos learned comic book art from Mexican comic book artist Oscar González Guerrero and his son, Oscar González Loyo. The pair later invited him to comic book conventions in the United States.
Ramos was discovered in 1993 at the San Diego Comic-Con, the comic book industry's largest annual convention, where comic legend Walt Simonson brought him to the attention of the founders of Milestone Media, where he did his first work in American comics in 1994, before being hired by DC Comics as the regular penciller for their new Flash spin-off Impulse, which launched in March 1995. Written by Mark Waid, the superhero/teen comedy series focused on young speedster Bart Allen, the grandson of the second Flash, Barry Allen, and his struggles with growing up in an alienated Alabama suburb.
In 1998, Ramos co-founded the imprint Cliffhanger with comic book artists Joe Madureira and J. Scott Campbell. They created the imprint, housed by Jim Lee's Image Comics division Wildstorm, to publish their creator-owned comic books outside the mainstream superhero genre. Both Campbell and Madureira had already built large fanbases with their previous work on Gen and Uncanny X-Men respectively, and were two of the most popular comic book artists at the time. Ramos, on the other hand, was not as popular and his inclusion on the imprint was perceived as second choice, after fan-favorite Michael Turner declined because he was still under contract at Top Cow. However, while Campbell's Danger Girl and Madureira's Battle Chasers soon ran into problems with both creators frequently missing deadlines and long delays between single issues, Ramos' Crimson—although not selling as many copies as the other two—stayed on schedule, missed hardly any shipping dates, and became the longest-running title of the imprint, even as more artists joined the imprint in the early 2000s.
Crimson wrapped, after 24 issues and two one-shots, in February 2001, and was followed by Ramos' second Cliffhanger title, the fantasy/mystery series Out There, a mere three months later. Along with the start of Out There, Ramos also began illustrating the covers of Peter Parker: Spider-Man with issue #30 and—beginning with May 2002's Peter Parker: Spider-Man #44—additionally did the interior artwork on the four-issue story arc "A Death in the Family" (later collected as Spider-Man: Return of the Goblin; ISBN 0-7851-1019-4), written by Paul Jenkins.
After his Cliffhanger contract ran out and Out There was concluded after 18 issues in early 2003, he left the imprint (apparently not on the best terms) and launched a new Spider-Man title, The Spectacular Spider-Man. The book reunited Ramos with Peter Parker: Spider-Man writer Paul Jenkins and earned him a 2005 Harvey Award nomination as Best Cover Artist. While Ramos worked on Spectacular Spider-Man, another book created by him (although illustrated by Francisco Herrera), the six-issue miniseries Kamikaze, which had originally been planned for 2001, was published by WildStorm under the Cliffhanger imprint.
In 2005, Ramos' creator-owned six-issue miniseries Revelations began publication at Dark Horse Comics. The series, once again written by Jenkins, was originally supposed to be published by Cliffhanger in 2001, but delayed for unknown reasons.
Following Revelations, Ramos returned to Marvel Comics, joining writer Marc Guggenheim as the new creative team on Wolverine, beginning with issue #42 in March 2006. The same month also saw the release of the first volume of the space opera K, a series of three 46-page comic albums Ramos is illustrating for French comic publisher Soleil Productions, written by the popular French comic book creator Crisse.
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Rodney Ramos
Rodney Ramos has been as a professional penciler/inker in the comics industry for over 15 years. He has worked for such companies as Marvel Comics, Marvel U.K, DC Comics, Valiant, Acclaim comics, Malibu, and Continuity Comics with Neal Adams. His inks have graced many titles over the years including, Spider-man, X-men, Ironman, Peter Parker, Toxin, Batman , Wonder Woman, Green Lantern, JSA, and the critically acclaimed series Transmetropolitan with Warren Ellis and Darick Robertson. Currently he has worked on at DC Comics on 52, Countdown, Final Crisis ,Hellblazer and the new mini series Bang Tango!
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David Reddick
David Reddick is an award-winning cartoonist and illustrator, whose work has appeared in newspapers, magazines, books, in galleries, and on products and websites worldwide.
David spent 6 years as the state and national award-winning staff cartoonist and newsroom artist for The Herald Bulletin daily newspaper in Indiana, before joining the staff of Paws, Inc., where he writes and draws cartoons at the Garfield studio, working on the Garfield comic strip, licensing, merchandise, publishing and web.
One of David's newest projects is his new twice-weekly webcomic "Legend of Bill." David also creates two weekly webcomics for the official Roddenberry Web site, Roddenberry.com called "Gene's Journal and "Rod & Barry."
