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Wheatley, Hempel Lead Insight Studios to Baltimore Comic-Con

Pow BamMark Wheatley and Marc Hempel, the creative pioneers who launched Blood of the Innocent, Mars, and numerous other creations, will explore things a little closer to home with their appearance at the Baltimore Comic-Con, September 25-27, 2015 at the Baltimore Convention Center. This is the sixteenth annual Baltimore Comic-Con, and this marks Insight Studios Groups‘ sixteenth straight appearance at the show. They will be joined by studio mates Jerry Carr, G. D. Falksen, Allan Gross, and Evelyn Kriete.

Despite vibrant and incredibly varied solo careers, Mark Wheatley and Marc Hempel have been frequent, highly successful collaborators. Their work together has included Tarzan, Jonny Quest, Titanic Tales, and Doctor Cyborg, among other projects. They are presently at work on a fully restored and lavishly produced re-issue of their acclaimed graphic novel Breathtaker for Titan Comics. Long out of print, it was originally serialized and then collected into a best-selling trade paperback by DC Comics’ Vertigo imprint 20 years ago. Their work, both together and separately, was extensively profiled in IS Art: The Art of Insight Studios.

BreathtakeerOn his own, Mark Wheatley has most recently had his work for CBS Television featured on The Millers and Super Clyde, and he’s presently part of a team that is developing a live stage show featuring Dick Tracy, Tarzan and the Green Hornet. In print, his work has been featured in the acclaimed Jungle Tales Of Tarzan from Dark Horse Comics, on the cover of the Meteor House release of Exiles Of Kho, the Phillip Jose Farmer series novel by Christopher Paul Carey, and his own well-received new art book, Stars, which presents elaborate line art portraits of actors, musicians, and authors. With a track record that includes Frankenstein Mobster, Radical Dreamer, Return of the Human, Hammer of the Gods, EZ Street, Skultar, and Lone Justice, Wheatley is an Inkpot, Mucker, Gem, Speakeasy, and Eisner award-winning creator. He has lectured at the Library of Congress, exhibited at the Norman Rockwell Museum, created set pieces for The Black Eyed Peas, designed for Lady Gaga, and contributed designs to ABC’s Beauty and the Beast. He will be announcing an innovative new project at the show in collaboration with studio members G. D. Falksen and Evelyn Kriete.

“America’s Most Beloved Semi-Obscure Cartoonist,” writer-illustrator Marc Hempel, grew up in the northwest suburbs of Chicago and now resides in Baltimore, Maryland, where he plies his craft on such diverse projects ranging from his own Gregory, Tug & Buster, and Naked Brain to Disney Adventures, and from Clive Barker’s Hellraiser to “The Kindly Ones” in Neil Jerry CarrGaiman’s The Sandman. Hempel’s art has also appeared in MAD, Marvel Fanfare, Epic Illustrated, Heavy Metal, Flinch, My Faith in Frankie, The Dreaming, Lucifer, Munden’s BarNickelodeon Magazine, and a 21-page Escapist story for Dark Horse Comics. His series The Love Brothers has appeared in Aces Weekly.

Cryptozoo Crew artist Jerry Carr will debut a select number of large and small stretched canvas prints, illustrating a variety of furkini-clad jungle heroines and the monkeys who love them. At the Baltimore Comic-Con, he will also unveil new, limited edition poster prints, depicting all kinds of alien, primate, and reptilian critters. His and Allan Gross’ Cryptozoo Crew has been optioned by Alcon Entertainment.

GD FalksenG. D. Falksen is an author, lecturer, public speaker, and MC. He also studies history and has consulted for Disney. He is the author of The Ouroboros Cycle series and The Transatlantic Conspiracy, a YA mystery novel forthcoming from Soho Teen. Other fiction includes The Strange Case of Mr. Salad MondayCinema U, An Unfortunate Engagement, and The Mask of Tezcatlipoca. He is also a voice actor and co-writer for the animated film Hullabaloo and an accompanying educational series titled Ask The Professor.

