Joseph "Jeph" Loeb III is an Emmy and WGA nominated American film and television writer, producer and award-winning comic book writer. Loeb was a Co-Executive Producer on the NBC hit show Heroes, and formerly a producer/writer on the TV series Smallville and Lost. A four-time Eisner Award winner and five-time Wizard Fan Awards winner (see below), Loeb's comic book career includes work on many major characters, including Spider-Man, Batman, Superman, Hulk, Captain America, Cable, Iron Man, Daredevil, Supergirl, the Avengers, and Buffy the Vampire Slayer, much of which he has produced in collaboration with artist Tim Sale, who provides the comic art seen on Heroes.

Librarian note: There is more than one author in the GoodReads database with this name John Lindley Byrne is a British-born Canadian-American author and artist of comic books. Since the mid-1970s, Byrne has worked on nearly every major American superhero. Byrne's better-known work has been on Marvel Comics' X-Men and Fantastic Four and the 1986 relaunch of DC Comics’ Superman franchise. Coming into the comics profession exclusively as a penciler, Byrne began co-plotting the X-Men comics during his tenure on them, and launched his writing career in earnest with Fantastic Four (where he also started inking his own pencils). During the 1990s he produced a number of creator-owned works, including Next Men and Danger Unlimited. He also wrote the first issues of Mike Mignola's Hellboy series and produced a number of Star Trek comics for IDW Publishing.

Joseph "Joe" Quesada (born January 12, 1962)is an American comic book editor, writer and artist. He became known in the 1990s for his work on various Valiant Comics books, such as Ninjak and Solar, Man of the Atom. He later worked on numerous books for DC Comics and Marvel Comics, such as Batman: Sword of Azrael and X-Factor, before forming his own company, Event Comics, where he published his creator-owned character, Ash.

Paul Ryan was an American comic artist. Ryan worked extensively for Marvel Comics and DC Comics on a number of super-hero comic book titles. He is best known for his 1991 to 1996 run as penciler on Fantastic Four. Librarian's note: There is more than one author in the Goodreads database with this name.

Larry Hama is an American writer, artist, actor and musician who has worked in the fields of entertainment and publishing since the 1960s. During the 1970s, he was seen in minor roles on the TV shows M*A*S*H and Saturday Night Live, and appeared on Broadway in two roles in the original 1976 production of Stephen Sondheim's Pacific Overtures. He is best known to American comic book readers as a writer and editor for Marvel Comics, where he wrote the licensed comic book series G.I. Joe, A Real American Hero, based on the Hasbro action figures. He has also written for the series Wolverine, Nth Man: the Ultimate Ninja, and Elektra. He created the character Bucky O'Hare, which was developed into a comic book, a toy line and television cartoon.

For the Karate Kid actor, click here: Ralph Macchio Ralph Macchio is an American comic book editor and writer, who has held many positions at Marvel Comics, including executive editor. Macchio is commonly associated with Daredevil, the Spider-Man line of comics and the popular Ultimate Marvel line. In Macchio's words, he "made probably the longest run on Daredevil of anyone." Macchio is not related to the actor Ralph Macchio, but is nicknamed "Karate Kid" after that actor's famous role.

Darick Robertson is an American artist best known for his work as a comic book illustrator. Highly prolific, Robertson has illustrated hundreds of comics in his twenty plus years in the industry. His body of work ranges from science fiction characters of his own creation to headlining on renowned classic characters from Marvel and DC Comics. Robertson is best known as the co-creator and illustrator of the biting satires TRANSMETROPOLITAN and THE BOYS. In January of 2010 he wrote and illustrated CONAN: THE WEIGHT OF THE CROWN for Dark Horse Comics. Darick currently lives in California with his wife and two children. When he's not drawing comics, which is almost all the time, he creates custom action figures, writes music, sings and plays guitar. Original art for sale can be found at tinyurl.com/DarickR

Dan Green is an American comic book artist, best known for his inking work. He began his career in 1972 working for DC Comics on the title Tarzan. Later on, he worked in titles like House of Mystery, Star-Spangled War Stories, Weird Worlds, G.I. Combat, Detective Comics and many more. He was also hired by Marvel Comics to work on titles like Avengers, Captain Marvel, Jungle Action, Wolverine, X-Men and more. Most recently he has been working for both Marvel and DC on titles like Angela: Asgard's Assassin, Savage Wolverine, Deadpool, The New 52: Future's End, Convergence: Batgirl and Convergence: Batman: Shadow of the Bat.

