Special Guests

John Pound helped start the San Diego Comic-Con. Avoiding a real job, he drew underground comix and painted fantasy art prints, book covers, and comic covers. He loved humor art.

John moved to Northern California when he met Karen, his future wife.

Art Spiegelman invited him to paint Topps' "Garbage Pail Kids" stickers, a big hit and he painted hundreds. He also had art in BLAB, MAD, and JUXTAPOZ magazines.

For fast, irreverent art-making, he began writing computer code to make instant randomly- generated comics. His newer code generates random cartoon-like art prints, books, animations, and music videos. A code art compilation awaits publication. More info: www.poundart.com

Mike Royer began his career in 1966 assisting Russ Manning on Magnus, Tarzan and later the Star Wars comic strip. After 14 years working on various titles for Gold Key, James Warren, and laying out one-third of the first Spider-Man animation series, Mike was asked by Jack Kirby to work with him on his Fourth World books New Gods, Forever People, etc., plus Demon and Kamandi for DC, and then Eternals, Devil Dinosaur and Captain America, etc. at Marvel. After almost 10 years with Jack, Mike spent 21+ years as a product designer/character artist for Disney Licensing and the Disney Store. In 2001 Mike returned to his birth state of Oregon where he did product design and character art for several clients including Danbury Mint, Disney collector pins and Pin USA, and even found time for some inking again on such luminaries as Erik Larsen, Ron Frenz, and Steve Rude, etc. In an almost 50-year career, Mike’s jobs have included animation layout and cartoon storyboarding, comic book penciling, lettering and inking, product design, record album covers, etc. Mike was the first cartoonist guest for the 1970 Mini-Con that gave birth to Comic-Con.

Stan Sakai was born in Kyoto, Japan, and grew up in Hawaii. He began his comic book career by lettering Sergio Aragonés' Groo the Wanderer. He also worked with Stan Lee, lettering the Spider-Man Sunday comics for 25 years. Sakai is most famous for his original creation, Usagi Yojimbo, an epic saga celebrating its 35th anniversary in 2019. It features Miyamoto Usagi, a samurai rabbit living in early-seventeenth-century Japan. His work on Usagi Yojimbo has led to a number of awards, including six Eisner Awards, a Harvey Award for Best Cartoonist, the Japanese American National Museum's Cultural Ambassador Award, Parent's Choice Award, and an American Library Association Award. Skillful weaving of history, folklore, and Japanese culture into his work has made Sakai’s Usagi Yojimbo a favorite among educators as a curriculum tool. Usagi has also been a part of the Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles in their TV series, comic book crossovers, and toy lines. An Usagi Yojimbo TV show is in development, produced by Gaumont Studios, Sakai, James Wan’s Atomic Monster, and Dark Horse Entertainment. Stan is married to artist Julie Fujii-Sakai with whom he collaborates on Chibi Usagi and other projects. They live in Southern California.

Bob Schreck is an award-winning editor who has worked in comics since 1975. His publishing career began at Comico in 1985. By 1991 he joined Dark Horse and was the editor of creator-owned titles and the Legend line where he shepherded Frank Miller’s Sin City and Dark Horse Presents. In 1997, along with Joe Nozemack, he launched Oni Press best known for Kevin Smith’s Clerks comics. In 1999 Schreck joined DC Comics becoming group editor of the Batman franchise. He shepherded numerous projects including DK2, Batman: Hush, Batman: Year 100, and Green Arrow. After working briefly at IDW, he landed at Legendary Films as senior VP/editor-in-chief. He has served as editor to such talents as Neil Gaiman, Harlan Ellison, Guillermo del Toro, Paul Pope, Dave Gibbons, Scott Morse, Grant Morrison, and many others. Currently, Schreck is semi-retired doing freelance editing and consulting, living in Oregon with his husband, Randy, and their dog, Bandit.

David Scroggy has been involved with the comics business since he moved to California from his hometown of Akron, OH in 1975. There, he began a long association with the San Diego Comic Convention (now Comic-Con International), wrote a regular column for Comics Buyer’s Guide, and began working for Pacific Comics, an early comics retailer. When Pacific began publishing comic books in 1981, he served as editorial director.

After leaving Pacific Comics, Scroggy worked as an artist representative, and served as director of Comic Book Expo, the trade show associated with Comic-Con International.

In 1993 David joined Dark Horse Comics. He was asked to start a new department, Product Development, that would develop collectibles. He spent 23 years with Dark Horse, retiring in June 2017.

David Scroggy has won the Eisner Award (for Dark Horse’s comic-related products), Comic-Con’s Inkpot Award, and the Diamond Gem award