Augustyn got his start in the industry in 1986 as an editor for Tru Studios' Trollords. He then edited Syphons and Speed Racer for NOW Comics in 1987. In 1988, he joined DC, starting out as a co-editor on Action Comics during its period as a weekly title. During the late 1980s and early 1990s Augustyn was an editor for DC Comics, where he edited The Flash, Justice League and the Impact Comics line of titles. Augustyn was recognized for his work in the industry with the Wizard Fan Award for Favorite Editor in 1994. He served as the managing editor of Visionary Comics Studio. As editor of The Flash beginning in 1989, Augustyn brought in Mark Waid as writer in 1992, which led to an acclaimed eight-year run. Under Augustyn's stewardship, the Flash was brought out from the shadow of his predecessors and increased his powers dramatically. Other Augustyn-Waid editor-writer partnerships included The Comet (DC/Impact, 1992) and Impulse (DC, 1995–1996). Augustyn currently works as story editor for publisher Red Giant Entertainment and their Giant-Size Comics line of free print comic book titles which debuted on May 3, 2014 as part of Free Comic Book Day.[

Bob Kane (born Robert Kahn; October 24, 1915 – November 3, 1998) was an American comic book artist and writer, credited along with Bill Finger as the creator of the DC Comics superhero Batman. He was inducted into both the comic book industry's Jack Kirby Hall of Fame in 1994 and the Will Eisner Comic Book Hall of Fame in 1996. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bob_Kane

Barbara Randall Kesel is an American writer and editor of comic books; her bibliography includes work for DC Comics, Marvel Comics, CrossGen, Image Comics and Dark Horse Comics. Kesel is a very outspoken opponent of sexism in the comic book industry. She is known for her strong female characters, influencing her then husband Karl's work on Lois Lane in the Superman titles and creating Grace, the ruler of the Golden City location in Comics' Greatest World. Kesel initially came into the comics world after writing a 10-page letter to editor Dick Giordano regarding the portrayal of female comic book characters. At Dark Horse, Kesel was part of Team CGW, responsible for most of the design and creation of the setting and characters in the Golden City location. She is currently part of book packaging company The Pack, alongside Lee Nordling, Brian Augustyn, Gordon Kent and Dave Olbrich. Kesel has been nominated for the 1991 "Best Editor" Eisner Award for Badlands, Aliens: Genocide and Star Wars. In 1995, she was nominated for "Best Anthology" and "Best Graphic Album of Previously Published Material" Harvey Awards for, respectively, Instant Piano and Hellboy: Seed of Destruction. She won the 1996 "Best Graphic Album of Previously Published Work" Harvey Award, for Hellboy: The Wolves of St. August.

Robert "Bob" Hall is an American comics artist and writer as well as a playwright and theatre director. He is the co-creator of the West Coast Avengers for Marvel Comics and has worked on such series as Armed and Dangerous and Shadowman, which he both drew and wrote for Valiant Comics. According to his personal webpage: BOB HALL: WRITER, ARTIST, AND COMIC CREATOR I’ve worked in the comics industry for more than forty-five years, starting at Charlton Comics in 1974, illustrating horror stories and drawing covers. That same year I took a course in creating comics taught by the legendary John Buscema and at the end of the class, Buscema recommended me to Archie Goodwin, Editor-In-Chief at Marvel, as a penciler. I was immediately thrown into drawing a group book, The Champions, written by Bill Mantlo, who graciously mentored me through my first jobs. Over the next fifteen years, I drew most of Marvel’s Major books and characters, The Champions, Doctor Doom, the Red Skull, The Avengers, The West Coast Avengers, The Squadron Supreme, Spider-man, including Spider-Man meeting the original Saturday Night Live cast, Thor, Nick Fury, Moon Knight, one issue of The New Mutants, and What If Conan Were Trapped In the Twentieth Century, Part 2. I also did a slew of Movie adaptations including Willow, Dark Man, and arguably the worst superhero movie ever, the 1980s Captain America. On the other hand, check out the graphic novel, Emperor Doom, probably my best work for Marvel. In 1977, Jim Shooter, the new Editor-In Chief, offered me a job as one of a new group of sub-editors. I signed on for a six-month tenure since a stage adaptation I had co-authored, The Passion of Dracula, then running Off Broadway, was due to receive a West End production in London. There was no question that was going to be there for that. Those six months in the bullpen gave me opportunity of working with some of the most talented people in the comics field, Shooter, Stern, Salicrup, Giacoia, both Buscema’s, Colan, Janson, Rubenstein, Layton, Marie Severin, Byrne, Jo Duffy, Claremont, others too many to list. I learned more about making comics than any time before or since. Then in the 1990s, Jim Shooter started a new company, Valiant. Having seen a plays I had authored, he invited me to write and asked me to choose one of four different titles. For me, Shadowman had the most potential, set in New Orleans, featuring a musician and involving voodoo, all stuff I could dig into. I wrote and eventually drew the book for thirty-five issues. It was very successful but was eventually rebooted to support a video game while moved on to I create Armed and Dangerous, a crime series and probably my finest work in comics. It’s hard to find copies but well worth the effort. Then, in the late 1990s, the comics industry went to hell.

