The 2023 Baltimore Comic-Con will be held at the Inner Harbor’s Baltimore Convention Center on September 8-10. The Baltimore Comic-Con is pleased to announce Brian Michael Bendis, Jim Cheung, Matthew Loux, Louise and Walter Simonson, and Thom Zahler as comics guests at our 2023 event. Buy tickets online now.
Brian Michael Bendis is a Peabody award winning comics creator, and an Amazon and New York Times bestseller most known for co-creating Miles Morales, Jessica Jones, Riri Williams, Maria Hill, Naomi, and dozens of other characters and stories that populate the Marvel, DC, and all new original universes.
The JINXWORLD line of creator-owned comics can be found at the legendary Dark Horse Comics. These titles include the new sci-fi epic Joy Operations (with co-creator Stephen Byrne), the hit action comedy The Ones (with co creator Jacob Edgar), the Yakuza romance Pearl (with Jessica Jones co-creator Michael Gaydos), the comic book industry spy thriller Cover (with David Mack), and the alternate history mob story Murder Inc. (with Powers co-creator Mike Avon Oeming).
Phenomena, the first in a new YA graphic novel series by Brian and artist Andre Lima Araujo is out from Abrams ComicArts.
Brian is Executive Producer and consultant for the Academy Award-winning hit Sony feature Spider-Man: Into the Spider-Verse and its coming sequels. Miles Morales was co-created by Brian and Sara Pichelli.
Brian won a Peabody Award for his work as the co-creator of Jessica Jones on Disney Plus. Riri Williams made her debut in Wakanda Forever and will star later this year in her own show on Disney Plus.
The announcement of Brian’s multi-faceted move to DC Entertainment after a near twenty year run at Marvel made international headlines and trended worldwide. Brian made his DC debut in the landmark Action Comics 1000 and curated Wonder Comics, featuring the return of Young Justice, Dial H for Hero, Wonder Twins, and the breakout original new character… Naomi. Naomi was adapted by Ava DuVernay and Array into a show on the CW.
Brian’s best selling Substack newsletter is currently rolling out an all new text book, Creation, a sort of sequel to the Amazon number one Words for Pictures, an intricate look at the creation of comic books and graphic novels. Substack is also home to Brian’s Masterclass and the brand new autobiography, Fortune and Glory: The Musical.
Over the years at Marvel Entertainment, Brian completed historic runs on Spider-Man (18 years), Avengers (9 years), Iron Man, and Guardians of the Galaxy, plus a 100-issue run on the X-Men franchise, along with the wildly successful “event” projects Avengers Versus X-Men, House of M, Secret War, Secret Invasion, Age of Ultron, Civil War 2, and Siege.
Brian was one of the premiere architects of Marvel’s Ultimate line of comics.
Previously, Brian was part of the Marvel creative committee which helped set the foundation of the MCU. He consulted for all of the Marvel movies from the first Iron Man all the way through to Guardians of the Galaxy Volume 2.
Brian received an Honorary Doctorate in the Arts from the Cleveland Institute of Art and a Certificate of Excellence from the Central Intelligence Agency for his work on diversity issues. Brian has won five Eisner Awards, including “Best Writer of the Year” two years in a row, and was honored with the prestigious Inkpot Award for comic art excellence. Brian is the recipient of the Cleveland Press “Excellence in Journalism” Award.
He lives in Portland, Oregon with his wife Alisa, his daughters Olivia, Tabatha, Sabrina, his son London, and his dogs Splenda and Bowie.
Brian’s TED talk, MIT lecture, and appearances on Late Night with Seth Meyers are available for viewing at Jinxworld.com.
Jim Cheung originally hails from the sunny land of Great Britain, and landed his first professional penciling job at Marvel UK in the mid 90s. From there, he went on to establish himself on titles such as Iron Man and X-Force for Marvel US, and in 2000, he moved to the US to co-create and launch Scion for Crossgen Comics. After Scion, he worked exclusively for Marvel Comics for over 15 years, creating titles such as Infinity, which spawned the Avengers: Infinity War movie, and the award-winning Young Avengers!
Jim is currently working on various covers for Marvel and DC.
