The Baltimore Comic-Con returns to the Inner Harbor’s Baltimore Convention Center on October 18-20, 2019. The Baltimore Comic-Con is excited to announce the additions of comics luminaries Howard Mackie, Ron Marz, Bob McLeod, David Michelinie, Jerry Ordway, Mike Royer, Bob Schreck, and Bob Wiacek to the 2019 event. Tickets are available now.

Howard Mackie first gained attention as a writer in 1990, launching a new Ghost Rider title for Marvel, co-creating Danny Ketch as the new host of the Ghost Rider. He wrote Ghost Rider / Wolverine / Punisher: Hearts of Darkness and Ghost Rider / Wolverine / Punisher: The Dark Design, and took over writing duties on Web of Spider-Man. He would remain on various Spider-Man titles through the Clone Saga. In January 1999, Mackie became writer on relaunches of Amazing Spider-Man and Peter Parker: Spider-Manseries. Mackie wrote for the X-Men line, including X-Factor and Mutant X. He also wrote several mini-series featuring Gambit, Wolverine, and Rogue. Mackie co-wrote the six-issue Spider-Man: Clone Saga miniseries, based on Mackie’s original notes for the 1990s crossover. At DC Comics, Mackie wrote The Ravagers as part of the “Second Wave” of The New 52. Of late, you can find Howard working for Zenescope Entertainment, writing titles such as Grimm Tales of Terror, Jasmine: Crown of Kings, and Robyn Hood: Outlaw.

Ron Marz has been writing comics for more than two decades, starting his career with a lengthy run on Silver Surfer for Marvel. Since then, he has worked for virtually every major publisher and compiled a long list of credits, including stints on Green Lantern for DC, Star Wars and Conan for Dark Horse, Witchblade for Top Cow, and as a staff writer for CrossGen Comics. Among Marz’s recent work is the rejuvenation of the Top Cow publishing line, including his historic run on Witchblade and the launch of the acclaimed event series Artifacts. He also currently writes the Skylanders series for IDW, John Carter: Warlord of Mars for Dynamite Entertainment, and The Protectors from Athlitacomics, working with NFL player Israel Idonije to develop and launch the concept. 

Marz’s creator-owned series include the all-ages tale Dragon Prince at Top Cow, the historical adventure Samurai: Heaven and Earth, the science-fiction story Pantheon Cityat Dark Horse, and the vampire tale Shinku at Image. Marz and acclaimed artist Stjepan Sejic also have teamed for Ravine, a series of creator-owned fantasy graphic novels from Top Cow/Image. In addition to his comics credits, Marz has worked in the video-game industry on a number of Activison titles, including the Skylanders franchise, and writes a regular column for Comic Book Resources, the #1 comics-related website.

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 penciled 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 web site is www.bobmcleod.com

David Michelinie (appearing Saturday and Sunday only, courtesy of The Living Corpse) has been a professional writer for over 45 years. He has written more than 600 comic book stories (Iron Man, Amazing Spider-Man, Avengers, etc.) in which he created or co-created numerous characters (Venom, James “Rhodey” Rhodes, Scott Lang) that have been featured in major motion pictures. 

His comic book efforts have spanned genres from westerns to war to horror to super-hero. In addition to comics work, David has published two novels, has had short stories published in anthologies (Werewolves: Dark Moon Rising) and periodicals (Spider-Man Magazine), and has written scripts for the Nicktoons animated series, Iron Man Armored Adventures. His comic book biography of Mother Teresa won the Catholic Book Award for Best Children’s Book, and his work on the acclaimed Iron Man “Demon In A Bottle” saga was awarded a Certificate Of Merit from a prestigious anti-alcoholism foundation. His most recent work has been in the field of independent comics, and includes The Living Corpse: The Hexx Files.

After an initial foray into fanzines, Jerry Ordway found work at DC Comics as a result of a talent search at the 1980 Chicago Comicon, starting on anthology titles such as Mystery in Space and Weird War Tales. An artist in his own right, he is renowned for his inking work at DC Comics, including the industry-changing Crisis on Infinite Earths, Zero Hour: Crisis in Time, and Countdown, as well as runs on Superman, Wonder Woman, and JLA, as well as writing and painting The Power of Shazam! OGN and writing the monthly series that followed.