David is also the creator of the webcomic "The Trek Life" which appeared 3 times a week on the official Star Trek Website, STARTREK.COM, and also appears as a regular feature in the officially-licensed "Star Trek Magazine," published by Titan Publishing and distributed worldwide. The Trek Life has also appeared as a regular backup comic book page feature in IDW Publishing's officially licensed Star Trek comic books, and "The Trek Life" is included in the new "Star Trek Manga: Volume 2," published by Tokyopop. There is also a full line of "The Trek Life" merchandise at the STARTREK.COM Shop at www.startrek.com/cafepress, and The Trek Life also has its own section on CBSMobile.com, where mobile wallpapers are now available too.
David is often invited to Star Trek and Sci-Fi conventions around the country, such as his recent visits to Dragon*Con, MountainCon, Starbase Indy, Vulkon Entertainment's wonderful conventions nationwide and Creation Entertainment's official Star Trek conventions in Las Vegas in 2006, 2007 and 2008 to name a few.
David's cartoons also appear in newspapers nationwide, and have appeared in King Features Syndicate's "The New Breed," Nickelodeon magazine and The New York Times Upfront magazine to name a few.
David's cartoons have been syndicated nationally by the Scripps Howard News Service, CNHI News Service, American Publishing's National News Syndicate and worldwide by Artizans Syndicate.
David's first cartoon book of single-panel cartoons, titled "Reddick's Rhetoric: A Cartoon Collection by David Reddick" was published in 2002, featuring a Foreword by Garfield creator Jim Davis. His work has also appeared in various other books, such as the "Best Editorial Cartoons of the Year" books since 1999, "Indiana's Laughmakers," "The Truth About Caroline" and "Attack of the Political Cartoonists" to name a few.
David is also a fine artist, and has painted wall murals in Florida and Japan, and has held several one-man shows and group exhibitions of his paintings and original cartoons in galleries worldwide, including galleries in Indiana, Florida, Michigan, England and France. One of his original paintings and three original cartoons are included in the permanent collection of the Muskegon Museum of Art.
David's official Website: www.davidreddickstudio.com
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Barry Reese
Barry Reese broke into the professional ranks in 2003 when he worked on volume five of the Marvel Encyclopedia series, handling the chapters devoted to the Blade and Ghost Rider characters. Following this, Reese worked on both The Fires of Amatsumara, a roleplaying game supplement for West End Games' D6 Space line and the ongoing Official Handbook of the Marvel Universe series for Marvel Comics. Amongst the issues of the Handbook that Reese worked on were Marvel Legacy: 1960s, Marvel Legacy: 1970s, Spider-Man 2006, Teams 2006, A-Z volumes 1-7 and Horror 2006. Reese also contributed to the New Avengers: Most Wanted and Marvel Monsters: From the Files of Ulysses Bloodstone books. Reese next contributed to USER's Most Wanted, a villains supplement for the Godsend Agenda roleplaying game published by Khepera Publishing.
Barry's first novel, Conquerors of Shadow: The Adventures of Eobard Grace, was published in 2005, featuring a setting and character inspired by the works of Edgar Rice Burroughs. This work was followed by Lucifer's Cage and a sequel entitled Kingdom of Blood, two novellas that featured the adventures of a 1930s era masked vigilante dubbed the Rook. These two works were later collected in The Rook Volume One, published by Wild Cat Books. A second collection of Rook stories, featuring a cover by comics legend Frank Brunner, was published in 2008 and two more collections have been confirmed by the publisher. Artists Anthony Castrillo and Norm Breyfogle will be providing covers for volumes three and four.
Barry has also written The Devil's Domain, a collection of short stories featuring the classic pulp character Ki-Gor and contributed to Startling Stories, Legends of the Golden Age and the soon-to-be-released Norse Gods anthology and Super-Heroic Tales, Volume Two.
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Rivet Gallery
Rivet is designer toy and art gallery located in the Short North arts district of Columbus, Ohio. We carry a variety of limited edition collectible designer vinyl toys, DIY art toys, and plush, in addition to presenting excellent works of original art and prints by pop-surreal, lowbrow, and underground artists. A new art show opens on the first Saturday of each month in conjuction with the Short North's monthly Gallery Hop event.
Some of the designer brands we carry include: Tokidoki, Gloomy Bear, Kid Robot, UNKL, Creatures in My Head, KaChing, Play Imaginative, Shawnimals, Uglydolls, Rolitoland, Mindstyle, Qee, AdFunture, Necessaries Toy Foundation, Gargamel, Secret Base, Super7, etc. If you're local to the central Ohio region, please visit us during our hours below.
