The 25th Anniversary of the Baltimore Comic-Con takes place at the Inner Harbor’s Baltimore Convention Center on September 20-22, 2024. The Baltimore Comic-Con has announced comics guests Gene Ha, Karl Kesel, Jerry Ordway, Rachel Ordway, Joshua “Sway” Swaby, and Gus Vazquez to its 25th Anniversary event! Get tickets, further details, and more!
Four-time Eisner winner Gene Ha is known for his art on Fables and on Alan Moore’s Top 10. He currently writes and draws Mae from Oni Press. It’s the story of Mae Fortell, a girl who follows her long missing sister Abbie to a world of mad science and mystery. Gene lives outside Chicago in Berwyn, IL with his lovely wife Lisa. Learn more at https://www.geneha.com/.
Karl Kesel loves his job far more than he has any right to. Over the past 40 years (he can’t believe it, either!) he has written, inked, and occasionally penciled most of the major comic characters, including Superman, Superboy, Spider-Man, Fantastic Four, and Captain America, although he has an inexplicable fondness for minor, obscure characters no one else remembers except Mark Waid. His biggest claim to fame (so far) is he created King Shark, immortalized in James Gunn’s The Suicide Squad movie. Currently, Karl is focused on creator-owned comics like the impulsive, impertinent thief-pretending-to-be-a-hero Impossible Jones (with David Hahn), funded through Kickstarter. Karl lives in Portland, Oregon with his amazing wife Myrna, their two extremely exhausting children Isaac and Eliza, and Jazzy, a little dog with a very big heart. He really can’t complain about much.
Jerry Ordway got his first professional comics work in the summer of 1980. In the years since, he has written and drawn the adventures of countless iconic characters such as Superman, Captain Marvel, The Justice Society, All Star Squadron, the Avengers, and the Fantastic Four. As an inker, he worked on Crisis on Infinite Earths and Zero Hour for DC Comics. In the 1990’s, Jerry co-created and drew WildStar for Image Comics, and wrote and drew his own creation The Messenger. Also in the 1990’s, his award-winning hardcover graphic novel, The Power of Shazam, retold the origin of Captain Marvel, which spun into a long-running monthly series, featuring painted covers and writing by Jerry, with art by penciller Peter Krause and inker Mike Manley. In recent years, he has started self-publishing his comic property Proton, and this year, reunited with his All Star Squadron collaborator Roy Thomas for an 80th anniversary Captain America story for Marvel Comics.
Rachel Ordway is a freelance cartoonist and alum of the Savannah College Of Art & Design’s Sequential Art program (Atlanta campus). She enjoys drawing more than eating, which is sometimes a problem. In addition to various self-published comics, her work appears in the acclaimed anthologies Chainmail Bikini, Sweaty Palms (volume 1), and Dirty Diamonds (#8), as well as in the archives of Comic Book Resources’ sketch group “The Line It Is Drawn”.
Currently residing in Brooklyn, NY, Joshua “Sway” Swaby is a graduate of the prestigious School of Visual Arts in New York City. Sway has provided cover artwork for Entertainment Weekly, DC Comics, Vault Comics, Image Comics, and Marvel Comics. His art has brought to life many iconic properties, including Star Wars, Black Widow, Wonder Woman, Miles Morales, Thanos, Loki, and so many more. Sway’s dedication to his craft and dynamic presentation makes him an illustrator to watch for years.
Gus Vazquez is an illustrator who has worked in nearly every field, including comic books, trading cards, storyboarding for music videos, commercials, animation and film, logo design, character and toy design, and more. He started his career in comic books working as an assistant to comic book artists Adam Pollina on X-Force, and Kevin McGuire on Trinity Angels. He got his first solo gig at Marvel Comics drawing the covers and interiors for Sunfire and Big Hero 6, the series that introduced the characters featured in Disney’s Oscar winning Big Hero 6. He has worked on such Marvel titles as Deadpool, X-Force, Spider-Man, What If? Civil War, What If? Back in Black, The Official Handbook of the Marvel Universe, and more. For DC, he has worked on such titles as Green Lantern, JLA, Blue Beetle, and most recently on Flash, Suicide Squad, and Green Arrow. Gus was the artist on several issues of Claudio Sanchez’s (of rock music group Coheed and Cambria) The Amory Wars, and was instrumental in helping bring together the creative team of his friends, David Atchison (writer) and Tony Shasteen (illustrator), and his niece, film and TV actress Rosario Dawson on 12 Gauge’s The O.C.T. More recently, Gus has been working for DC Comics on The Sasquatch Detective, a backup story which can be found in the pages of Exit Stage Left: The Snagglepuss Chronicles, as well as DMC (Daryl Makes Comics) and on La Borinquena. He is also working on his creator-owned book, Fang.