Chris Sprouse was born in Charlottesville, Virginia. At the age of 3 he moved with his family to New Delhi, India where he first discovered comics as he was unable to play outside due to the dangerous amount of snakes in the house yard. When he was 6, his family returned to the United States to Dale City, Virginia, where he continued to read and draw comics. Before his debut in comics, Sprouse drew a comic strip entitled "Ber-Mander", for the school newspaper ("The Hyphen"), while attending Gar-Field Senior High School in Dale City, Virginia. After graduating in 1984, Sprouse attended James Madison University where he studied graphic design. Sprouse launched his career in mainstream comics in 1989, his first credited work being a Chemical King story in an issue of DC Comics' Secret Origins. He then did a Two-Face story for Batman Annual #14 and then moved on to the limited series Hammerlocke. Sprouse then took on the sci-fi series Legionnaires, featuring teenaged versions of the characters in the Legion of Super-Heroes series, and eventually moved on to a number of one-shot and fill-in issues before illustrating a Star Wars mini-series, Splinter of the Mind's Eye, for Dark Horse Comics. He then worked for Extreme Studios as the regular penciller of New Men, and in 1997, Sprouse drew several issues of Supreme, scripted by Alan Moore for the same publisher. After Supreme ended, a year later he and Moore created Tom Strong for America's Best Comics, for which Sprouse won two Eisner Awards in 2000, for Best Single Issue and Best Serialized Story. Sprouse was also the penciller and co-creator on the 2004 Ocean mini-series, written by Warren Ellis and published by DC Comics. In 2007, Ocean was optioned for film. In 2006, he began pencilling Wildstorm's Midnighter ongoing series, a spin-off of The Authority. He has also been announced as the artist on the first issue of Batman: The Return of Bruce Wayne with Grant Morrison as writer. Sprouse currently lives in Columbus, Ohio with his wife, Xan.

James "Jimmy" Palmiotti is an American writer and inker of comic books, who also does writing for games, television and film. Photo by Luigi Novi.

Born February 12th, 1970 and raised on Long Island in New York, Judd began cartooning professionally at 16 with a single-paneled strip called Nuts & Bolts. This ran weekly through Anton Publications, a newspaper publisher that produced town papers in the Tri state area. He was paid 10 dollars a week. In August of 1988, Judd began attending the University of Michigan, Ann Arbor bringing Nuts & Bolts with him, but turning it into a four-panel strip and creating a cast of characters to tell his tales. Nuts & Bolts ran in The Michigan Daily 5 days a week from my freshman year (freshperson, or first-year student, as they liked to say at U of M), until graduation in the spring of 1992. A collection of those college years Nuts & Bolts was published in Ann Arbor. Watching the Spin-Cycle: the Nuts & Bolts collection had a small run of a thousand books a couple of months before graduation. They sold out in about 2 weeks and there are no plans to republish it. Before graduation he accepted a development deal with a major syndicate (syndicates are the major league baseball of comic strips. They act as an agent or broker and sell comic strips to newspapers). Judd spent the next year living in Boston, and developing his strip. The bottom dropped out when the syndicate decided that they were not going to pursue Nuts and Bolts for syndication and were terminating his development contract. Crushed and almost broke, he moved back in with his parents in July 1993. Getting by doing spot illustration jobs, Judd actually had Nuts & Bolts in development with Nickelodeon as an animated series. At one point he even turned the human characters into mice (Young Urban Mice and Rat Race were the working titles). In August of 1993 he saw an ad on MTV for The Real World III, San Francisco. For those who may not know, The Real World is a real-life documentary soap opera, where 7 strangers from around the country are put up in a house and filmed for six months. You get free rent, free moving costs, you get to live in San Francisco, and get to be a famous pig on television. The "Audition process," was everything from doing a video, to filling out a 15 page application, to in-person interviews with the producers, to being followed around and filmed for a day. 6 months and 6 "levels" later, Judd was in. On February 12th 1993, he moved into a house on Russian Hill and they began filming. Along the way Nuts & Bolts was given a weekly spot in the San Francisco Examiner. This WHOLE deal was filmed and aired for the show. They moved out in June of 1994, a couple of days after O.J.'s Bronco chase in L.A. The show began airing a week later. Along with the weekly San Francisco Examiner gig, Judd began doing illustrations for The Complete Idiot's Guide series through QUE Books. Since then, Judd has illustrated over 300 Idiot's Guides and still does the cartoons for the computer oriented Idiot's Guides line. A collection of the computer related titles' cartoons was published in 1997 as Terminal Madness, The Complete Idiot's Guide Computer Cartoon Collection. Not too long after the show had been airing, Judd's roommate from the show and good friend, AIDS activist Pedro Zamora, took ill from AIDS complications. Pedro was to begin a lecture tour in September. Judd agreed to step in and speak on his behalf until he was well enough to do so again. In August of 1994, Pedro checked into a hospital and never recovered. Pedro passed away on November 11, 1994. He was 22. Judd continued to lecture about Pedro, Aids education and prevention and what it's like to live with some one who is living with AIDS for most of 1995. Speaking at over 70 schools across the country, Judd describes it as, "...the most fulfilling and difficult time in my life." But time and emotional constraints forced him to stop lecturing. In May of 1995 Judd found the weekly Nuts & Bolts under-whelming and decided to give syndication another go. Re-vamping Nuts & Bolts