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Don Rosa
Don Rosa is a freelance writer and illustrator of stories about Scrooge McDuck, Donald Duck, and other Disney characters. He is considered by many to be the most popular Disney duck-artist who is still working, and the greatest Disney comics artist since Carl Barks. Rosa's most famous work is The Life and Times of $crooge McDuck, a 12-part series that tells Uncle Scrooge's life story from ten-year-old boy to the Christmas Day in 1947 when he first met Huey, Dewey, and Louie.
Don's work has gained him recognition in the industry, including nominations for the Comics Buyer's Guide Award for Favorite Writer in 1997, 1998, and 1999.Rosa has won two Eisner Awards: one in 1995 for Best Serialized Story, and one in 1997 for Best Writer/Artist of Humor. Other non-Disney work includes Pertwillaby Papers and Captain Kentucky. Currently, Don lives inLouisville, Kentucky, with his wife, three basset dogs, and Gyro-cockatoo.
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Andy Runton
Andy Runton is the creator of the breakout all-ages series of graphic novels, Owly, which features a kind little vegetarian owl who's always searching for new friends and adventure. Relying on a mixture of symbols, icons, and expressions to tell his silent stories, Runton's work showcases both his gift for characterization and his love of wildlife and the outdoors. His animated and heartwarming style has made him a favorite of both fans and critics alike. The Owly series has earned him multiple awards including the Howard E. Day Memorial Prize, the Harvey Award, two Ignatz Awards, and the 2006 Eisner Award for "Best Publication for a Younger Audience". He currently resides in the greater-Atlanta area, where he's working full-time on the next Owly graphic novel.
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Chris Ryniak
Chris Ryniak was born as a baby in 1976 in the suburbs of Detroit. He spent his childhood basking in the warm glow of Saturday morning cartoons and flipping over rocks in search of insects, reptiles and ghosts.
Years later...
A graduate and former instructor of the Ringling School of Art and Design, He is now a painter and sculptor of all manner of critters. Chris' work has been exhibited in galleries throughout the US including Miami, LA, New York City as well as Hamburg, Germany and Rome, Italy.
His paintings have also been published in numerous books and periodicals in the States as well as in Europe, the United Kingdom and Singapore.
Chris now resides in a coastal Ohio Dutch Colonial with his wife, two children, lizard, cat and taxidermy menagerie.
Sadly, no ghosts as of yet.
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Steve Scott
One of the current artists on Marvel's popular "X-Men Forever," you no doubt have seen the work of artist, Steve Scott if you are a fan of the hit TV show, Smallville as well! Not to mention a plethora of other projects... that have been garnering him a great deal of attention from editors and comic readers alike!!
Steve began his sequential art career at Malibu comics, with his fan-favored and memorable stint on "Razor" for London Night, followed up by work on "New Warriors," "Hourman," and "JLA" for Marvel and DC Comics.
With a resume like that, one wouldn't guess that up until recently, Steve led a duel life--firefighter by day and artist by night-- for more than sixteen years, in fact! Sadly, one horribl e event brought those two identities together. On September 11, 2001, Steve watched, with the rest of the nation as the Twin Towers fell. Soon afterwards, DC Comics published "The Worlds Finest Comic Book Writers & Artists Tell Stories to Remember." Steve was selected among the few to contribute to this historical collection, which was later exhibited, and is now archived, at the Library of Congress.
Another national tragedy brought Steve back fully into the comic book fold. As one of the firefighters on duty in Buloxi, MS when Hurricane Katrina hit, Steve was one of the few to be interviewed by President Bush on his tour through the area. Soon, af terwards, for a myriad of reasons, Steve decided it was time to fulfill his dream of being a comic book artist full time.
Scott relocated to the renowned community of artist in Atlanta Georgia, and received all the encouragement he needed to pick up the pencil full time from his contemporaries in the area. Immediately, Steve's work began to appear in the pages of DC Comics "Shadowpact," "The Creeper," "Batman Legends of the Dark Knight," and "Checkmate." He got a particularly special kick out of bringing to life some of DC Comics strangest characters like Detective Chimp, Rex the Wonder Dog, Rag Man, The Phantom Stranger, and many others.
Recent and current projects at Marvel Comics, and DC Comics included working with industry legends Louise Simonson and Chris Claremont on the titles "Magik" and "Exiles," multiple issues of the Marvel Adventures line, "She-Hulk," "Indiana Jones" for Dark Horse and a "Kyle XY" project for Disney/ABC with writer Jeff Parker. In addition, Steve has the distinction of being the only artist to do comic tie-ins for the "Batman: The Dark Knight " movie. And now he's very happy to be focusing on "X-Men Forever," also written by Claremont!
