The following guests are confirmed for WonderCon Anaheim 2019, March 29-31 at the Anaheim Convention Center.
Special Guests
Sergio Aragonés
Photo: R. Manahan © 2019 SDCC
Artist, MAD Magazine, Groo the Wanderer
One of MAD magazine's longest-running cartoonists (only Al Jaffee has been around longer) and the creator of dim-witted barbarian Groo the Wanderer, Sergio Aragonés is one of comics’ most popular creators. He has won every major cartooning award including the Reuben, the Comic-Con Icon award, the Will Eisner Hall of Fame award, various other Eisners, various Harveys, and even has two awards named for him. In addition to his continuing work for MAD, Sergio had his own comic book series at Bongo Comics, Sergio Aragonés Funnies. He continues to draw Groo for Dark Horse Comics and is presently working on a series in which Groo meets Tarzan, of all people!
Vita Ayala
Writer, Supergirl, Marvel Knights 20th, Livewire
Vita Ayala is a queer Afro-Latinx writer out of New York City, where they live with their wife and cat sons. They learned to read and write much later than their peers, and have been making up for it by hoarding books like a dragon and using up ink like it’s going out of style since.
They have written for DC (Supergirl), Dark Horse, IDW (Magic The Gathering), Image, Marvel (Marvel Knights 20th), and Valiant Comics (Livewire), as well as having creator-owned work through Black Mask Studios (The Wilds) and Vault Comics (Submerged). They’re non-stop, like Hamilton!
Jen Bartel
Artist, Blackbird, Black Panther, America
Jen Bartel is an illustrator and comic artist who specializes in drawing strong ladies—she is best known for her ongoing cover work for clients like Marvel, DC/Vertigo, and Dark Horse. She is the co-creator and artist of the Image Comics book, Blackbird, but her interior work has also been featured on titles like Black Panther, The Mighty Thor, and America.
Peter S. Beagle
Author, The Last Unicorn, A Fine & Private Place
Peter S. Beagle is the bestselling author of The Last Unicorn, which has sold a reported five million copies since its initial publication. His other novels include A Fine & Private Place, The Innkeeper’s Song, Tamsin, Summerlong, and In Calabria. Beagle’s short fiction has been collected in five volumes by Tachyon Publications: The Rhinoceros Who Quoted Nietzsche, The Line Between, We Never Talk About My Brother, Sleight of Hand, and The Overneath. He has won the Hugo, Nebula, Mythopoeic, and Grand Prix de l’Imaginaire awards and the World Fantasy Award for Lifetime Achievement. Beagle lives in Northern California.
Julie Benson
Writer, The 100, Batgirl and the Birds of Prey, Writer, The 100, Batgirl and the Birds of Prey
Julie Benson grew up in Illinois with access to her father’s Silver Age comic collection and a mutual love of TV and film, particularly sci-fi, westerns, mysteries, and screwball comedies. Working with her sister, Shawna, they’ve penned episodes of the Emmy Award-winning webseries, Emma Approved, wrote on Seasons 3 through 5 of The CW’s The 100, and are currently co-producers on a new Netflix show, Wu Assassins. They also have written Batgirl and the Birds of Prey and Green Arrow for DC Comics.
Shawna Benson
Writer, Emma Approved, Green Arrow; co-producer, Wu Assassins
Shawna Benson, like her sister Julie, grew up in Illinois with access to her father’s Silver Age comic collection and a mutual love of TV and film, particularly sci-fi, westerns, mysteries, and screwball comedies. Working with her sister, they’ve penned episodes of the Emmy Award-winning webseries, Emma Approved, wrote on Seasons 3 through 5 of The CW’s The 100, and are currently co-producers on a new Netflix show, Wu Assassins. They also have written Batgirl and the Birds of Prey and Green Arrow for DC Comics.
Kendare Blake
Author, Three Dark Crowns series, Goddess War trilogy
Kendare Blake is the #1 New York Times bestselling author of the Three Dark Crowns series, the Anna Dress in Blood duo, and the Goddess War trilogy. Her work is dark, violent, and features passages describing food when she writes while hungry. Born in South Korea, she doesn’t speak a lick of Korean, as she was packed off early to her adoptive parents. That might be just an excuse, though, as she is bad at learning foreign languages. She enjoys the work of Mulan Kundera, Caitlin R Kiernan, and Richard Linklate.
Greg Capullo
Photo: Mike Jara
Artist, Batman, Dark Nights: Metal
Greg Capullo is a self-taught Illustrator and the current artist on the best-selling and highly acclaimed Batman series for DC Comics. Prior to that, he was best known for his 80-issue run on Image Comics' Spawn, created by Todd McFarlane. Other popular comics work includes Marvel Comics X-Force and Quasar (as well as a slew of one-shot titles). He is also the creator of The Creech, a sci fi/horror comic published by Image Comics. Greg has provided art for Blizzard Entertainment’s World of Warcraft, contributed lead character designs for the award-winning HBO animated Spawn series, was the cover artist for many popular musical groups including Korn and Disturbed, and worked behind the scenes on many projects ranging from toy design to video games for TME.
Donny Cates
Writer, Venom, Cosmic Ghost Rider, Redneck
Donny Cates is a writer of comic books, currently working on Venom, Cosmic Ghost Rider, Death of the Inhumans, Redneck, and Babyteeth. His past works include Thanos, Doctor Strange, Damnation, God Country, Buzzkill, The Ghost Fleet, The Paybacks, Interceptor, Star Trek, and Atomahawk. He's from the town that King of the Hill was based on, but lives in Austin, TX with his cat and his books. He is much more interesting than this bio makes him sound. Promise.
Katie Cook
Writer-illustrator, My Little Pony: Friendship is Magic, Gronk: A Monster’s Story
Katie Cook is an illustrator and writer whose main focus is in comic books and children’s books. She is the creator of the popular webcomic Nothing Special on Webtoon and Gronk: A Monster’s Story. She spent several years as the lead writer for IDW’s My Little Pony: Friendship is Magic. Katie is the illustrator of the Star Wars books ABC-3PO and Obi-123. She has also done work for Marvel, Disney, Fraggle Rock, and much more!
Cory Doctorow
Photo: JonathanWorth.com
Author, Walkaway, In Real Life
Cory Doctorow (craphound.com) is a science fiction author, activist, journalist and blogger—the co-editor of Boing Boing (boingboing.net) and the author of Walkaway, a novel for adults, a YA graphic novel called In Real Life, the nonfiction business book Information Doesn’t Want To Be Free, and young adult novels like Homeland, Pirate Cinema, and Little Brother, and novels for adults like Rapture of the Nerds and Makers. He works for the Electronic Frontier Foundation, is a MIT Media Lab Research Affiliate, is a visiting professor of computer science at Open University, a visiting professor of practice at the University of South Carolina’s School of Library and Information Science, and co-founded the UK Open Rights Group. Born in Toronto, Canada, he now lives in Los Angeles.
Damian Duffy
Writer-letterer, Kindred, Parable of the Sower
Damian Duffy is a cartoonist, scholar, writer, teacher, and a Glyph Comics, Eisner Award, and Bram Stoker Award-winning, #1 New York Times bestselling graphic novelist. He holds a MS and PhD in Library and Information Sciences from the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign, where he is on faculty, teaching courses on computers and culture, and social media and global change. He is the writer/letterer of the graphic novel adaptations of Octavia E. Butler’s Kindred and Parable of the Sower (Abrams ComicArts), and co-creative director of the art book Black Comix Returns (Magnetic Collection/Lion Forge Comics).