Glenn Herdling, a graduate of Bucknell University, began his publishing career in 1987 at Marvel Comics. As assistant editor on Marvel’s flagship Spider-Man titles, he was instrumental in increasing circulation to a record 3 million. Glenn was promoted to Editorial Director of Marvel’s Custom Publishing division where he served as an account executive and designed the company’s first award-winning Annual Reports. In 1996, Glenn became the Creative Director at Unicorn Publishing, which engaged in traditional book publishing, packaging, and design. The company also represented artists on an exclusive basis, particularly the renowned fantasy painters, Greg and Tim Hildebrandt. In 1999, he became Wizard Entertainment’s Manager of Business Development and supervised the launch of its new comic book division, Black Bull Entertainment. In May 2005, Glenn received a Master of Science Degree in Publishing from New York University where he was awarded the Condé Nast Award in Magazine Publishing. A New Jersey resident all his life, Glenn currently works in the healthcare sector as a communications specialist. He has contributed to numerous published works and has written over 80 comic books. Piper Houdini: Apprentice of Coney Island is his first novel.

Wiacek got his start in the mid-1970s as a member of the "Crusty Bunkers" inking collective. For a short time in 1975–1976 he inked backgrounds (over Curt Swan's pencils) on Superman for DC Comics. He moved on to regular inking work for DC, and then in 1978 began a long association with Marvel. Wiacek has inked over such pencilers as Carmine Infantino on Star Wars, John Romita Jr. on The Uncanny X-Men, June Brigman on Power Pack, John Byrne on Sensational She-Hulk, and Walter Simonson on X-Factor and Orion and George Pérez Brave and the Bold, volume 2. He has also worked with creators such as Bob Budiansky, Colleen Doran, Ron Garney, Mike Grell, Michael Netzer (Nasser), Kevin Nowlan, Don Perlin, Bill Sienkiewicz, and Barry Windsor-Smith. Over the years, Wiacek has also inked comics published by Dark Horse and Valiant. Photographed by Luigi Novi.

Librarian note: There is more than one author in the GoodReads database with this name Mark Pennington is a professional comic book artist. He began his career in 1986 working for DC Comics on the title Sgt. Rock.