For more information on Steve Scott and his work, commissions and appearances, contact:evaink@aol.com
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Tony Shasteen
Tony Shasteen is currently illustrating Image Comic' Occult Crimes Taskforce (the O.C.T.), co-created by David Atchison and Rosario Dawson. Tony has been an illustrator since 1995. His work has been seen in publications such as Playboy, Communication Arts and Spectrum, and The Best in Contemporary Fantastic Art.
Most recently, his clients have included Coca-Cola, BellSouth, IBM, Siemens, NASCAR, Hasbro, Shadowrun, Business Week, Ten Speed Publishing, Picador Publishing, Realms of Fantasy, Boom Studios, Markosia Comics, Virgin, and Image Comics. He lives outside Atlanta, Georgia with his wife and two sons.
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Sean Shaw
An artist highly regarded for his draftsmanship, and sense of design, Shaw is a detail-oriented linesmith who combines the expressive, Mucha-influenced approach to illustration with precision-detailed realism.
Shaw entered the funnybook field in the mid-90s on titles such as Captain Satan and his creator-owned title, Wicked at small press publisher Millennium, as well as stories in Penthouse Comix and Penthouse Max.
His work quickly came to the notice of Wildstorm where he did a pair of Gen 13 Bootleg issues and a Vampirella/ Wetworks one shot.
At Avatar, Shaw has done a number of covers, and interior stories including Avengelyne, Shi, The Cavewoman Color Special, Razor and Jungle Fantasy.
Shaw has recently done covers for Zenescope's Grimm Fairy Tales, Return to Wonderland, and Sinbad.
He is currently working on new covers for Warren Ellis's Anna Mercury from Avatar Press.
(Main Credits) Grimm Fairy Tales, Return to Wonderland, Shi, Gen13, Vampirella.
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Shay Shepard (Studio Revolver)
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Cat Staggs
Illustrating over 130 cards for the Star Wars: Revenge of the Sith card set for TOPPS, Cat joined the Star Wars / LUCASFILM family in 2004. The highly collectible artist’s sketch cards brought Staggs into the forefront of Star Wars fandom. Having produced exclusive prints for Star Wars Celebrations III, IV, and Europe, Cat has also contributed drawing tutorials and Halloween masks articles for the kid's section, as well as illustrating short fiction for starwars.com. Not content to only play in that galaxy far, far away, Cat's work has also been featured on The Lord of the Rings Evolution and Masterpieces card sets and three sets featuring Indiana Jones for TOPPS.
Moreover, further cementing her reputation among collectors and fellow artists, Cat’s distinctive work can also be seen on Rittenhouse Archives’ Complete Marvel Avengers, X-Men Archives and DC Legacy card sets, as well as The World’s Finest VS trading card game for Upperdeck.
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Ken Steacy
KEN STEACY is a Canadian Air Force brat who decided at age eleven to become a professional comic book artist. He pursued this intent until the magic moment occurred in 1974 with the publication in ORB magazine of Super Student, a two page strip that he wrote, pencilled, inked, and lettered. This holistic approach has been a hallmark of his work ever since, true to his belief that specialization is for insects, not artists. He also believes that the arbitrary distinctions between Art and Illustration should go away forever. His favorite colour is currently sanguine.
He studied film and video as analogies to the sequential narrative, later known as graphic novels, at the Ontario College of Art & Design, but drove all of his profs crazy by turning in comic strips instead of film or video. They finally figured out what he was up to and awarded him a pile of scholarships, including the Lieutenant Governor's Medal.
Since then Ken has written and illustrated the exploits of practically every popular character you could name, including Astro Boy, Harry Potter, Batman, Superman, Spider-man and the X-Men. His four major works in print are The Sacred & the Profane (co-authored by Dean Motter), Night and the Enemy (stories by Harlan Ellison), Megapowers (written by physicist Jack Weyland) and Tempus Fugitive (which he did all by himself). Other graphic novels featuring his own IP are currently in progress.
Ken spent two very intense years at Sanctuary Woods Multimedia creating, producing, directing and illustrating The Awesome Adventures of Victor Vector & Yondo, an interactive edutainment CD-ROM series for kids. He later produced a three issue comic book mini-series chronicling the further adventures of VV&Y in print. He has worked for many years with LUCASFILM, producing stories and computer-rendered illustrations for Star Wars books and prints, and has collaborated on numerous occasions with author Douglas Coupland.