Drawn to Southern California, spring 1965, by the lure of a career in Comic Art, Mike Royer spent his first 14 years in comic books, comic strips, and TV animation. Beginning as Russ Manning’s assistant on Magnus, Robot Fighter and Tarzan comic books and then inking and penciling for Western Publishing (Gold Key). His drawing assignments were on Tarzan, Space Ghost, coloring books, puzzles, and more for Western, and doing layout on network animation series like Spider-Man. At Gold Key, he wrote/adapted and drew Speed Buggy, Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kids, Tarzan, and Magnus, and designed and executed covers for Hanna-Barbera TV Adventure Heroes, etc. Mike contributed to James Warren’s Creepy, Eerie, and Vampirella magazines, and began drawing the comic panel Crusin’ record album covers (over 2 dozen to date), many of which he’s scripted. For East Coast firms, he is best known to comic fans for his decade as letterer/inker for legendary Jack Kirby at National and then Marvel. From late spring 1979, Mike spent the next 14 years on staff with the Walt Disney Company in the creative department of their Consumer Product/Licensing division, addressing the areas of book publishing, comic books and strips, and all forms of theme park and licensed merchandise as a character artist/product designer, performing as idea man, concept and final line artist, and sometime inker. At Disney, Mike designed and art directed the Dick Tracy and 3-D Rocketeer comic book Music Company read-alongs. He created the “new look” that launched the massive Winnie the Pooh licensing program in late 1993. Featured in a 43-minute video (How To Draw Pooh) sent to over 40 licensees, Mike takes no small amount of pride in the fact that Pooh soon (and still) outsold Mickey Mouse worldwide. In June 1993, Mike left his staff position to spend the next 7 years full-time freelancing for The Disney Store’s creative group, becoming their “Main Pooh Man” and creating 3-D products utilizing Disney characters. Since the spring of 2000, Mike has functioned as an Art service, doing pencil work on a wide variety of projects, including creating character Orthographic Turns and environment “floor plans” for computer game animators, Digimon products, on-screen icons for Fox Family Channel and Fox Kids Network, Reader Rabbit workbooks, Rescue Heroes toy packaging, and more. Spring 2001 found Mike and Laurie, his lovely wife and concept collaborator, returning to his birth state, Oregon, settling in Medford, and in the process returned to his career roots. And in the last few years, he’s found time to ink such luminaries as Steve Rude and Eric Larsen, to name a couple. Mike continues to create Disney character art for limited edition collector pin sets and does “recreations”. He strongly believes that his passion, attention to detail and accuracy, and his commitment to integrity will keep him at the board for a long time to come.

Bob Schreck is an award-winning editor who has worked in comics since 1975. His publishing career began at Comico in 1985. By 1991, he joined Dark Horse and was the editor of creator-owned titles and the Legend line, where he shepherded Frank Miller’s Sin City and Dark Horse Presents, among many others. In 1997, along with Joe Nozemack, he launched Oni Press, best known for Kevin Smith’s Clerks comics. 

In 1999, Schreck joined DC Comics, becoming Group Editor of the Batman franchise. He shepherded projects including DK2, Batman: Hush, Sweet Tooth, Batman: Year 100, Daytripper, and Green Arrow. After working briefly at IDW, he landed at Legendary Films as Senior VP-Editor-in-Chief. He has served as the editor for such talents as Neil Gaiman, Harlan Ellison, Bernie Wrightson, Fiona Staples, Frank Miller, Jeff Lemire, Guillermo del Toro, Lynn Varley, Paul Pope, Len Wein, Amy Reeder, Dave Gibbons, Scott Morse, Grant Morrison, and many others. Currently, Schreck is semi-retired, doing freelance editing and consulting and living in Oregon with his husband, Randy, and their dog, Bandit.