Whilce Portacio is a Filipino-American comic book artist. Born in in Sangley Point, Cavite City, Philippines, Portacio started out as an inker at Marvel Comics in 1985. Later he was given assignments as a penciller as well. Portacio became noted for his work on such titles as The Punisher, X-Factor, and the Uncanny X-Men. However, in 1992, Portacio left Marvel to co-found Image Comics with six other high-profile artists. But, Portacio quickly withdrew from his partnership in this enterprise due to his sister's bout with lupus, eventually publishing his title Wetworks through Jim Lee's imprint in 1994. Other notable series that Portacio has worked on include Stone and Marvel's controversial Heroes Reborn storyline within Iron Man. In August, 2000, Portacio fell into a diabetic coma as a result of a failing pancreas. He woke up a week later, thirty pounds lighter, and unable to walk, stand or even draw. Only six months later he was able to pick up a pencil and draw. According to his blog, "My mind could see what I wanted to draw but my hand couldn't accomplish it." In 2006, Portacio returned to his artistic duties at Wildstorm on Wetworks vol. 2, which was being written by Mike Carey. Unfortunately, Portacio's reputation for being unable to maintain a steady work schedule caught up with him again as Wetworks vol. 2 suffered from numerous delays and Portacio ended up leaving the book with issue #6, but he continues to illustrate cover art monthly since leaving as the book's interior artist. He also began art duties on the new monthly DC Comics series Batman Confidential.

John Salvatore Romita, Jr. is an American comic book artist best known for his extensive work for Marvel Comics from the 1970s to the 2000s. He is often referred to as JRJR (the abbreviation of John Romita, Jr.) He is the son of comic book artist John Romita Sr.

Scott Lobdell (born 1960) is an American comic book writer. He is mostly known for his work throughout the 1990s on Marvel Comics' X-Men-related titles specifically Uncanny X-Men, the main title itself, and the spin-off series that he conceived with artist Chris Bachalo, Generation X. Generation X focused on a number of young mutant students who attempted to become superheroes in their own right at a separate school with the guidance of veteran X-related characters Banshee and Emma Frost. He also had writing stints on Marvel's Fantastic Four, Alpha Flight, and The Adventures of Cyclops and Phoenix mini-series with artist Gene Ha. He wrote the script to Stan Lee's Mosaic and an upcoming film from POW Entertainment featuring Ringo Starr. He also participated in the Marvel Comics and Image Comics (from Jim Lee's WildStorm) crossover mini-series WildC.A.T.s/X-Men.

Fabian Nicieza is a writer and editor who is best known as the co-creator of DEADPOOL and for his work on Marvel titles such as X-Men, X-Force, New Warriors, and Robin. His first novel, the Edgar Award-nominated SUBURBAN DICKS, a sarcastic murder mystery, is on sale now from Putnam Books. The Dicks will return in THE SELF-MADE WIDOW, coming June 21st.

Librarian Note: There is more than one author by this name in the Goodreads database. Paul Martin Smith is a comic book artist.

Librarian Note: There is more than one author in the GoodReads database with this name. See this thread for more information. Jim Lee is a Korean-American comic book artist, creator and publisher. After graduating from Princeton, he decided to attempt illustrating comic books, and met with success. Lee's distinctive, crisply hatched line art style and rigid, idealized anatomical forms established a new stylistic standard for superhero comic-book illustration and reinforced a popular trend away from brushed to penned inking in the late 20th and early 21st century. Lee is currently one of the most successful artists in American comics. He has received a great deal of recognition for his work in the industry, including the Harvey Special Award for New Talent in 1990.

aka David Peters Peter Allen David (often abbreviated PAD) is an American writer, best known for his work in comic books and Star Trek novels. David often jokingly describes his occupation as "Writer of Stuff". David is noted for his prolific writing, characterized by its mingling of real world issues with humor and references to popular culture. He also uses metafiction frequently, usually to humorous effect, as in his work on the comic book Young Justice.