Chronicle Books has published Brightwork, a celebration of classic American car ornamentation which Ken wrote, designed and art directed. He also produced all of the display artwork for the Space Place gallery at Edmonton's TELUS World of Science, designed the sets and promotional material for a production of West Side Story, and painted stacks of World of Warcraft, Marvel Masterpieces, and Indiana Jones gaming cards. Ken produced storyboards and design elements for the Rainmaker Entertainment digitally animated feature film Escape From Planet Earth, and rebranded a number of local enterprises, including Baggins, the world's largest Converse shoe store.
A series of his paintings depicting the peacetime activities of navigators in the Canadian Armed Forces is part of the permanent collection of the National War Museum in Ottawa, two of which are included in a touring exhibition which opened at the McMichael Collection. The Winchester Gallery in Victoria is hosting a major retrospective of Ken's work during the month of March, 2009.
Tom McBomb Productions Inc. was created as a vehicle for production of digital video, on-demand books & periodicals, and other cool stuff. Together with his wife Joan, who is also an author/illustrator, they run Ken Steacy Publishing which can be viewed online at www.kenspublishing.com
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Brian Stelfreeze (Gaigin Studios)
Brian Stelfreeze has the distinction of painting over fifty consecutive BATMAN: SHADOW OF THE BAT covers. His other covers for DC, Marvel, and various other publishers are beyond the ability for most people to count. He has, over the last few years, turned his attention to interiors, turning out books like MATADOR (with Devin Grayson), GUN CANDY, THE RIDE: DIE VALKYRIE!, and DOMINO. His work has been seen in numerous X-Men and Batman books, as well as the MIDNIGHTER for Wildstorm and ANGELUS for Top Cow. Soon, he'll be out there again with the "Demon /Catwoman" feature in WEDNESDAY COMICS, as well as JONAH HEX. Hey, don't hate the playa, hate the game.
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Dirk Strangely
Dirk Strangely is a naturally gifted artist whose beautiful, yet macabre work is like being sucked into a black hole that takes you away to a different dimension. His ability to see the beauty in the macabre and make order of a swirling chaos of texture and figure design shows that Dirk is inspired by a muse that sets his work apart from anything seen in today’s Pop Culture Art. His strengths lie in the way he can take both the beautiful and disturbing and thereby create a surreal beauty from it.
Dirk is a favorite guest at many gallery showings and pop culture media events. His gothic style attracts an unusual amount of attention from the attendees and critics alike. As one art reviewer put it, "To find Dirk Strangely… Just look for the crowd "Ooing and Ahhing" like they’re at some bizarre combination fireworks and sideshow."
Dirk is not just a visual artist but is a well lauded and respected writer who has been published in several magazines and is currently involved with several projects in development by several film and television companies. This has given him the chance to combine his talents that include digital art, painting, sculpture and a love of puppetry.
He is a seasoned world traveler and has taken much from the cultures and people he’s encountered. He truly understands the global village we live in. But it’s Dirk Strangely’s core philosophy of life and the world around him that gives unique insight into the man and his art.
To quote Dirk… "My Goal is to show that we are all creatures of dark and light. To deny oneself of either is a lesson in self- destruction."
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Kevin Stokes (Studio Revolver)
Kevin Stokes is the artist of Image Comics' Shut Up and Die and the upcoming Desperado series, Extinction. He is also the illustrator for Green Ronin Press's Mutants and Masterminds, among others, and the artist for TV's Smallville.
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Karl Story (Gaijin Studios)
Karl Story inks, and inks, and inks, and that makes him one of the most sought-after inkers in comics. He's carved a vast body of work on NIGHTWING, BATMAN, STAR TREK, ALIENS VS. PREDATOR, X-MEN, TOM STRONG... the list goes and on and on. Over the last few years, he's put his ink-stained hands on TERRA OBSCURA, OCEAN, THE AMERICAN WAY, and EX MACHINA , NUMBER OF THE BEAST and DC's DECISIONS. And check out his latest stuff on TOM STRONG, ULTIMATE X-MEN, and UNCANNY X-MEN. Put 'em on the glass, Karl!
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Tom Taggart
Tom Taggart is a mixed media artist, including sculptor/illustrator/designer. He has worked for DC Comics, Marvel, Dark Horse and Lucasfilm Arts. As well as doing many 3-D illustrations for book covers, Taggart has also done movie sets, props and costumes.
Currently Tom is working on a number of personal book projects and art prints.
Please visit www.tomtaggart.com>
for more information.