In addition to Cryptozoo Crew, Allan Gross has written for comic book companies including DC Comics, Dark Horse, and TokyoPop, as well as the Tarzan newspaper strip for United Features Syndicate, and cartoons for television. He wrote Road Song, the Doctor Cyborg graphic novels The Clone Conspiracy and Outpatient, and the novella “Bride of the Beast HullabalooMan” in Titanic Tales, collaborated on the writing and editing of Gray Morrow: Visionary, and wrote the definitive retrospective on Insight Studios, IS Art: The Art of Insight Studios. He recently launched a successful Kickstarter project for his new quirky graphic novel, Life’s Questions Answered, and he’ll have a special signed, pre-publication edition available at the show.

Evelyn Kriete is an editor, producer, artist, stylist, marketing adviser, social media strategist, and new media coordinator. She is also a crowdfunding consultant for Indiegogo and Comicmix. Through crowdfunding, she has raised over $1 million for various projects, including the animated film Hullabaloo, which she is producing alongside film creator James Lopez. She has previously worked on the staff of literary publications such as Weird Tales and Sherlock Holmes Mystery Magazine.

Baltimore Comic-Con 2014: Insight Studios Group Heads to the Convention

markwheatlyFrom the early Vertigo hit Breathtaker to CBS TV’s hit series The Millers, and from First Comics’ Mars to the cutting edge digital presentation of Return of the Human in Aces Weekly, Baltimore‘s own Insight Studios Group has a long track record of breaking new artistic ground. Since Insight’s founding in 1978, Blood of the Innocent, Tug & Buster, Doctor Cyborg, EZ Street, Lone Justice, Gregory, Radical Dreamer, Jonny Quest, Tarzan, and many other characters, concepts, and adventures have flowed from the pens, pencils, keyboards, and brushes of the studios’ creators.

lovebrothersAnchored by Insight Studios founders Mark Wheatley (Frankenstein Mobster) and Marc Hempel (Sandman: The Kindly Ones), the group has always viewed the Baltimore Comic-Con as sort of their home base, an annual gathering of studio members even as the studios’ reach expanded across many different states. The fifteenth edition of the Baltimore Comic-Con – which marks the fifteenth time Insight has set up at the show – sees the convention roster growing to include longtime studio member Allan Gross (Road Song), writer-director Robert Tinnell (The Wicked West), and newcomer Darrenn Canton (Tunnels & Trolls) in addition to Wheatley and Hempel. And one never knows what Friends of Insight Studios might show up at the Baltimore Convention Center over the September 5-7, 2014 weekend.

Even though 2014 is little more than half over, it’s already been a very full year for the creators who make up the studio. Hempel presented his new series, The Love Brothers, this past year in the digital Aces Weekly, and he and Wheatley are now working with Titan Books to issue a new, restored edition of their Breathtaker graphic novel.

rotyourbrainGross, who is best known as writer of the syndicated Tarzan newspaper strip, has just returned to comics from other media projects. His new graphic novel project reunites him with Wheatley.

Tinnell, in addition to writing the award-winning graphic novel series Flesh & Blood, has been busy with a slate of projects including the just-completed documentary, That $#!% Will Rot Your Brain: How The Monster Kids Transformed Popular Culture.

Canton is the new kid at Insight. A fantasy illustrator, Darrenn will be sketching and painting at the show. He’ll have prints for sale, too, just like his studio mates.

The last year has been a big one for Wheatley in particular. He reached his largest audience ever as his work was featured prominently on the hit CBS comedy The Millers. He co-developed and illustrated the ground-breaking Return Of The Human series for the digital the millerscomics anthology Aces Weekly, created a new Tarzan story for Dark Horse, illustrated covers for comics, provided illustrations for books and magazines, and he just completed a lengthy graphic novel for reality TV king, Thom Beers (Deadliest Catch, Ice Road Truckers) in collaboration with Todd Livingston.

Baltimore Comic-Con will be held Friday, September 5 through Sunday, September 7, 2014, at the Baltimore Convention Center, which is located immediately across the street from the historic Camden Yards sports complex (which includes Oriole Park and Geppi’s Entertainment Museum).