Charles "Chuck" Dixon is an American comic book writer, perhaps best-known for long runs on Batman titles in the 1990s. His earliest comics work was writing Evangeline first for Comico Comics in 1984 (then later for First Comics, who published the on-going series), on which he worked with his then-wife, the artist Judith Hunt. His big break came one year later, when editor Larry Hama hired him to write back-up stories for Marvel Comics' The Savage Sword of Conan. In 1986, he began working for Eclipse Comics, writing Airboy with artist Tim Truman. Continuing to write for both Marvel and (mainly) Eclipse on these titles, as well as launching Strike! with artist Tom Lyle in August 1987 and Valkyrie with artist Paul Gulacy in October 1987, he began work on Carl Potts' Alien Legion series for Marvel's Epic Comics imprint, under editor Archie Goodwin. He also produced a three-issue adaptation of J. R. R. Tolkien's The Hobbit for Eclipse with artist David Wenzel between 1989 and 1990, and began writing Marc Spector: Moon Knight in June 1989. His Punisher OGN Kingdom Gone (August, 1990) led to him working on the monthly The Punisher War Journal (and later, more monthly and occasional Punisher titles), and also brought him to the attention of DC Comics editor Denny O'Neil, who asked him to produce a Robin mini-series. The mini proved popular enough to spawn two sequels - The Joker's Wild (1991) and Cry of the Huntress (1992) - which led to both an ongoing monthly series (which Dixon wrote for 100 issues before leaving to work with CrossGen Comics), and to Dixon working on Detective Comics from #644-738 through the major Batman stories KnightFall & KnightsEnd (for which he helped create the key character of Bane), DC One Million, Contagion, Legacy, Cataclysm and No Man's Land . Much of his run was illustrated by Graham Nolan. He was DC's most prolific Batman-writer in the mid-1990s (rivalled perhaps in history by Bill Finger and Dennis O'Neil) - in addition to writing Detective Comics he pioneered the individual series for Robin, Nightwing (which he wrote for 70 issues, and returned to briefly with 2005's #101) and Batgirl, as well as creating the team and book Birds of Prey . While writing multiple Punisher and Batman comics (and October 1994's Punisher/Batman crossover), he also found time to launch Team 7 for Jim Lee's WildStorm/Image and Prophet for Rob Liefeld's Extreme Studios. He also wrote many issues of Catwoman and Green Arrow, regularly having about seven titles out each and every month between the years 1993 and 1998. In March, 2002, Dixon turned his attention to CrossGen's output, salthough he co-wrote with Scott Beatty the origin of Barbara Gordon's Batgirl in 2003's Batgirl: Year One. For CrossGen he took over some of the comics of the out-going Mark Waid, taking over Sigil from #21, and Crux with #13. He launched Way of the Rat in June 2002, Brath (March '03), The Silken Ghost (June '03) and the pirate comic El Cazador (Oct '03), as well as editing Robert Rodi's non-Sigilverse The Crossovers. He also wrote the Ruse spin-off Archard's Agents one-shots in January and November '03 and April '04, the last released shortly before CrossGen's complete collapse forced the cancellation of all of its comics, before which Dixon wrote a single issue of Sojourn (May '04). Dixon's Way of the Rat #24, Brath #14 and El Cazador #6 were among the last comics released from the then-bankrupt publisher. On June 10, 2008, Dixon announced on his forum that he was no longer "employed by DC Comics in any capacity."

