The 24th annual Baltimore Comic-Con returns to the Inner Harbor’s Baltimore Convention Center on September 8-10, 2023. The Baltimore Comic-Con announces the appearance of comic guests Dean Haspiel, Charlie McElvy, and Peter Rostovsky. Purchase your tickets online to avoid ticket counter lines at the event.
Brandishing deep cuts of Covid Cop and Billy Dogma, Dean Haspiel will also be debuting his new character, Chest Face in The Spider-Squirrel & Trash Panda Titan-Sized Special #1, a Baltimore Comic-Con exclusive published by Xion Universe co-creator, Charlie McElvy, aided and abetted by his wife, Suzanne “The Librarian” McElvy. Meanwhile, Peter Rostovsky balances their cabal with his debut graphic novel, the critically acclaimed horror comedy, Damnation Diaries.
Emmy and Ringo Award-winning cartoonist Dean Haspiel is best known for creating Billy Dogma, The Red Hook, and Covid Cop, collaborating with Harvey Pekar and Jonathan Ames, and illustrating for HBO’s Bored to Death. His published work includes writing and drawing for Marvel, DC/Vertigo, Archie, Image, and WEBTOON on comics such as The Fox, Spider-Man, The Fantastic Four, X-Men, Deadpool, Superman, Batman, Wonder Woman, Wildcat, and Godzilla. In addition, Haspiel is an accomplished playwright, emerging filmmaker, and Yaddo fellow. He lives in Brooklyn, NY.
Covid Cop is a pandemic-inspired antihero, an officer of the law named Lincoln Bio who’s trying to save what’s left of humanity…and his marriage. Billy Dogma and Jane Legit is a psychedelic romance gone galactic between a dumb-luck bruiser and his knock-em-dead dame. Chest Face is Haspiel’s latest creation, a weird-noir homage to monsters and stand-up comedy.
Charlie McElvy is the head writer and creator of Spider-Squirrel, Trash Panda, and most of the characters within the Xion Universe. Charlie wrote and published the Ogre Award-winning and Ennie Award-nominated RPG supplement The WatchGuard Sourcebook, as well as the follow-up comic book, The WatchGuard #0. He’s the husband of one amazing woman and the father of seven incredible children (yes, really…). He is an athlete that has appeared in Premier Protein commercials, featured in Men’s Health magazine online, and has competed on the TV show American Ninja Warrior.
The Spider-Squirrel & Trash Panda Titan-Sized Special #1 is an homage to classic 80-page giants of old. This special edition bridges volumes one and two of Spider-Squirrel and introduces readers to a whole new herd of heroes and villains from across the Xion Universe! The main story is a brand-new tale featuring our titular Dysfunctional Duo™ as they take on individual adventures. In addition, we will highlight multiple, new characters with stories by Russell Nohelty, Kurt Belcher, Dakota Brown, Kat Calamia, J.C. Carter, Chris Batista, Daniel Kalban, Tom Stillwell, Dale Yaddow, and more, including Dean Haspiel’s brand-new creation, Chest Face, appearing here for the first time ever! YOU DON’T WANT TO MISS THIS SPECIAL!
Peter Rostovsky is a Russian-born artist and writer who emigrated from the former Soviet Union as a political refugee in 1980. His paintings and fine art have been shown widely in the US and abroad and exhibited at museum venues such as PS1/MoMA, The Walker Art Center, MCA Santa Barbara, Artpace, The Blanton Museum of Art, and S.M.A.K. Ghent, as well as a host of private galleries. His illustrated fiction and comics-based work has appeared in the Third Rail Quarterly, Unbag, Topic, in Devil’s Due’s much publicized Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez and the Freshman Force and Talk Bernie to Me anthologies, as well as the Ringo Award-nominated Pandemix anthology. Rostovsky teaches at NYU, Parsons New School, and Lesley Art + Design. His debut graphic novel, Damnation Diaries, is published by Uncivilized Books.
It’s big, hot, often painful, and a hard place to get creative projects done. But something else is bothering inmate PKRx354—something beyond the unrelenting and often absurd torture routines, the demons, or the tormenting trio of his mother, father, and girlfriend also consigned to the Underworld. Luckily, there’s help: Fred Greenberg—Hell’s only psychotherapist. Combining Dante, Douglas Adams, and Freud, Damnation Diaries is equal parts horror, comedy, and character-driven drama, uniquely converging the look of bronze-age comics with sharp literary satire. The book’s imaginative and surreal landscape serves as a perfect backdrop for caustic social commentary fit for our equally surreal times. The setting may be imaginary, but the urgent issues addressed are not: growing economic inequality, student debt, political crisis, terrorism, and the attempt to find peace under the most hostile of circumstances.
Visit baltimorecomiccon.com/tickets for more information and to purchase your advanced tickets!
