Indie Stars Cook, Kemple, Moore, Piskor, Rugg, and Simpson Come to Baltimore
The Baltimore Comic-Con lights up the Inner Harbor this October 28-30, 2022 at the Baltimore Convention Center. The Baltimore Comic-Con prides itself on the breadth and depth of our comics guests, and are happy to feature creators with great indie comics cred in 2022: Katie Cook, Chris Kemple, Terry Moore, Ed Piskor, Jim Rugg, and Don Simpson. Tickets are on sale now!
Katie Cook is the creator of the comic Nothing Special on LineWebtoon, an all-ages adventure about a girl, a boy with fairy wings and a dead Radish. It’s her favorite thing and you should read it. Katie also wrote and drew the webcomic Gronk: A Monster’s Story, which lost several awards but is still delightful. Katie spent several years as one of the primary writers on IDW’s My Little Pony: Friendship is Magic and has also done projects with Marvel, BOOM! Studios, and more (sorry for referring to some of you publishers as “and more”). She’s also illustrated several Star Wars children’s books for Disney LucasFilm Press and created artwork for the Disney Wonderground Gallery. Artist and writer! Double threat!
Chris Kemple is one of the contributors to the digital comics effort, Artist Alley Comics. After graduating with a BFA in Painting and Drawing from East Carolina University, Kemple worked as an assistant at Artamus Studios with Richard Case, Mike Wieringo, Jeff Parker, Casey Jones, and Scott Hampton, among others. Currently a teacher and freelance artist, Chris was a founding member of and texture artist and 3D object modeler at video game development studio, Red Storm Entertainment.
Indy powerhouse, Terry Moore, began his career in comics with the critically acclaimed epic series, Strangers in Paradise, the compelling love story between three unlikely friends who find themselves bound together by their pasts. The long-running series garnered many awards, including the coveted Eisner Award for Best Serialized Story and the National Cartoonists Society Comic Book Division Reuben Award. Strangers in Paradise has been translated into twenty-one languages and is as popular today as when it was first published in 1993. Terry marked twenty-five years of Strangers in Paradise with new stories in a ten issue limited series, Strangers in Paradise XXV.
Moore has created many award winning series, including Motor Girl, the story of a wounded warrior and her imaginary best friend, Rachel Rising, a horror comic with a ten-year old serial killer named Zoe, Echo, a science fiction thriller, and Five Years, which brings together characters from all of his series in one heart-stopping story. Terry has also published a How To Draw book as well as a yearly Sketchbook. He has just finished his latest series, Serial, where he brings Zoe back to hunt down the killer of her longtime friend.
The recipient of numerous industry awards worldwide, Moore continues to create strong female characters in extraordinary stories that touch the hearts of readers around the world.
In addition to publishing work under his own label, Abstract Studio, Moore has worked for Marvel, DC, Dark Horse, BOOM! Studios, and other major publishers throughout his twenty-nine year career.
Ed Piskor has been cartooning professionally in print form since 2005, starting off drawing American Splendor comics written by Harvey Pekar. The duo continued working together on two graphic novels, Macedonia and The Beats. Ed began self-publishing Wizzywig after developing a huge interest in the history of hacking and phone phreaking. His New York Times Best-Selling series Hip Hop Family Tree, which was originally serialized on Boing Boing, has gone back to print numerous times, and won the 2015 Eisner Award for “Best Reality-Based Work.” X-Men Grand Design, for Marvel, was released in 2017-2019 to wide acclaim and his current series, Red Room is his publisher, Fantagraphics’ best-selling comic in their history.
Jim Rugg is a writer, artist, designer, illustrator, and YouTuber. His comics include Hulk Grand Design, Street Angel, The PLAIN Janes, Afrodisiac, and Supermag. Honors include Eisner and Ignatz Awards and AIGA’s 50 Books/50 Covers selection. He is the co-host of YouTube’s popular comics channel — Cartoonist Kayfabe.
Don Simpson is best known as the creator of the satirical superhero series Megaton Man for Kitchen Sink Press and Image Comics, the science fiction saga Border Worlds (collected by Dover in 2017), and Marvel’s one-shot CRAZY! reboot (2019). A veteran of the 80s-90s indy movement, Don worked for every major comic book imprint in the late twentieth century, including Mirage Studios (Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles), Image Comics (Splitting Image, The Savage Dragon vs. Megaton Man, 1963), Fantagraphics (King Kong), and DC (Wasteland, Flash Annual, Secret Origins, Action Comics Weekly). Under his Fiasco Comics imprint, Don self-published 17 issues of Bizarre Heroes, a universe of characters surrounding the cast of Megaton Man. More recently, Don has been authoring his weekly prose novel, The Ms. Megaton Man Maxi-Series, at msmegatonman.blogspot.com, a sober but wry sci-fi take on his imaginative universe. Most recently, Don teamed up with William Messner-Loebs, Jason Moore, and Tom Orzechowski on Victory Folks—The Golden Age Public Domain Supergroup in the newly-released YEET! Presents #50 in 2022. Don is excited to be a guest at Baltimore Comic-Con for the very first time this year!
2022 GUESTS
Confirmed guests for this year’s show include: John Beatty (Marvel Super Heroes: Secret Wars), Brian Michael Bendis (Action Comics), Brett Breeding (Superman), Mark Buckingham (Fables), Jim Calafiore (NED, Lord of the Pit), Richard Case (Edgar Allan Poe’s Snifter of Terror), Howard Chaykin (Time Squared), Steve Conley (The Middle Age), Katie Cook (Nothing Special), Kevin Cuffe (Metalshark Bro), Kristina Deak-Linsner (Roses for the Dead), Bob Frantz (Metalshark Bro), Gene Ha (Mae, courtesy of Hero Initiative), Bob Hall (West Coast Avengers), Mike Hawthorne (Happiness Will Follow), Greg Hildebrandt (Star Wars), Klaus Janson (Daredevil, Friday and Saturday only), Chris Kemple (Artist Alley Comics), Phillip Kennedy Johnson (Alien), Barry Kitson (Amazing Spider-Man), Joseph Michael Linsner (Red Sonja), Howard Mackie (Ghost Rider), Bob McLeod (New Mutants), Shawn McManus (Sandman, courtesy of Hero Initiative), Carla Speed McNeil (Finder), Frank Miller (Sin City, Friday and Saturday only), Bill Morrison (The Simpsons), Trevor Mueller (Albert the Alien), Richard Pace (Second Coming, courtesy of Hero Initiative), Andrew Pepoy (Simone & Ajax), Khoi Pham (Teen Titans), Ed Piskor (Red Room: Trigger Warnings), Afua Richardson (Omni), Jon Romita, Jr. (Amazing Spider-Man), Don Rosa (Uncle Scrooge), Jim Rugg (Hulk Grand Design), Louise Simonson (X-Men Legends), Walter Simonson (Ragnarok), Don Simpson (Megaton Man), Mark Waid (Superman: Red and Blue), Emily S. Whitten (The Underfoot), Keith Williams (Thor the Worthy), and Thom Zahler (Love and Capes).