Bob Wiacek has worked with many great talents such as Stan Lee, Steve Ditko, Gene Colan, John and Sal Buscema, Walter Simonson, Frank Miller, Barry Windsor-Smith, George Perez, Jerry Ordway, Paul Smith, Dave Cockrum, John Byrne, Don Heck, Ron Garney, June Brigman, Colleen Doran, plus many others. He has inked Mike Grell on The Legion of Super Heroes #220 and Al Milgrom on Marvel Presents #7-The Guardians of the Galaxy for Marvel. From that time on, he has inked every major title for Marvel, including The X-Men, Spider-Man, Thor, Iron Man, Captain America, Hulk, She-Hulk, Man-Thing, Star Wars, Silver Surfer, and Fantastic Four just to name a few. At DC, he worked on Superman, Batman, Green Lantern, Brave and the Bold, The Ray, Batman Family, Justice Society, Shazam, and Challengers of the Unknown, which is a small sampling as well.

As far as independent publishers, he did work for Dark Horse, Image, Relium Media, Archie, and Valiant, where he worked on Archer and Armstrong, Bloodshot, and Solar. He has inked noteworthy issues in titles including Uncanny X-Men, X-Factor, Star Wars, Iron Man, Batman, and Bloodshot. On the Iron Man 2020 project, he co-plotted with Walter Simonson and penciled and inked the book (with an able assist from Will Rosado). Of late, Wiacek has helped out inking All New Wolverine and a JLA General Mills comic, which was available in different cereal boxes. He has also inked Badger #1 for First Comics, Stars End #2 from Insane Comics, pencilled and inked the cover to ZaZa the Mystic, and will be working on an Indie project soon with Ron Wilson and Arvell Jones. Outside of comics, he starred in a commercial with rap group G-Unit in 2003, and has a small part in the independent film Manos: The Rise of Torgo, for which he did the poster.

