Small Press Expo has announced the first batch of Special Guests for SPX 2025. The show takes place on Saturday, September 13, and Sunday, September 14, with programming and workshops about the amazing world of independent comics as well as an exhibitor floor featuring over 500 creators.

Additional Special Guests will be announced over the next few weeks.

SPX 2025 has announced the following creators as Special Guests to this year’s show:

Tom Gauld

What happens to a cat who goes through a wormhole?

Tom Gauld returns with Physics for Cats, his second collection of science-based cartoons for the New Scientist. Find out why every scientist worth their sodium chloride has a Tom Gauld cartoon taped to their electron microscope. This new batch of hilarious gags will be as important to every self-respecting scientist as a lab coat and goggles and oversize rubber gloves.

Gigi Murakami

Gigi Murakami will be present at SPX all weekend, signing her Ignatz-nominated supernatural horror manga RESENTER, her self-published horror anthology zine, Midnight Bites, and Abrams-published Are You Afraid of the Dark? Sinister Sisters horror anthology.

Paul Karasik

In 1994, Paul Auster’s City of Glass was adapted into a graphic novel and became an immediate cult classic.

In his SPX talk, Special Guest Paul Karasik will outline the journey in adapting Auster’s complete “New York Trilogy” with the aid of master cartoonists, David Mazzucchielli (“Asterio Polyp”) and Lorenzo Mattotti (New Yorker cover artist). Hidden secrets and comics Easter eggs will be revealed.

The Guardian has called the 3-in-1 graphic novel, “…a stone cold masterpiece.”

Kayla E

Eisner-nominated artist Kayla E is a Special Guest at SPX! She’ll be signing her bestselling graphic memoir, Precious Rubbish. Although it’s her debut book, it’s been garnering a remarkable amount of praise, with everyone from The New York Times (“Precious Rubbish is a scream as precisely pitched as a middle C from a tuning fork”) to The New Yorker (“Her wry portrait reveals a fresh eye, at once vulnerable and undaunted.”) to Publishers Weekly (“This four-color atomic bomb of a comic signals the arrival of a formidable talent.”) designating Kayla as an artist to watch!

Dean Haspiel

In Spring of 2023, Dean Haspiel launched a self-publishing concern focusing on a series of crowdfunded “Deep Cuts“ from his pantheon of creator-owned characters, featuring COVID COP, BILLY DOGMA + JANE LEGIT, THE RED HOOK, and CHEST FACE. Dino continues to grow his heartfelt roster of dumb luck nobodies, exploring hybrids of action comix and speculative memoir.