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Sean Taylor
Sean Taylor is a full-time writer of prose, graphic novels and comic books.
He's the writer of Gene Simmons Dominatrix by Simmons Comics Group published by IDW Publishing and has also written for Gene Simmons House of Horrors, also published by IDW. He's also currently writing the upcoming fantasy graphic novel Shan: Be My Hero for VLE Comics, the upcoming miniseries Last Chance School for Girls and Jesse James in the Mayan Underworld for Arcana Comics, and the ongoing title The Veil for Rogue Wolf Entertainment.
He's the former managing editor of Campfire (formerly Elfin) graphic novels, where he oversaw the publication of graphic novels based on classic literature, world literature and historical biographies, as well as original works. For Elfin, he has written the upcoming graphic novel adaptation of H.G. Wells' The Invisible Man and contributed to an upcoming Halloween-themed collection of stories, and he's currently writing an original sequel to The Invisible Man and The Time Machine.
In addition to all that, he's also been a staff writer, managing editor and editorial vice president for iHero Entertainment's Writer's Digest Grand Prize Zine Award-winning Cyber Age Adventures magazine ("The very first zine award, as a matter of fact," he adds with great pride). He served as book editor and writer for the two iHero trade paperback collections A Private Little Corner of the Universe and Playing Solitaire.
He's also the former editor-in-chief of Shooting Star Comics, where he edited the critically acclaimed Children of the Grave comics series and edited and contributed to the fan favorite Shooting Star Comics Anthology, and was creator and author of the Fishnet Angel: Jane Doe comic book miniseries.
As if he weren't already overworked and exhausted, he's also written and edited for the role-playing game industry as well, having contributed to the DCU Role Playing Game published by West End Games (Gotham City Sourcebook, Titans Sourcebook, and Green Lantern Sourcebook) and having edited the Cyber Age Adventures Role Playing Game.
He's the former editor for the Baptist Men Edition of On Mission magazine and the former associate editor of On Mission magazine, and during his tenure on the magazine's staff, it won an EPA Higher Goals award (a religious publishing version of a Folio, basically). He has won several awards for his periodical work, and has contributed articles and book and music reviews to such national periodical publications as Inside the Lines, Home Life, Church Administration, CCM, CBA Marketplace (formerly Bookstore Journal), and others.
He currently lives in the Atlanta area with his extraordinarily beautiful wife (who puts up with his posing with booth babes and only rolls her eyes at him) and his kids and dogs and cats.
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Wayne Vansant
For more than 20 years, beginning with Marvel's The "Nam, Wayne Vansant has written and/or illustrated score of comics and books on historical and military subjects. Covering conflicts ranging from the American Civil War, to World War II, Korea, Vietnam, and even a story dealing with the Bay of Pigs, Vansant has researched and produced stories that are both texturally and visually accurate. He has written and illustrated historical fiction, straight historical non-fiction, and adapted works such as Stephen Crane's The Red Badge of Courage.
Vansant was born in Atlanta, Georgia, in 1949. He served in the US Navy during the Vietnam War, and graduated from the Atlanta College of Art in 1975. His first professional work appeared in Marvel's Savage Tales in 1987. He recently completed illustration a history of the Vietnam War, written by Jon Dwight Zimmerman. He is currently working on a project that is very close to his heart, a three part graphic novel series called Katusha: Girl Soldier of the Great Patriotic War.