Mike W. Barr is an American writer of comic books, and mystery, and science fiction novels. Barr's debut as a comics professional came in DC Comics' Detective Comics #444 (Dec. 1974-Jan. 1975), for which he wrote an 8-page back-up mystery feature starring the Elongated Man. Another Elongated Man story followed in Detective Comics #453 (November 1975). He wrote text articles and editorial replies in letter columns for the next few years. By mid-1980 he was writing regularly for both DC and Marvel, including stories for Marvel Team-Up, Mystery in Space, Green Lantern, and various Batman titles. Legion of Super-Heroes #277 (July 1981) saw him take on editorial duties at DC, while writing issues of DC's Star Trek comic, for whom he created the native American character Ensign Bearclaw and a pacifist Klingon named Konom. In December 1982, he and artist Brian Bolland began Camelot 3000, a 12 issue limited series that was one of DC Comics' first direct market projects. In August 1983, Barr created what may well be his most enduring work, the monthly title Batman and the Outsiders with art by Jim Aparo. Barr wrote every issue of the original series, and its Baxter paper spinoff, The Outsiders. His other comics work includes Mantra and Maze Agency as well as the 1987 OGN hardcover book Batman: Son of the Demon (with art by Jerry Bingham), proceeds from which reputedly "restored DC Comics to first place in sales after fifteen years." This title, and Barr's work on Batman with artist Alan Davis have been cited by Grant Morrison as key inspirations for his recent (2006) run on the Batman title. In 2007, he wrote a two-part story for the pages of DC's JLA: Classified (#47-48, Jan-Feb 2008), returned to the Outsiders with Outsiders: Five of a Kind—Katana/Shazam #1 (Oct 2007), contributed to Tokyopop's Star Trek: The Manga, and relaunched Maze Agency at IDW Publishing. He has also scripted many of Bongo Comics' Simpsons titles, including a Christmas story for 2010. In May 2010, the Invisible College Press published Barr's science fiction/fantasy novel, Majician/51, about the discoveries of a scientist working at Area 51.

William Francis Messner-Loebs (born William Francis Loebs, Jr.) is an American comics artist and writer from Michigan, also known as Bill Loebs and Bill Messner-Loebs. His hyphenated surname is a combination of his and his wife Nadine's unmarried surnames. In the 1980s and 1990s he wrote runs of series published by DC Comics, Image Comics, Comico, and other comics publishers, including DC's superhero series Flash and Wonder Woman among others. Additionally he has both written and drawn original creator-owned works, such as Journey: The Adventures of Wolverine MacAlistaire.

Lovern was born in the small town of Arborg, Manitoba in 1954. His father was a partner in a small trucking company and his mother waited and managed for the local Canadian Legion. The first house his family owned was a converted chicken coop without running water and equipped with an outhouse. Lovern graduated from Arborg Collegiate in 1972 and enrolled at Red River Community College, where he attended the first year of their Advertising Art course. The following year, he entered the work force as a printer’s assistant at Bulman Brothers Printing. After several years as a printer he quit his job and enrolled in the Fine Arts program at the University of Manitoba in 1982. He graduated with a Bachelor of Fine Art, Honours and started his first work in the comic book industry as George Freeman’s assistant. Lovern eventually won representation by Star Reach Agency and found colour work at 1st Comics on the Elric series. Shortly after he completed a try out book at DC Comics. Lovern was engaged by DC to develop a look and colour for the book John Constantine: Hellblazer, which was to become a flagship title for the Vertigo imprint. Lovern, with the aid of his cousin Christopher Chuckry developed a computer colouring method with the use of Photoshop and started a company called Digital Chameleon. Their method redefined production in the entire comic book industry and graphic field. While residing over Digital Chameleon as creative director Lovern had his first comic book story published. He wrote and coloured the short story, “So This Is Christmas”, which was illustrated by Tim Sale for the benefit book Within Our Reach” published by Marvel and Star Reach. Lovern went on to write Agents of Law for Dark Horse Comics and the Victorian for Penny Farthing Press. In 1997 he wrote, “Tarzan: Le Monstre” for Dark Horse Comics and was nominated as best writer based on the six issues those stories spanned. Since then Lovern has written several other comic books and contributed short prose pieces to several anthologies. In 2011 Lovern signed a deal with Renegade Arts Entertainment to colour the graphic novel, “The Loxleys & the War of 1812.” Shortly after that he signed the deal with that publishers to put his creator owned series, “Shame” into print. Shame was followed by the graphic novel, “Underworld” and this year the “Shame” hardcover collection will be released. Lovern is presently working on “Necromantic” a new creator owned series from Renegade Arts Entertainment.

