Don’t be a fool! Come to the Baltimore Comic-Con‘s 25th Anniversary on September 20-22, 2024 at the Inner Harbor’s Baltimore Convention Center. The Baltimore Comic-Con has announced the addition of comics guests Howard Chaykin, Katie Cook, Greg Hildebrandt, Bob McLeod, Joe Staton, and Brian Stelfreeze for the 25th Anniversary event! Get your tickets online now!

Howard Victor Chaykin is a longtime veteran of the comic book business. As a cartoonist — both writing and drawing — he has been a major influence on the direction of comics, referred to frequently as one of the principal architects of the modern comic book. His signature creation, American Flagg!, introduced a new level of narrative complexity, depth of character, and point of view in its text, not to mention a previously unseen level of design and craft to the visual nature of an all-too-frequently staid and timid medium. Chaykin continues to produce work that pushes the envelope of concept, context, and content in comics…in The Divided States of Hysteria for example, a comic book which, thanks to social media, enraged an entire new generation of the willfully ignorant who might have had a better case if they’d actually read the damned book. Chaykin’s new series, Hey Kids! Comics!, is a fictionalized history of the comic book business, a love letter written with just a frisson of acid in the ink, to the field he’s loved and called home for over four decades.

Katie Cook is a cartoonist whose main focus is in comics and children’s books. She is the creator of the comic Nothing Special (online with Webtoon and in print from Ten Speed Graphix!) and Gronk: A Monster’s Story (probably still online? Books available from the stacks of boxes in the dark, scary part of my basement if you go down there yourself). Katie is the illustrator of the Star Wars books ABC-3PO, Search Your Feelings, The Galactic Storybook, and more. She has also written and drawn for My Little Pony, Marvel, Disney, Fraggle Rock, and so many other people. To all these companies, please don’t make me draw a horse again. We all know how that turned out.

The sons of a Chevrolet division chief, Greg Hildebrandt and his identical twin brother, Tim, were born in Detroit, Michigan in 1939. Both boys were avid artists and creative thinkers from a young age and carried their artistic passion with them throughout their childhoods. 

After attending the Meinzinger Art School at age 18, Greg and Tim worked for the Jam Handy Organization and Industrial Film Production Corporation. They worked on animated training films for the auto industry, the military and major US corporations. In 1963, they moved from Detroit to New York City to work for Arch Bishop Fulton J. Sheen. He hired them to create art for his weekly TV show, Life is Worth Living, and to produce films on world hunger.

Eventually their focus moved on to commercial illustration, and in 1975, Greg and Tim illustrated the first of a series of Lord of the Rings calendars for Ballantine Books. This series of paintings launched the two men into international fame, with over a million calendars sold, and the name The Brothers Hildebrandt(R) was born! In 1977, Lucas Films hired the Brothers Hildebrandt to create the movie poster for the first Star Wars film, Star Wars: A New Hope. They only had 36 hours to create and paint the art. The movie was about to break in the theaters. They completed it on time. Lucas was very happy and another worldwide fandom was created.

In 2015, Greg had the opportunity to return to Star Wars after 20 years for Marvel Comics. He painted three new pieces for them for Star Wars compendium covers. He also painted Deadpool, Old Man Logan, Secret Wars, Captain America vs. Hitler, Black Panther, Thor, Thanos, The Inhumans, Conan and Old Man Logan comic covers for them.

In 2015, Greg started a new series titled “The Dark Side”. In this series, he painted his favorite villains in extremely large paintings, focusing mostly on giant head shots. The first three in the series are The Joker, Harley Quinn, and Batman.

In 2018, Greg began a new series titled “What If”. What if he wasn’t a kid in the 40’s and 50’s? What if he was an artist hired to paint the movie posters for the films he has loved since his first movie at age 5? So, he started with Creature from the Black Lagoon. The second painting he completed in this series is a painting for King Kong, 86 inches tall! This one is a killer piece of art. Then, Greg decided to repaint the 1977 Star Wars poster. In 1977, he painted it in 36 hours with his brother Tim. This time, he painted it in 36 hours alone.

Recently, Greg was honored by the Air Force at Dover Air Force Base in Delaware. They requested a license to put one of Greg’s pinup paintings titled, “Keep em Flying”, on the nose of a transport plane. Greg, of course, said yes. This is a dream come true for him.

Bob McLeod is best known for co-creating and illustrating The New Mutants for Marvel Comics. He began his career with Marvel’s Crazy magazine, penciling, and inking movie and TV satires and the Teen Hulk strip. He has pencilled or inked all the major characters for Marvel and DC, including Spider-Man (most notably Kraven’s Last Hunt), The X-Men, Superman, Batman, Wonder Woman, GI Joe, Star Wars, The Hulk, Conan, and many more. Bob also wrote and illustrated a children’s alphabet book, Superhero ABC, published by HarperCollins, which received starred reviews. He edited and wrote articles for Twomorrows’ Rough Stuff magazine and taught art at the Pennsylvania College of Art & Design for many years. He’s currently doing occasional variant covers for Marvel and commissions for his fans, along with occasional freelance jobs and personal projects. His website is www.bobmcleod.com.

