ITHACON has revealed the many guests coming to the convention taking place on April 27th and 28th. They’ve already announced that Shelly Bond will be participating, but there are a number of other industry giants holding panels and manning booths from start to close.
Known to some as “Weezie,” Louise Simonson will be joining ITHACON and speaking on panels such as The Legacy of Superman, alongside other special guest Roger Stern.
Simonson is best known for her work on ”X-Factor”, ”New Mutants”, and ”Superman: The Man of Steel”, as well as ”Steel”. Walt Simonson, Louise’s husband and creator credited for rejuvenating the Thor series, brings to ITHACON his experience working on Marvel Comics like The Mighty Thor and X-Factor —the latter being a joint project with Louise.
Mike Gold is an American comics writer, editor and publisher. He worked as Group Editor and Director of Editorial Development at DC Comics, and co-founded both First Comics, and the National Runaway Switchboard for which he was also the Director of Communications. Gold will be joining Shelly Bond and Tom Peyer on a panel to discuss their time as editors in the industry.
J.G. Hertzler is best-known for playing Chancellor Martok on Star Trek: Deep Space Nine, and Alcalde Ignacio De Soto in Zorro. Hertzler has an incredible amount of industry experience, ranging from guest appearances on numerous TV shows, to lending his voice for video games and film characters, and even audio book recordings for Barsk: The Elephant Graveyard, and its sequel.
Philip Bond originally worked in the British alternative comic scene, first publishing the ‘Atomtan’ series. He’s known for Bond went on to draw for the seminal Deadline magazine, and created a few titles there before having selections of his work featured at DC/Vertigo and ultimately transitioning to work fully in the US, with his wife Shelly Bond.
Roger Stern co-published a popular fanzine publication, Contemporary Pictorial Literature back in the 1970s that led to the formation of Charlton Bullseye magazine. For ten years, he was the senior writer of the Superman titles for DC Comics. Now, he’s known for his writing contributions for radio, television, and the stage —creating scripts for everything from sketch comedy to flash-animation. Stern has written hundreds of stories about such diverse characters as Green Lantern, Supergirl, Starman, the Atom, and the Justice League for DC Comics; and Spider-Man, Captain America, Doctor Strange, the Incredible Hulk, Iron Man, and the Avengers for Marvel.
Also joining the convention is Chris Condon: the writer of ongoing Image Comics series THAT TEXAS BLOOD with artist J acob Phillips, along with its Wild West spinoff, THE ENFIELD GANGMASSACRE that was selected as one of the best comics of 2023 by The Hollywood Reporter, The Comics Journal, CBR, and The Comics Beat. He has also written for DC, Marvel, Z2, AfterShock, Mad Cave and Dark Horse.
Lastly, Emmy and Ringo-award winner Dean Haspiel will also be in attendance this year. Not only did he create Billy Dogma and The Red Hook, he also illustrated for HBO’s Bored To Death, is a Yaddo fellow, a playwright, and helped pioneer personal webcomics. His published work includes writing and drawing for Marvel, DC/Vertigo, Archie, Image, and Webtoon on comics such as The Fox, Spider-Man, The Fantastic Four, X-Men, Deadpool, Superman, Batman ’66, Wonder Woman, and Godzilla.
