Comic-Con A to Z
GEOFF JOHNS
TODD KLEIN
JIM LEE
NOEL NEILL
JIM OTTAVIANI
STEVE PURCELL
After working as an assistant to movie director Richard Donner, Geoff Johns broke into comics in 1999 with Stars and S.T.R.I.P.E., and he has since become one of the top authors in the field, writing titles including Teen Titans, The Flash, Hawkman, Infinite Crisis, 52, and many others. He is currently continuing his top-selling runs on Green Lantern, Action Comics, and Justice Society of America, as well as co-writing the historic one-shot DC Universe: Zero. Courtesy DC Comics Todd Klein’s incredible body of work has garnered 14 Eisner Awards and 8 Harveys as Best Letterer. In addition to lettering and logo design for all the major comics companies, his work includes a long-time collaboration with Alan Moore, including lettering and designing the recent League of Extraordinary Gentlemen: The Black Dossier. In 2005, he authored the lettering section in the DC Comics Guide to Coloring and Lettering, and his own website and blog at kleinletters.com, focuses on all aspects of his career, and lettering in general. Acclaimed comic book illustrator Jim Lee was born in Seoul, South Korea in 1964. Today Lee is the creative director of WildStorm Studios (which he founded in 1992) and the penciller for many of DC Comics’ best-selling comics and graphic novels, including All Star Batman and Robin, The Boy Wonder; Batman: Hush; and Superman: For Tomorrow.
Celebrating her 60th anniversary as America’s favorite fictional reporter, Noel Neill is the Lois Lane. Noel first took on the role of Superman’s girlfriend in the 1948 Columbia serial, then revisited the character in the 1950s on the classic Adventures of Superman TV series costarring George Reeves and Jack Larson. Noel’s work includes many other film roles, and a new book on her, Beyond Lois Lane by Larry Thomas Ward, showcases the actress’s incredible career.
Writer/editor Jim Ottaviani makes science fun with his series of “real-life” graphic novels. Ottaviani’s books include Fallout, Dignifying Science, Two-Fisted Science, Suspended in Language, Wire Mothers, Bone Sharps, Cowboys, and Thunder Lizards, and Levitation: Physics and Psychology in the Service of Deception. His work has been nominated for numerous awards, including the Eisner and the Ignatz. Winner of the 2007 Eisner Award for Best Digital Comic, Steve Purcell is best known for creating the characters Sam & Max Freelance Police, the verbose and overzealous dog and rabbit crime-fighting team. Over 20-odd years Sam & Max have appeared in comic books, a LucasArts video game, and an award-winning animated TV series. Sam & Max are currently appearing in an acclaimed episodic game series from Telltale Games. Steve works in story development at Pixar Animation Studios.
40 Comic-Con Magazine • Spring 2008
J. G. JONES
DEAN KOONTZ
RUTU MODAN
FLOYD NORMAN
WENDY PINI
ROBERT J. SAWYER
He brought us 52 weeks of startling covers on DC’s groundbreaking weekly series, 52. J. G. Jones’s comic work extends beyond the world of covers to include Wanted with writer Mark Millar (made into a major motion picture this summer), Wonder Woman: The Hiketeia with writer Greg Rucka, and the eagerly awaited Final Crisis with Grant Morrison, also debuting this summer.
Hailed by Rolling Stone as “America’s most popular suspense novelist,” Dean Koontz has had ten of his novels rise to number one on the New York Times hardcover bestseller list (One Door Away From Heaven, From the Corner of His Eye, Midnight, Cold Fire, The Bad Place, Hideaway, Dragon Tears, Intensity, Sole Survivor, and The Husband), making him one of only a dozen writers ever to have achieved that milestone. This is his first appearance at Comic-Con. Rutu Modan is one of Israel’s best-known cartoonists and is co-founder of the alternative comics collective and publishing house Actus Tragicus. She has received much recognition for her work, including nominations for Eisner, Ignatz, Quill, and Angoulême awards. Her graphic novel Exit Wounds, published by Drawn & Quarterly in 2007, was named “Best Comic of the Year” by Entertainment Weekly and was included on “Best Of” lists from Time, The Washington Post, New York Magazine, and more. Animator Floyd Norman began his career while still in high school assisting Bill Woggon on Katy Keene for Archie Comics. He started working in animation for Disney on Sleeping Beauty, then story sketches on The Jungle Book. In the 1970s, Floyd supervised animation layout at HannaBarbera Productions, then joined Disney Publishing in the early 1980s. Floyd went back to animation to storyboard on The Hunchback of Notre Dame and other features. In 1997, Floyd moved to Pixar, where he joined the story crew for Toy Story 2 and Monsters, Inc. Wendy Pini began her professional career as an illustrator for science fiction magazines such as Galaxy. In 1977, a deeply personal project called Elfquest was born. With husband/publisher/editor Richard, she has scripted, drawn, and painted many Elfquest comic books and graphic novels and also produced numerous calendars, portfolios, and art prints. As of spring 2008— the 30th anniversary year—millions of copies of Elfquest comics, graphic novels, and books have been sold worldwide. Hailed as the “dean of Canadian science fiction writers,” Robert J. Sawyer is a Hugo and Nebula award-winning author. The only writer in history to win the top science fiction awards in the United States, China, France, Japan, and Spain, Sawyer has also won a record-setting nine Canadian Science Fiction and Fantasy Awards (“Auroras”). In 2006, his novel Mindscan won the John W. Campbell Memorial Award (the world’s top juried prize for science fiction) for Best Science Fiction Novel of the Year. His latest is Rollback, published in 2007. Dean Koontz photo by Jerry Bauer.