This year’s confirmed guests for the show include: Rodney Barnes (Killadelphia), Marty Baumann (Pixar artist), John Beatty (Marvel Super Heroes: Secret Wars), Rose Besch (Miles Morales: Spider-Man), Russ Braun (The Boys), Brett Breeding (Superman), Tom Brevoort (coursey of Hero Initiative, FCBD 2023: Avengers/X-Men), Mark Buckingham (Fables), Jim Calafiore (NED, Lord of the Pit), Richard Case (Doom Patrol), John Cassaday (X-Force), Castillo Studios, Keith Champagne (Stranger Things), Howard Chaykin (Time Squared), Cliff Chiang (Paper Girls), Frank Cho (Harley Quinn), Michael Cho (Star Wars: Hyperspace Stories–Qui-Gon Jinn), Amy Chu (KISS: The End), Matthew Clark (Adventures of Superman, courtesy of Hero Initiative), Steve Conley (The Middle Age), Katie Cook (Nothing Special), Todd Dezago (The Perhapanauts), Scott Dunbier (Jim Lee’s X-Men Artist’s Edition, courtesy of Hero Initiative), Chris Eliopoulos (Ordinary People Change the World), Steve Epting (New Avengers), Trish Forstner (Feral), Franco (Teen Titans Go to the Library), Jose Luis Garcia-Lopez (DC Nation), Ron Garney (BZRKR), Mitch Gerads (Mister Miracle), Sanford Greene (Bitter Root), Gene Ha (Mae), Bob Hall (West Coast Avengers), Bo Hampton (Batman: Castle of the Bat), Scott Hanna (Amazing Spider-Man), Tony Harris (The Whistling Skull), Mike Hawthorne (Deadpool), Kyle Higgins (Radiant Black), Dan Jurgens (Action Comics), Jamal Igle (Superman), Klaus Janson (courtesy of Hero Initiative, Daredevil), Sandy Jarrell (Batman ’66), Joëlle Jones (Lady Killer), Chris Kemple (Artist Alley Comics), Karl Kesel (Impossible Jones), Tom King (Wonder Woman), Barry Kitson (Amazing Spider-Man), Emma Kubert (Inkblot), Jim Lee (Superman), Sam Maggs (Marvel Action: Captain Marvel), Shawn Martinbrough (Red Hood: The Hill), Mike McKone (Red Goblin), Bob McLeod (New Mutants), Carla Speed McNeil (Finder), Adriana Melo (Action Comics), Al Milgrom (Spectacular Spider-Man), Terry Moore (Strangers in Paradise), Fabian Nicieza (courtesy of Hero Initiative, Deadpool), Tom Nguyen (The Switch), Jerome Opena (Uncanny X-Force), Dan Parent (Sabrina the Teenage Witch), Andrew Pepoy (Simone & Ajax), Khoi Pham (Star Wars: Darth Vader), Nick Pitarra (Ax-Wielder Jon), Andy Price (My Little Pony: Friendship is Magic), Tom Raney (Green Lantern), Afua Richardson (Omni), Don Rosa (Uncle $crooge), Craig Rousseau (The Perhapanauts), Alex Saviuk (Web of Spider-Man), Alex Segura (Secret Identity, courtesy of Hero Initiative), Liam Sharp (X-O Manowar Unconquered), Geoff Shaw (God Country), Don Simpson (Megaton Man), Louise Simonson (The Death of Superman 30th Anniversary Special), Walter Simonson (Thor), Matt Slay (Equilibrium), Matt Slay (Equalibrium), John K. Snyder III (Suicide Squad), Mark Sparacio (Omega Paradox), Joe Staton (Dick Tracy), Brian Stelfreeze (Black Panther), Joshua “Swayart” Swaby (Star Wars), Babs Tarr (Batgirl of Burnside), Zoe Thorogood (Hack/Slash: Back to School), Gus Vazquez (Sunfire and Big Hero Six), Jeremy Whitley (Navigating With You, courtesy of Mad Cave Studios), Matt Wieringo (Stargate Atlantis: Gateways), Stephanie Williams (Nubia: Queen of the Amazons), Marv Wolfman (What If…? Dark: Tomb of Dracula), Rich Woodall (Electric Black), David Yardin (Daredevil: Woman Without Fear), and Leinil Francis Yu (Wolverine).
Source: Graphic Policy
