Frank Cho, Tula Lotay, Al Milgrom, Joseph Schmalke, Mark Sparacio, and Billy Tucci are coming to Baltimore Comic Con

This year’s Baltimore Comic-Con takes place on October 17-19, 2025 at the Inner Harbor’s Baltimore Convention Center. The Baltimore Comic-Con has announced guests Frank Cho, Tula Lotay, Al Milgrom, Joseph Schmalke, Mark Sparacio, and Billy Tucci to this year’s event. Tickets are now available!

Ringo Award winner and Harvey and Eisner Award nominee Frank Cho launched his career as a comic strip artist at the University of Maryland-College Park student newspaper, penning University2, which was the predecessor of his creator-owned syndicated strip and comic series, Liberty Meadows. His body of work also includes Marvel Comics’ New Avengers, Mighty Avengers, Shanna the She-Devil, New Ultimates, and X-Men: Schism, as well as Jungle Girl for Dynamite Entertainment. His recent work can be seen on covers from DC’s Harley Quinn.

Tula Lotay is the pen name of illustrator Lisa Wood. Born and raised in Yorkshire, England, Tula specializes in comics, film and editorial illustration, as well as being the founder and former director of the world-renowned Thought Bubble Festival.

Tula is best known for her interior work on Bodies, All-Star Batman, Supreme Blue Rose, and Scarlet Witch. She is also a prolific and accomplished cover artist, working regularly for Marvel, DC, Image, and BOOM! Studios, along with being a regular contributor on the fronts of such series as Catwoman, The Walking Dead, Faithless, and Bloodshot Reborn. Outside of comics, Lotay is a mainstay in the alternative film poster scene, contributing art to officially licensed projects such as Marvel Studio’s Black Widow, The Handmaiden, Personal Shopper, The Last of Us, and many others.

In 2015 she was nominated for a GLAAD Media Award for Outstanding Comic Book for The Wicked and The Divine #13. This was followed up with more accolades when Tula was awarded the Bob Clampett Humanitarian Award by the San Diego Comic-Con Eisner committee for her charitable and fundraising work in 2019. Her biggest accomplishment yet came once again at SDCC, when, in 2023, she won an Eisner Award for Best Digital Comic for Barnstormers with Scott Snyder and Comixology. She followed that up in 2024 with an Eisner Award for Best New Series for SOMNA.

SOMNA was her first completed book as a DSTLRY founding member and was both written and drawn collaboratively with creator Becky Cloonan. Her next project is Groupies, back at Comixology with writer Helen Mullane.

Allen Milgrom was born March 6, 1950 in Detroit, Michigan. Al graduated from the University of Michigan with a degree in art and design in 1972 and moved to New York. After a year interning at DC Comics with legendary artist Murphy Anderson, Al began inking and, soon after, penciling. He’s worked on lots of comics over the years, (penciling, inking and even some writing) primarily for Marvel Comics, but he also co-created Firestorm at DC Comics and did work at Archie Comics as well as Atlas, Dark Horse, and others. He also did stints as an editor at Marvel and DC.

Married to his wife, Judy, since 1979, they have a daughter and two sons and the cutest grandson and granddaughter ever to walk the earth (of course he may be biased).

Appearing courtesy of Groundbreaking Comics, Joseph Schmalke is a comics creator, writer, and illustrator, and is the publisher of Midnight Factory, a comic line focused on horror, sci-fi, and the bizarre. Joe’s credentials include: Seven Years in Darkness, We Don’t Kill Spiders, Murder Hobo (created/written by), One Last Trick (created/written by), Prophets of Doom (created/written by), The Infernal Pact, Cherry Blackbird, Phantom Starkiller (co-writer/artist), and The Electric Black (co-creator/writer and artist). His artwork has been featured on variant covers for Image Comics, BOOM! Studios, Vault Comics, Mad Cave, Behemoth/Sumerian Comics, Source Point Press, Archie Comics, and IDW. You can also find his artwork on exclusive Marvel Entertainment merchandise.

Successful illustrator, Mark Sparacio studied sequential art for three years under the legendary Will Eisner — recognized as the creator of the Graphic Novel — at the School of Visual Arts in Manhattan, where he earned a B.F.A. in Illustration and Sequential Art.

While still in school, Sparacio received his first professional assignment to create a painting for the movie poster for the United Artist International film, The Draughtsman’s Contract. This opportunity resulted in a long run as a freelance illustrator in the advertising industry.

After working for both Marvel and DC Comics and creating covers for Comics Buyer’s Guide and The Overstreet Price Guide, creating paintings for card sets for UpperDeck/DC Comics and for Topps’ Wacky Packages and Garbage Pail Kids, Sparacio developed his second creator-owned graphic novel series, Chelsea Dagger and the Women of Excalibur, this one totally conceived, written, drawn and with painted covers by Sparacio and with the help of Chris Summers as interior digital painter and Marshall Dillon and Paula Padilla as letterer/assistant editors. After book one’s critical success, Sparacio has fully written and is currently drawing and painting covers for Chelsea Dagger and the Women of Excalibur books II and III.