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Denise Vasquez
Denise Vasquez is a professional Artist whose talents run the gamut from Illustration, Singing, playing guitar and acting to dancing, and writing (music, short plays, poetry). Denise was influenced by art at a very early age by her mother who was an artist. They didn't have much, but music, art and the theater have always been a part of her life. Denise began singing from the time she could talk, dancing from the time she could walk, drawing from the moment she could hold a pencil, and writing from the time she could form a sentence! Her first experience on stage was with "Mrs Dorothy's Dance Troupe" at Lincoln Center in New York City. In Junior High School, Denise performed at Avery Fisher Hall as a violinist with selected students from her class. High School is where Denise was introduced to drawing classes, and performing as an actress, which led to Denise enrolling at "The Lee Strasberg Theater Institute" and at "The Puerto Rican Traveling Theater Training Unit". Denise has performed in many Theatrical Productions in New York City, Improv Shows, Educational Films, Industrials, TV (Law & Order, SNL, MTV...), Feature Films (Carlitos Way, Jungle Fever...), as well as dancing in music videos (Kenny Chesney's "How Forever Feels). Denise left home at the age of 17 and has been traveling the world since! She's lived in Scotland, London, US Virgin Islands and now California! The Virgin Islands is where Denise began making her living as as illustrator. A woman stopped her on the street the day after she had arrived to inquire about the shirt she was wearing. Denise told the woman she painted the shirt which led to employment at "World View Graphics" where Denise would spend her days hand painting on clothing. Denise fell in love with drawing & painting on everything from clothing, glass bottles, mirrors, walls & windows...which led to many commissions with local business and private clients. On the side, Denise was also taking Playwriting classes & wrote her first short "Sisterhood" which was performed at The "St John School Of The Arts" receiving rave reviews from the press. While living in the Virgin Islands, Denise was inspired to combine all of her talents to help bring the community together, share information, showcase talent & help donate proceeds to a cause...this led her to create WO+MEN 4 A CAUSE & was the beginning of her music career as a singer/songwriter. Having grown up between New York City and the Virgin Islands, Denise proudly incorporates all of her experiences as an actress, dancer, singer, writer, painter, poet in her life as well as her art. Denise says "I am an artist who creates because it is a part of my being, my heart & my soul." Denise Vasquez has self-produced 3 albums, and is currently working on her 4th album which will feature her music & art! Denise is Nominated for 5 Mavric Awards 2008, is a five time winner of the ASCAP PLUS performing songwriters Award, has been listed on Music Connection Magazines Hot 100 Unsigned Artist list for 6 consecutive years, recently completed 50 Sketch Cards for Topps Star Wars Galaxy RED set Exclusive for Target, and 116 sketch cards for Topps "Indiana Jones Masterpieces". Denise has designed & illustrated music posters, cd covers, logos, flyers, brochures and has sold many of her original artwork on canvas, glass and clothing. Clients include: Lucas Film, Topps, Target, WO+MEN 4 A CAUSE, Acoustic Cordiale, Awl Made Here, Rhiannons, Book It VI, Chateau Bordeaux, The Card Smith and more! For lots more information about Denise Vasquez, please visit her official website www.denisvasquez.com
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Dexter Vines (Studio Revolver)
Atlanta native and 13-year comics vet Dexter has inked them all and at most companies in the biz. Dex is part of that other Atlanta Studio, Studio Revolver, so stop by the booth and say hi. Current projects include Wolverine "Old Man Logan,"and The Hulk for Marvel Comics.
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Doug Wagner (Gaijin Studios)
Doug Wagner got his start writing ULTRAFORCE for Malibu Comics. After he drove that company out of business, he went into hiding for awhile; now he's back, writing books like THE RIDE, with artists Cully Hamner, Brian Stelfreeze, Jason Pearson, Georges Jeanty, Karl Story, and Dexter Vines; GUN CANDY and THE RIDE: DIE VALKYRIE!, both with artist Brian Stelfreeze; as well as HAMMER SOUND for Zuda Comics. He shocks the noggin'!
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Loston Wallace
I’ve been a professional artist since 1996, providing artwork for the role-playing industry as well as the DC Comics Licensing Department. I’ve had the good fortune to contribute illustrations for over 65 different role-playing books for such games as DEADLANDS: THE WEIRD WEST, STAR WARS, INDIANA JONES, BATTLETECH, SHADOW RUN, and GURPS.
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HC Warner
Born in Chicago and headed south, Henry Christopher Warner is creating the dominant portion of his painting career in Atlanta, Georgia. He obtained a BFA in graphic design while attending the University of Georgia. While studying graphics, film, and fine art he stumbled across his unique process of composing in 1988.
Warner’s vision is based upon the "Innocence" of youth producing imagery that connects with children as well as adults. Child-like imagery and memories reflecting the humorous and sometimes disturbing nature of life play an important role in his creative process. The use of the frequently rendered bee is a metaphor of “fear and love”. He feels these two emotions are the most commonly felt symptoms of human life and appears to be a signature touch of many of his paintings.
In addition to his formal training in art, he has gained significant knowledge and experience from the relationships he has developed with working artists. While living in the Castleberry Hill district, Warner produced nearly twenty group shows from 1993 to 1997. 1998 to 2000 he currated a monthly series of solo artist exhibitions entitled “ArtChanges” highlighting diversity and local talent. Presently, his work can be seen displayed at “Alcove”, his south Buckhead gallery/studio, as well as restaurants,nightclubs, and design houses throughout Atlanta. Alcove produces a monthly show which brings a nationwide array of artists of diversified mediums to show in Atlanta.