Past credits include Justice League for DC Comics, and numerous titles for Marvel Comics, including Spider-Man: The Clone Conspiracy, Avengers vs. X-Men, New Avengers, Illuminati, and Original Sin. Further credits include work for The New York Times, ESPN, Mattel, Blizzard Entertainment, The Royal Mail, Amazon, Skybound Entertainment, Todd McFarlane Productions, IDW, The Village Voice, Dorling Kindersley (DK Books), The Daily Mirror, Dynamite Comics, The Folio Society, and Upper Deck.
Mike Hawthorne has provided the artwork for various comics, including a record setting run on Deadpool as well as Daredevil, Spider-Man, Hulk, Superman, and more. His work has been nominated for Harvey and Eisner Awards. Outside of comics, Mike has done storyboard and conceptual art for Epic Games, Marvel, Fox, Illumination, and Universal. Archaia/BOOM! Studios recently published his autobio-comic Happiness Will Follow.
Matthew Loux is the author and artist of the graphic novels Prunella and the Cursed Skull Ring, The Time Museum series, Sidescrollers, and the Salt Water Taffy series. His books have been included on the YALSA Great Graphic Novels for Teens list and the Texas Library Association’s Maverick list, garnered a Panda Book Award, and been nominated for the RI Children’s Book Award. He also illustrated F-Stop and the board comic Good Night Gabbaland based on the Nick Jr. television show Yo Gabba Gabba. Find him on social media @mattloux and at his website mattloux.com
Louise Simonson has, like her husband Walter, contributed significantly to the comic book industry. “Weezie”, as she is known, began her comics career as an editor at Warren Publishing before leaving for Marvel to edit titles including X-Men, New Mutants, and Star Wars. Departing the editorial role in favor of writing, Weezie has contributed to storylines in Marvel’s Marvel Team-Up, Web of Spider-Man, and Red Sonja, and was responsible for the introduction of Apocalypse in X-Factor as well as the launch of Power Pack. At DC Comics, she worked on Superman: The Man of Steel and The Adventures of Superman.
Walter Simonson has made vast contributions to comics publishing, as a writer, an artist, and even in founding publishing imprints. He was recognized in 2012 at the Harvey Awards in Special Award for Excellence in Production/Presentation and Best Domestic Reprint Project for Walt Simonson’s The Mighty Thor, Artist’s Edition from IDW, and in 2013 for Alien: The Illustrated Story from Titan Books for Best Graphic Album of Previously Published Work. He also received the Hero Initiative Lifetime Achievement Award in 2010 at the Harvey Awards. Walt’s career began in the 1970s at DC Comics, where he worked on titles such as Weird War Tales, Manhunter, Metal Men, Orion, Wonder Woman, Hawkgirl, Vigilante, and Hercules Unbound. Over at Marvel Comics, Simonson has had numerous noteworthy runs, including The Rampaging Hulk magazine, X-Factor, Fantastic Four, and Thor, on which he was responsible for the introduction of Beta Ray Bill and Thor as a frog.
Thom Zahler is a comic book creator and animation writer. He created the Line Webtoons hit series Cupid’s Arrows and Warning Label as well as the Harvey-nominated Love and Capes (recently with new volumes “The Family Way” and the Ringo-nominated “In the Time of Covid”), Long Distance, and the time-traveling wine comic Time and Vine. He also writes and draws for IDW’s successful My Little Pony series, and has written for Disney Tsum Tsum Kingdom, Star Trek Waypoint, and more. He has written for Disney XD’s Ultimate Spider-Man and Knights of the Zodiac.
“From amazing kids stories and self-published award-winning content to contributions to some of the biggest mythologies in comics, these creators bring it all,” said Marc Nathan, show promoter for the Baltimore Comic-Con. “Comic fans of all ages, as well as fans of comic adaptation to screen, are going to be excited to meet these all-stars. We will see you in Baltimore!”
Visit baltimorecomiccon.com/tickets for more information and to purchase your advanced tickets!
In the coming weeks, look for more announcements from the Baltimore Comic-Con. We are looking forward to highlighting our guests, the Ringo Awards, industry exclusives, and programming. The latest developments can always be found on our website, Twitter, Instagram, and Facebook pages.