---

In addition to on-site CGC grading, this year’s confirmed guests for the show include: Neal Adams (Detective Comics), Arantza (fantasy artist), Art Way Alliance, Brian Azzarello (Batman: Damned), Marty Baumann (Disney/Pixar), Carolyn Belefski (Curls), Ziggy Blumenthal (Operation Pajama Pants), Harold Buchholz (MST3K), Mark Buckingham (Justice League Dark), Cullen Bunn (Harrow County, courtesy of AfterShock Comics), Greg Burnham (Tuskegee Heirs), Jim Calafiore (The Mike Wieringo Tellos Tribute), Joe Carabeo (The Legettes), Richard Case (Doom Patrol), Christa Cassano (Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez and the Freshman Force), Castillo Studios, Jacob Chabot (Ziggy Pig – Silly Seal Comics), Howard Chaykin (Hey Kids! Comics!), Frank Cho (Harley Quinn), Amy Chu (KISS: The End), Matthew oClark (Injustice: Ground Zero), Steve Conley (The Middle Age), Steve Conte (Action Figure Kingdom), Katie Cook (My Little Pony: Friendship is Magic), Jamie Cosley (Star Wars Insider), Kristina Deak-Linsner (Vampirella: Roses for the Dead), The Deans Family (La Moo Du Chocolat: A Shakes Adventure), Steve Ellis (The Only Living Girl), Tod Emko and Piggy (A Piggy’s Tale), Garth Ennis (The Boys, Friday and Saturday only), Rob Feldman (Cyko KO), Chris Flick (Capes & Babes), LJ and Kayla Fowlkes (The Adventures of CHIBIWONGTONG), Shea Fontana (DC SuperHero Girls), Ramona Fradon (The Mike Wieringo Tellos Tribute), Franco (Superman of Smallville), Julie Fujii Sakai (Usagi Yojimbo: The Hidden), John Gallagher (Max Meow), David Gallaher (The Only Living Girl), SL Gallant (Magic: The Gathering: Chandra – Tales of Alara), Jose Luis Garcia-Lopez (DC Nation), Mitch Gerads (Mr. Miracle), Gerhard (Cerberus the Aardvark), Chris Giarrusso (Hashtag: Danger), Jimmy Gownley (Disney Zootopia: School Days), Garth Graham (Star Power), John Patrick Green (Kim Possible Adventures), Dawn Griffin (Zorphbert & Fred), Juanjo Guarnido (Blacksad),  Laura Lee Gulledge (Will & Whit), Bob Hall (West Coast Avengers), Cully Hamner (Batman Beyond), N. Steven Harris (Michael Cray), Dean Haspiel (Bloodshot Rising Spirit), Greg Hildebrandt (Old Man Logan), Javon and Tarik Holmes (The Adventuers of Waffle Boy), Adam Hughes (Superman), Jamal Igle (Wrong Earth), Klaus Janson (New Challengers), Justin Jordan (Reaver), Kata Kane (G.F.F.s Ghost Friends Forever), Chris Kemple (The Mike Wieringo Tellos Tribute), Matt Kindt (X-O Manowar), Sharlene Kindt (Dept. H), Tom King (Batman), Greg Land (Hulkverines, courtesy of Hero Initiative), Jim Lee (Batman: Hush, Saturday only), Jeff Lemire (Black Hammer), Joseph Michael Linsner (Red Sonja), Howard Mackie (Ghost Rider), Mike Manley (Mystery Science Theater 3000: The Comic), Chris Mariano (Claire Lost Her Bear at the World’s Fair), Mark Mariano (Puddleton Farm: Ewing! What Are You Doing?), Ron Marz (Turok), Xavier McLaren (The Bubbler), John McCrea (Hitman, courtesy of Hero Initiative), Bob McLeod (New Mutants), Carla Speed McNeil (Twisted Romance), Pop Mhan (Raven, Daughter of Darkness), David Michelinie (Amazing Spider-Man, Saturday and Sunday only, courtesy of The Living Corpse), Edgardo Miranda-Rodriguez (Ricanstruction: Reminiscing & Rebuilding Puerto Rico), Mark Morales (Justice League), Jamar Nicholas (Leon: Protector of the Playground), Kevin Nowlan (Black Widow, courtesy of Hero Initiative), Jerry Ordway (Archie Meets Batman ’66), Rachel Ordway (FTL, Y’all!), Greg Pak (Star Wars), Dan Parent (Archie: The Married Life – 10th Anniversary), Paul Pelletier (Aquaman/Jabberjaw Special), Mike Perkins (Swamp Thing), David Petersen (Mouse Guard), Mark Poulton (Koni Waves), Andy Price (My Little Pony: Friendship is Magic), Livio Ramondelli (Transformers), Ron Randall (Trekker), Tom Raney (Dog Days of Summer), Afua Richardson (Run), Rafer Roberts (Grumble), Don Rosa (The Life and Times of Scrooge McDuck), Craig Rousseau (Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles: Dimension X), Mike Royer (New Gods), Arsia Rozegar (Man Plus), Stan Sakai (Usagi Yojimbo), Stuart Sayger (KISS: The End), Bob Schreck (Batman: Hush), Greg Schigiel (Pix: One Weirdest Weekend), Erica Schultz (Xena: Warrior Princess), Bart Sears (Turok), Jeff Shultz (Archie Jumbo Comics Digest), Bill Sienkiewicz (New Mutants: War Children), Louise Simonson (Death of Superman), Walter Simonson (Ragnarok), Andy Smith (Demi-God), Brian “Smitty” Smith (The Stuff of Legend), John K. Snyder III (Killers), Allison Sohn (The Art of Red Sonja, Volume 2), Charles Soule (Curse Words), Brian Stelfreeze (Rise of the Black Panther), Jim Steranko (Nick Fury, Agent of S.H.I.E.L.D.), Karl Story (Star Wars: Age of Rebellion – Han Solo), William Stout (Fantastic Worlds – The Art of William Stout), Ty Templeton (Marvel Super-Hero Adventures, courtesy of Hero Initiative), Michael Terracciano (Star Power), Billy Tucci (Shi), Gus Vazquez (Big Hero 6), Emilio Velez Jr. (The Dodgeball Teens), Robert Venditti (Hawkman), Doug Wagner (The Hard Place), Mark Waid (Avengers: No Road Home), Adam Wallenta (Punk Taco), Adam Warren (Empowered And Sistah Spooky’s High School Hell), Todd Webb (Mr. Toast Comics), Lee Weeks (Batman), Bob Wiacek (Iron Man), Marcus Williams (Tuskegee Heirs), Javier Cruz Winnik (Puerto Rico Strong), Marv Wolfman (Raven: Daughter of Darkness, courtesy of Hero Initiative), Rich Woodall (Electric Black), John Workman (Riverdale), Kelly Yates (Torchwood), and Thom Zahler (Star Trek: Waypoint Special 2019).