Librarian note: There is more than one author in the GoodReads database with this name Dave Gibbons is an English comic book artist, writer and sometime letterer. He is best known for his collaborations with writer Alan Moore, which include the miniseries Watchmen and the Superman story "For the Man Who Has Everything". He also was an artist for the UK anthology 2000 AD, for which he contributed a large body of work from its first issue in 1977. Gibbons broke into British comics by working on horror and action titles for both DC Thomson and IPC. When the science-fiction anthology title 2000 AD was set up in the mid-1970s, Gibbons contributed artwork to the first issue, Prog 01 (February 1977), and went on to draw the first 24 installments of Harlem Heroes, one of the founding (and pre-Judge Dredd) strips. Mid-way through the comic's first year he began illustrating Dan Dare, a cherished project for Gibbons who had been a fan of the original series. Also working on early feature Ro-Busters, Gibbons became one of the most prolific of 2000 AD's earliest creators, contributing artwork to 108 of the first 131 Progs/issues. He returned to the pages of "the Galaxy's Greatest Comic" in the early 1980s to create Rogue Trooper with writer Gerry Finley-Day and produce an acclaimed early run on that feature, before handing it over to a succession of other artists. He also illustrated a handful of Tharg's Future Shocks shorts, primarily with author Alan Moore. Gibbons departed from 2000 AD briefly in the late 1970s/early 1980s to became the lead artist on Doctor Who Weekly/Monthly, for which magazine he drew the main comic strip from issue #1 until #69, missing only four issues during that time. He is best known in the US for collaborating with Alan Moore on the 12-issue limited series Watchmen, now one of the best-selling graphic novels of all time, and the only one to feature on Time's "Top 100 Novels" list. From the start of the 1990s, Gibbons began to focus as much on writing and inking as on drawing, contributing to a number of different titles and issues from a variety of companies. Particular highlights included, in 1990, Gibbons writing the three-issue World's Finest miniseries for artist Steve Rude and DC, while drawing Give Me Liberty for writer Frank Miller and Dark Horse Comics. He penned the first Batman Vs. Predator crossover for artists Andy and Adam Kubert (Dec 1991 - Feb 1992), and inked Rick Veitch and Stephen R. Bissette for half of Alan Moore's 1963 Image Comics series. Works other than comics include providing the background art for the 1994 computer game Beneath a Steel Sky and the cover to K, the 1996 debut album by psychedelic rock band Kula Shaker. In 2007, he served as a consultant on the film Watchmen, which was adapted from the book, and released in March 2009. 2009's Broken Sword: The Shadow of the Templars Director's Cut for the Nintendo DS and Wii platforms featured hand drawn art by Dave Gibbons.

Doug Moench, is an American comic book writer notable for his Batman work and as the creator of Black Mask, Moon Knight and Deathlok. Moench has worked for DC Comics, Marvel Comics, Dark Horse Comics and many other smaller companies; he has written hundreds of issues of many different comics, and created dozens of characters, such as Moon Knight. In 1973, Moench became the de facto lead writer for the Marvel black-and-white magazine imprint Curtis Magazines. He contributed to the entire runs of Planet of the Apes, Rampaging Hulk (continuing on the title when it changed its name to The Hulk!) and Doc Savage, while also serving as a regular scribe for virtually every other Curtis title during the course of the imprint's existence. Moench is perhaps best known for his work on Batman, whose title he wrote from 1983–1986 and then again from 1992–1998. (He also wrote the companion title Detective Comics from 1983–1986.) Moench is a frequent and longtime collaborator with comics artist Paul Gulacy. The pair are probably best known for their work on Shang-Chi: Master of Kung Fu, which they worked on together from 1974–1977. They also co-created Six from Sirius, Slash Maraud, and S.C.I. Spy, and have worked together on comics projects featuring Batman, Conan the Barbarian and James Bond. Moench has frequently been paired with the artist and inker team of Kelley Jones and John Beatty on several Elseworlds Graphic Novels and a long run of the monthly Batman comic.

Alan Brennert is the author of the historical novels Palisades Park, Honolulu (chosen one of the best books of 2009 by The Washington Post), and Moloka'i, which won the 2006 Bookies Award, sponsored by the Contra Costa Library, for the Book Club Book of the Year (and has sold over 600,000 copies since publication). It was also a 2012 One Book, One San Diego selection. He has won an Emmy Award and a People's Choice Award for his work as a writer-producer on the television series L.A. Law, and his short story "Ma Qui" was honored with a Nebula Award. His new novel, Daughter of Moloka'i, will be published by St. Martin's Press on February 19, 2019. Follow him on Facebook at https://www.facebook.com/alan.brennert. http://us.macmillan.com/palisadespark...