Joe Staton has been drawing comics since he started working for Charlton Comics in 1971, where he co-created E-Man and Michael Mauser. Though the bulk of his work has been for DC Comics, at last count, Staton has worked for at least 30 publishers and 100 different editors. Among his many comics credits are Action Comics, Green Lantern, The Legion, Classics Illustrated, and various incarnations of Batman. During his time on Green Lantern, he co-created several GLs, including Kilowog, Arisia, and Salakk. He also designed GL Guy Gardner’s “bad boy” look. More recently, with his writer-wife Hilarie, he produces medical comics such as Pete Learns All About Crohn’s and Colitis and Amy Goes Gluten-Free. In 1998, he received the Eisner Award for his work on World’s Finest: The Superman-Batman Adventures. He penciled over 100 issues of the Cartoon Network’s Scooby Doo comic. He illustrated a graphic novel adaptation of Ayn Rand’s Anthem for NAL and a graphic biography of Ronald Reagan. Since 2011, working with writer Mike Curtis, Joe was the regular artist for the long-running Dick Tracy newspaper strip (available online at www.gocomics.com/dicktracy). Dick Tracy received Harvey Awards in 2013, 2014, and 2015 for Best Syndicated Strip or Feature.

Brian Stelfreeze, one of the original Gaijin Studios members, is a multi-talented artist, with experience and credits penciling, inking, coloring, painting, and even writing. His comic book covers have gained him much attention and lauding, and his run painting covers on DC Comics’ Shadow of the Bat for over 50 issues is noteworthy by itself. Brian’s creative output can be found on BOOM! Studios’ Day Men, Marvel Comics’ Black Panther, and be sure to pick up BOOM! Studios’ The Signature Art of Brian Stelfreeze to get a definitive look at the works of his publishing career.

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This year’s confirmed guests for the show include: Rodney Barnes (Killadelphia), Marty Baumann (Pixar artist), John Beatty (Marvel Super Heroes: Secret Wars), Brett Breeding (Superman), Tom Brevoort (coursey of Hero Initiative, FCBD 2023: Avengers/X-Men), Mark Buckingham (Fables), Jim Calafiore (NED, Lord of the Pit), John Cassaday (X-Force), Keith Champagne (Stranger Things), Howard Chaykin (Time Squared), Frank Cho (Harley Quinn), Michael Cho (Star Wars: Hyperspace Stories–Qui-Gon Jinn), Amy Chu (KISS: The End), Steve Conley (The Middle Age), Katie Cook (Nothing Special), Todd Dezago (The Perhapanauts), Chris Eliopoulos (Ordinary People Change the World), Steve Epting (New Avengers), Trish Forstner (Feral), Franco (Teen Titans Go to the Library), Jose Luis Garcia-Lopez (DC Nation), Ron Garney (BZRKR), Bob Hall (West Coast Avengers), Mike Hawthorne (Deadpool), Greg Hildebrandt (Star Wars), Dan Jurgens (Action Comics), Jamal Igle (Superman), Klaus Janson (courtesy of Hero Initiative, Daredevil), Barry Kitson (Amazing Spider-Man), Jim Lee (Superman), Sam Maggs (Marvel Action: Captain Marvel), Shawn Martinbrough (Red Hood: The Hill), Mike McKone (Red Goblin), Bob McLeod (New Mutants), Carla Speed McNeil (Finder), Adriana Melo (Action Comics), Al Milgrom (Spectacular Spider-Man), Terry Moore (Strangers in Paradise), Fabian Nicieza (courtesy of Hero Initiative, Deadpool), Jerome Opena (Uncanny X-Force), Dan Parent (Sabrina the Teenage Witch), Andrew Pepoy (Simone & Ajax), Khoi Pham (Star Wars: Darth Vader), Andy Price (My Little Pony: Friendship is Magic), Tom Raney (Green Lantern), Afua Richardson (Omni), Don Rosa (Uncle $crooge), Craig Rousseau (The Perhapanauts), Alex Saviuk (Web of Spider-Man), Liam Sharp (X-O Manowar Unconquered), Don Simpson (Megaton Man), Louise Simonson (The Death of Superman 30th Anniversary Special), Walter Simonson (Thor), Matt Slay (Equilibrium), Matt Slay (Equalibrium), John K. Snyder III (Suicide Squad), Mark Sparacio (Omega Paradox), Joe Staton (Dick Tracy), Brian Stelfreeze (Black Panther), Babs Tarr (Batgirl of Burnside), Jeremy Whitley (Navigating With You, courtesy of Mad Cave Studios), Matt Wieringo (Stargate Atlantis: Gateways), Marv Wolfman (What If…? Dark: Tomb of Dracula), Rich Woodall (Electric Black), and Leinil Francis Yu (Wolverine).