Dean Motter is an illustrator, designer and writer who worked for many years in Toronto, Canada, New York City, and Atlanta. Motter is best known as the creator and designer of Mister X, one of the most influential "new-wave" comics of the 1980s. Dean then took up the Creative Services Art Director's post at Time Warner/DC Comics, where he oversaw the corporate and licensing designs of America’s most beloved comic book characters such as Superman, Batman and Wonder Woman. In his off-hours he went on to create and design the highly acclaimed, retro-futuristic comic book series, Terminal City—and its sequels, Aerial Graffiti. and Electropolis.

Kelly Sue DeConnick’s work spans stage, comics, film and television. Ms. DeConnick first came to prominence as a comics writer, where she is best known for reinventing the Carol Danvers as “Captain Marvel” at Marvel and for the Black Label standard-setting Wonder Woman Historia: The Amazons at DC. Her independent comics Bitch Planet and Pretty Deadly (both from Image Comics) have ranked as New York Times best-sellers and been honored with Eisner Awards, British Fantasy Awards and Hugo nominations. Ms. DeConnick’s screen work includes stints on Captain Marvel, a film that earned $1B for Disney worldwide, and 2023’s forthcoming The Marvels with Marvel Studios; in addition to having consulted on features for Skydance and ARRAY, and developed television for NBCUniversal, Legendary Entertainment and HBOMax. Her most recent stage work is the mythic spectacle AWAKENING, which opened at the Wynn Resort Las Vegas in November 2022. Mission-driven, Ms. DeConnick is also a founding partner at Good Trouble Productions, where she has helped to produce non-fiction and educational comics including the “Hidden Voices” and “Recognized” series for NY Public Schools and Congressman John Lewis’ Run, in partnership with Abrams Comics. In 2015, Ms. DeConnick founded the #VisibleWomen Project, whose mission is to help women and other marginalized genders find paid work in comics and its related industries. The project continues to this day and recently expanded in partnership with Dani Hedlund of Brink Literacy. Ms. DeConnick lives in Portland, OR with her husband, writer Matt Fraction, and their two children.

Mike Mignola was born September 16, 1960 in Berkeley, California and grew up in nearby Oakland. His fascination with ghosts and monsters began at an early age (he doesn't remember why) and reading Dracula at age 13 introduced him to Victorian literature and folklore from which he has never recovered. In 1982, hoping to find a way to draw monsters for a living, he moved to New York City and began working for Marvel Comics, first as a (very terrible) inker and then as an artist on comics like Rocket Raccoon, Alpha Flight and The Hulk. By the late 80s he had begun to develop his signature style (thin lines, clunky shapes and lots of black) and moved onto higher profile commercial projects like Cosmic Odyssey (1988) and Gotham by Gaslight (1989) for DC Comics, and the not-so-commercial Fafhrd and the Grey Mouser (1990) for Marvel. In 1992, he drew the comic book adaptation of the film Bram Stoker's Dracula for Topps Comics. In 1993, Mike moved to Dark Horse comics and created Hellboy, a half-demon occult detective who may or may not be the Beast of the Apocalypse. While the first story line (Seed of Destruction, 1994) was co-written by John Byrne, Mike has continued writing the series himself. There are, at this moment, 13 Hellboy graphic novel collections (with more on the way), several spin-off titles (B.P.R.D., Lobster Johnson, Abe Sapien and Witchfinder), three anthologies of prose stories, several novels, two animated films and two live-action films staring Ron Perlman. Hellboy has earned numerous comic industry awards and is published in a great many countries. Mike also created the award-winning comic book The Amazing Screw-on Head and has co-written two novels (Baltimore, or, the Steadfast Tin Soldier and the Vampire and Joe Golem and the Drowning City) with best-selling author Christopher Golden. Mike worked (very briefly) with Francis Ford Coppola on his film Bram Stoker's Dracula (1992), was a production designer on the Disney film Atlantis: The Lost Empire (2001) and was visual consultant to director Guillermo del Toro on Blade II (2002), Hellboy (2004) and Hellboy II: The Golden Army (2008). He lives somewhere in Southern California with his wife, daughter, a lot of books and a cat.

Michael Avon Oeming is an American comic book creator, both as an artist and writer. His 1998 comic book Bulletproof Monk was made into a film of the same name. The previous mentioned collaborations are The Mice Templar from Image Comics, which he draws and co-authors with Bryan J.L. Glass,[1] and Powers from Icon Comics which he draws, and sometimes co-authors, with Brian Bendis. His creator-owned projects include Rapture, on which he collaborated with his wife, Taki Soma,[2] and The Victories, both for Dark Horse Comics. As of 2010, he is employed as a staff member of Valve Corporation, working on Left 4 Dead, Team Fortress 2 and Portal 2 webcomics.

Geoffrey Thorne is an American novelist and screenwriter. Thorne was born in the United States and currently lives in Los Angeles, California. After winning Second Prize in Simon & Schuster's sixth annual Strange New Worlds anthology with his story "The Soft Room," he went on to publish more stories in several media tie-in anthologies as well as the Star Trek: Titan novel Sword of Damocles. As a screenwriter, Thorne has worked with Disney, Cartoon Network, STARZ, developing various properties. His TV work includes BEN 10: ULTIMATE ALIEN & OMNIVERSE, LAW & ORDER: CRIMINAL INTENT and the hit TNT series', LEVERAGE and THE LIBRARIANS. Thorne is the co-founder and writing partner in GENRE 19, a studio he formed with artist Todd Harris in 2008.

Fred Van Lente is the New York Times-bestselling author of comics as varied as Archer & Armstrong (Harvey Award nominee, Best Series), Taskmaster, MODOK's 11, Amazing Spider-Man, Conan the Avenger, Weird Detective, and Cowboys & Aliens (upon which the 2011 movie was based), as well as the novels Ten Dead Comedians and The Con Artist. Van Lente also specializes in entertaining readers with offbeat histories with the help of his incredibly talented artists. He has written the multiple-award winning Action Philosophers!, The Comic Book History of Comics, Action Presidents! (all drawn by Ryan Dunlavey), and The Comic Book Story of Basketball with Joe Cooper (Ten Speed September 2020). He lives in Brooklyn with his wife Crystal Skillman, and some mostly ungrateful cats.

Frank J. Barbiere is a #1 Amazon.com best-selling writer from New Jersey. Frank is a former English teacher with degrees from Rutgers University and the Graduate School for Education. After breaking into the comics industry with the creator-owned hit Five Ghosts (Image Comics), Frank has since worked for every major publisher in the U.S., as well as having a global presence in France (Glenat Comics), Italy (Cosmo Editoriale), and Spain (Norma) with his creator-owned work. He has written notable runs on Avengers World and Howling Commandos of S.H.I.E.L.D. at Marvel Comics, as well as the creator-owned series Black Market and Broken World (BOOM! Studios), The Revisionist (Aftershock Comics), Violent Love (Image Comics), and The White Suits (Dark Horse Comics). In 2017, Frank began working as a writer and narrative designer in the video games industry. He has since contributed to the Destiny franchise and was lead writer on Darksiders Genesis and Ruined King: A League of Legends Story. He currently works as a Lead Writer at Skydance Interactive.