Sparacio is the Artist in Residence at Lynn University in Boca Raton, Florida, where he teaches many traditional art classes and helped to create the new Visual Art and Design B.F.A. When he’s not in his studio and needs a place to sleep, Sparacio lives in Port St. Lucie, Florida, with his wife ToniAnn.

Inkpot Award recipient Billy Tucci is a cartoonist best known for his modern-day samurai saga Shi, which began with The Way of the Warrior in 1994. Through his company, Crusade Fine Arts, Shi has been printed in five languages and sold more than 3 million comic books. In addition to his own creations, the graduate of New York’s Fashion Institute of Technology has earned the prestigious Diamond Comics Gem Award and has been nominated for four Eisner Awards. Billy’s DC Comics graphic novel, Sgt. Rock: The Lost Battalion, was awarded the Military Writers Society of America Gold Medal for its depiction of the highly decorated, real-life 442nd Regimental Combat Team, which was comprised of Japanese-American soldiers. His earnest retelling of the Christmas story in A Child Is Born has quietly turned into an international blockbuster, winning the Christian Small Publisher Book of the Year Award. His critically acclaimed Miss Fury: Joy Division saw the return of the Golden Age Icon for Dynamite Comics. Billy has recently released Shi: Return of the Warrior, Shi: Haikyo, Shi: Omnibus Edition, and Zombie-Sama via Kickstarter and Indiegogo, uniting backers from over fifty countries and bringing Crusade Comics’ previous exclusive crowdfunding campaign totals to over $1,000,000.00.

2025 GUESTS

This year’s confirmed guests for the show include: Kaare Andrews (Spider-Man: REIGN 2), Eddy Barrows (Superman), Marty Baumann ((Pixar artist), John Beatty (Marvel Super Heroes: Secret Wars), Josh Blaylock (Mercy Sparx, courtesy of Hero Initiative), Russ Braun (The Boys), Mark Buckingham (Fables), Letizia Cadonici (House of Slaughter), Jim Calafiore (NED, Lord of the Pit), Keith Champagne (Stranger Things), Howard Chaykin (Time Squared), Jim Cheung (Young Avengers), Frank Cho (Harley Quinn), Amy Chu (Emma Frost: The White Queen), Chris Claremont (X-Men), Matthew Clark (Adventures of Superman, courtesy of Hero Initiative), Becky Cloonan (Somna), Steve Conley (The Middle Age), Michael W. Conrad (Manowar: Invictus), Dani (Sensational Wonder Woman), Deans Family Productions (Crass Fed), Jeff Dekal (Something is Killing the Children), Todd Dezago (The Perhapanauts), David Finch (Moon Knight), Trish Forstner (Feral), Franco (Deadman Tells the Spooky Tales), Barbara Friedlander (Swing with Scooter), Jose Luis Garcia-Lopez (DC Nation), Mike Grell (Green Arrow: The Longbow Hunters), Brian Haberlin (Spawn, courtesy of Hero Initiative), Mike Hawthorne (Deadpool), Marc Hampel (Sandman), Jamal Igle (Superman, courtesy of Hero Initiative), Phillip Kennedy Johnson (Incredible Hulk), Dan Krall (House of Night), Jae Lee (Inhumans), Tula Lotay (Barnstormers), Kevin Maguire (Justice League), Laura Martin (Nubia: Queen of the Amazons), Shawn Martinbrough (Red Hood: The Hill), Ron Marz (Green Lantern), Mike McKone (Red Goblin), Bob McLeod (New Mutants), Adriana Melo (Action Comics), Josh Middleton (Aquaman), Al Milgrom (Spectacular Spider-Man), Mark Morales (Thor), Trevor Mueller (Albert the Alien), Sarah Myers (TMNT Saturday Morning Adventures), Tom Nguyen (The Switch), Mike Norton (Battlepug, courtesy of Hero Initiative), Kevin Nowlan (Batman: Sword of Azrael), Dan Parent (Sabrina the Teenage Witch), John J. Pearson (In Bloom), Andrew Pepoy (Simone & Ajax), Barbara Perez Marquez (The Cardboard Kingdom), David Petersen (Mouse Guard), Khoi Pham (Star Wars: Darth Vader), Tom Raney (Green Lantern), Amy Reeder (Power Girl), Esad Ribic (Conan the Barbarian), Afua Richardson (Kahhori: Reshaper of Worlds), Craig Rousseau (Herculoids), Jim Rugg (Street Angel), Joseph Schmalke (Seven Years in Darkness, courtesy of Groundbreaking Comics), Declan Shalvey (Old Dog), Louise Simonson (The Death of Superman 30th Anniversary Special), Walter Simonson (Thor), Jeff Smith (Bone), Mark Sparacio (Chelsea Dagger and the Women of Excalibur), Joe Staton (Dick Tracy), Zoe Thorogood (It’s Lonely at the Centre of the Universe), Billy Tucci (Shi), Gus Vazquez (Sunfire and Big Hero Six), Mark Waid (Justice League Unlimited), Mark Wheatley (Breathtaker), Matt Wieringo (Stargate Atlantis: Gateways), Keith Williams (Web of Spider-Man), Maria Wolf (Phoenix), Rich Woodall (Electric Black), John Workman (Wild Things), and Thom Zahler (Love and Capes).

Source: Graphic Policy