2019

Currently living in Greenwood, DE, Richard Butner is now semi-retired. He works for two resource centers for homeless and recovering persons. Formerly, he was a purchasing agent at ILC Dover, where, among other items, he purchased materials for U.S. spacesuits.

After graduating from Pt. Loma High School in 1975, Maeheah Alzmann was invited by Vicky and Dina Kelso to attend her first ever Comic-Con, and she was immediately hooked. During her 12 years on the committee, she met exquisitely talented people that she would never have had the honor of meeting, learned what it takes to be part of a dedicated group of people with a common goal, and acquired friends that she would trust with her very life to this day.

Wendy All’s first Comic-Con meeting in 1972 changed her life trajectory. She grew up loving geology, archaeology and languages, although she also enjoyed drawing and creating environments for her dolls. Inspired by professional writers and illustrators at Comic-Con, she graduated Art Center and landed a job at Mattel. She has also designed toys for Hasbro (My Little Pony, Star Wars), Disney Consumer Products (Disney Princesses), illustrated food packaging and licensed children’s books.

Barry Alfonso’s credits as a professional writer include articles and interviews for publications such as the Los Angeles Times and Rolling Stone, songs recorded by numerous pop and country artists (including Pam Tillis’s 1995 Number One hit “In Between Dances”) and Grammy-nominated album liner notes. His biography A Voice of the Warm: The Life of Rod McKuen was published by Backbeat Books in May. Barry is also active as an oral historian and graphic novel scriptwriter.

In 1977 Phil Yeh wrote, illustrated, and published one of the first modern American graphic novels, Even Cazco Gets the Blues. He was one of the first publishers of graphic novels to push for acceptance of this art form in general bookstores and libraries.

In 1985, Yeh formed Cartoonists Across America & The World to promote literacy, the arts, and creativity using humor and comics. To date they have painted 2000 murals in 49 states and 18 countries. Yeh has written over 90 books and comics.

Bob Wayne has his roots in Texas fandom, selling at conventions and his own stores. After 28 years at DC Comics he retired as senior VP of sales. He has written comics, including Time Masters (with Lewis Shiner) and created the Card Sharks for George R.R. Martin’s Wild Cards, now in development at Hulu. He has attended Comic-Con for the last 35 years, and received an Inkpot Award and a ComicsPRO Industry Appreciation award. He is currently a publishing consultant and serves on the CBLDF Advisory Board.

During Jeff Walker's Zelig-like career he has been an actor, entertainment journalist, rock critic, music publicist, film merchandise licensee (as a founder of The Thinking Cap Company) and genre marketing consultant. He's also a lifelong fan, amassing a respectable collection of comics by the age of 14. Of course, that was the generation whose mothers gave away those collections "along with my Hardy Boys, Tom Swifts, Bomba the Jungle Boys, Famous Monsters, and classic novels from The Science Fiction Book Club.

Dan Vado, a known miscreant and otherwise follower of his least profitable whims is the founder, CEO and longest tenured person at SLG Publishing. Known for publishing an eclectic and idiosyncratic and diverse line of comics, SLG Publishing at one time or another published the likes of Jhonen Vasquez, Faith Erin Hicks, Roman Dirge, Ariel Schrag and a host of other people whose names, for legal and other reason, we are not allowed to utter.

Chuck Rozanski began selling collector comics in 1970, at the age of 14. He first sold at Multicon 1972 at 17, San Diego Comic-Con 1973 at 18, and opened his first Mile High Comics retail store at 19. He had 4 stores by age 21. 0ver the past 49 years, has provided fans with over $200,000,000.00 in comics.

Bud Plant began buying comics in 1961 and scored Fantastic Four #1 off the stands (but who knows where that went?). He started seriously collecting comics in 1964. Plant and his buddies opened their first comic shop in March 1968, and started Comics & Comix in 1972, which ran to 7 stores. He did catalogs of fanzines, underground comix and comics-related books, and set up at comic shows across the country. Plant got into distribution in 1984, but sold out to Diamond in 1988. He published a few fanzines with his friends, some underground comix, and zillions of catalogs.