H.C. Warner currently works with acrylics and mixed media, as well as digital design. His future goals include short films, a children’s book “Float”, “thoughtforms” apparel, an interactive dvd, and many future exhibitions
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Eric Wight
Eric Wight is the author and illustrator of Frankie Pickle, a new chapter book series published by Simon & Schuster. Prior to that, he was an animator for almost ten years for such companies as Walt Disney, Warner Brothers, and Cartoon Network.
Wight's comic book adaptation of The Amazing Adventures of Kavalier and Clay garnered both the Harvey and the Eisner Awards for Best Anthology, as well as the Russ Manning Award for Most Promising Newcomer, and his debut graphic novel My Dead Girlfriend was listed among the 2008 Great Graphic Novels for Teens by YALSA. His artwork has also been prominently featured on such television series as The OC and Six Feet Under.
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Renee Witterstaetter
Writer, editor and publisher Renee Witterstaetter began the comic phase of her career working on such titles as Superman at DC Comics and Silver Surfer, Conan The Barbarian and Conan Saga at Marvel, then going on to spearhead the reintroduction of She-Hulk at Marvel as well. She then moved over to Topps Comics where she was the editor on X-Files, Jurassic Park, Xena and Hercules and is the co-creator—with Jackie Chan and artist Michael Golden-- of the successful series, Spartan X.
During this time, Renee was also the colorist on hundreds of comics from the Avengers to Spiderman toCaptain America among many, many more. Film work was a natural progression for Renee after this storytelling immersion in comics, and she has since worked on dozens of music videos for Madonna, Seal, Ben Harper and Usher, as well as the feature movies Rush Hour Two, Red Dragon , To ease the lose, and Swimming With The Virgin, among others.
She is the author of numerous books, boxing articles and feature articles including "Dying for Action: The Life and Films of Jackie Chan" from Warner Books, "The Fantastic Art..." from Vanguard Productions and "The Art of the Barbarian" from Image, as well as the new deluxe art book "Excess: The Art of Michael Golden" from Vanguard Productions, which sold out and went into a second printing. She is currently working on a new book about artist Mark Texeira entitled "Tex: The Art of Mark Texeira--The Artist's Great Escape," as well as the Michael Golden sketchbook, "Heroes and Villains."
In addition to on-going film work, she is the President of Little Eva Ink Publishing and Eva Ink Artist Group. Renee is currently working in artist management, on more publishing ventures, and is one of the producers of the "Creator Chronicles" DVD series with Woodcrest Productions, featuring interviews with major industry creators such as George Perez, Bill Sienkiewicz, Michael Golden, Joe Jusko, Matt Wagner and many more. In her not so abundant free time, she fishes, dances, travels and is also curating several major art exhibits in Manhattan featuring U.S. and European talent, as well as working on the new Michael Golden sketchbook, "Dangerous Curves."
For more information on Renee Witterstaetter and her projects, see her website: www.evainkpublishing.com
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Derek Yaniger
What’s buzzin’ cousin? Lemme clue ya’ to what Derek’s been up to these most recent dims n’brights. He’s makin’ art like …no-tomorrow-style. This cat’s got a way long history of scratchin’ out art for lots of king-sized bigwigs like Marvel Comics and Cartoon Network. But nowadays he strictly digs the gigs that let him beat his own bongos.
He gets a large charge creatin’ art for a whole heap of way-out events such as the Tiki Oasis, The Rock n’ Roll Monster Bash, The Hukilau, and even Spain’s Wild Weekend! He’s also laid out art for several righteous rags like Barracuda, 1313, Atomic, and Tiki Magazine.
But what really flips his switches like… too much, is makin’ with the Van Gogh routine. Derek’s had his paint splatters well-hung in galleries all over the world. M Modern in Palm Springs, Outre` in Australia and Castor and Pollux in the U.K. to namedrop just a fewsville.
Derek has also been commissioned to create art for such hi-falootin’ fat cats as Shag and Pixar director Lee Unkrich! Crazy, man!
Korero Books in London released a collection of Derek’s retro art entitled “Wildsville, the art of Derek Yaniger” and shortly thereafter “Tiki Mugs”, which features a heapin’ helpin’ of Derek’s mid-century tiki art as well as several tiki mugs he’s designed for Tiki Farm and Munktiki.
If ya’ wanna’ eyeball his work make with the beeline bit and buzz on over to www.derekart.com and peep it up! Like… Derek would rather juggle chainsaws than be a nine to five pencil-pusher so you know these days he’s diggin’ a one-way ticket to Flipsville! See ya soon, baboon!
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Zerofriends Gallery
Zerofriends is a collective of storytellers, only they tell stories that you can wear.
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