Kurt Busiek is an American comic book writer notable for his work on the Marvels limited series, his own title Astro City, and his four-year run on Avengers. Busiek did not read comics as a youngster, as his parents disapproved of them. He began to read them regularly around the age of 14, when he picked up a copy of Daredevil #120. This was the first part of a continuity-heavy four-part story arc; Busiek was drawn to the copious history and cross-connections with other series. Throughout high school and college, he and future writer Scott McCloud practiced making comics. During this time, Busiek also had many letters published in comic book letter columns, and originated the theory that the Phoenix was a separate being who had impersonated Jean Grey, and that therefore Grey had not died—a premise which made its way from freelancer to freelancer, and which was eventually used in the comics. During the last semester of his senior year, Busiek submitted some sample scripts to editor Dick Giordano at DC Comics. None of them sold, but they did get him invitations to pitch other material to DC editors, which led to his first professional work, a back-up story in Green Lantern #162 (Mar. 1983). Busiek has worked on a number of different titles in his career, including Arrowsmith, The Avengers, Icon, Iron Man, The Liberty Project, Ninjak, The Power Company, Red Tornado, Shockrockets, Superman: Secret Identity, Thunderbolts, Untold Tales of Spider-Man, JLA, and the award-winning Marvels and the Homage Comics title Kurt Busiek's Astro City. In 1997, Busiek began a stint as writer of Avengers alongside artist George Pérez. Pérez departed from the series in 2000, but Busiek continued as writer for two more years, collaborating with artists Alan Davis, Kieron Dwyer and others. Busiek's tenure culminated with the "Kang Dynasty" storyline. In 2003, Busiek re-teamed with Perez to create the JLA/Avengers limited series. In 2003, Busiek began a new Conan series for Dark Horse Comics, which he wrote for four years. In December 2005 Busiek signed a two-year exclusive contract with DC Comics. During DC's Infinite Crisis event, he teamed with Geoff Johns on a "One Year Later" eight-part story arc (called Up, Up and Away) that encompassed both Superman titles. In addition, he began writing the DC title Aquaman: Sword of Atlantis from issues 40-49. Busiek was the writer of Superman for two years, before followed by James Robinson starting from Superman #677. Busiek wrote a 52-issue weekly DC miniseries called Trinity, starring Batman, Superman and Wonder Woman. Each issue (except for issue #1) featured a 12-page main story by Busiek, with art by Mark Bagley, and a ten-page backup story co-written by Busiek and Fabian Nicieza, with art from various artists, including Tom Derenick, Mike Norton and Scott McDaniel. Busiek's work has won him numerous awards in the comics industry, including the Harvey Award for Best Writer in 1998 and the Eisner Award for Best Writer in 1999. In 1994, with Marvels, he won Best Finite Series/Limited Series Eisner Award and the Best Continuing or Limited Series Harvey Award; as well as the Harvey Award for Best Single Issue or Story (for Marvels #4) in 1995. In 1996, with Astro City, Busiek won both the Eisner and Harvey awards for Best New Series. He won the Best Single Issue/Single Story Eisner three years in a row from 1996–1998, as well as in 2004. Busiek won the Best Continuing Series Eisner Award in 1997–1998, as well as the Best Serialized Story award in 1998. In addition, Astro City was awarded the 1996 Best Single Issue or Story Harvey Award, and the 1998 Harvey Award for Best Continuing or Limited Series. Busiek was given the 1998 and 1999 Comics Buyer's Guide Awards for Favorite Writer, with additional nominations in 1997 and every year from 2000 to 2004. He has also received numerous Squiddy Awards, having been selected as favorite writer four years in a row from 1995 to 1998,

Librarian note: There is more than one author in the GoodReads database with this name Keith Williams is an American comic book and comic strip artist. He is best known for illustrating The Phantom for over a decade together with George Olesen. He also worked on Superman with John Byrne. (source: Wikipedia)

Chris Claremont is a writer of American comic books, best known for his 16-year (1975-1991) stint on Uncanny X-Men, during which the series became one of the comic book industry's most successful properties. Claremont has written many stories for other publishers including the Star Trek Debt of Honor graphic novel, his creator-owned Sovereign Seven for DC Comics and Aliens vs Predator for Dark Horse Comics. He also wrote a few issues of the series WildC.A.T.s (volume 1, issues #10-13) at Image Comics, which introduced his creator-owned character, Huntsman. Outside of comics, Claremont co-wrote the Chronicles of the Shadow War trilogy, Shadow Moon (1995), Shadow Dawn (1996), and Shadow Star (1999), with George Lucas. This trilogy continues the story of Elora Danan from the movie Willow. In the 1980s, he also wrote a science fiction trilogy about female starship pilot Nicole Shea, consisting of First Flight (1987), Grounded! (1991), and Sundowner (1994). Claremont was also a contributor to the Wild Cards anthology series.