CCC 2024                  

Friday, March 29

Guests for California Comic Convention 2023


Our Guests for CalComicCon 2023


Val Mayerik  |   Gary Gianni  |  Aaron Lopresti  |  Randy Emberlin  |  Mike Royer  |   Joe Rubinstein   |  John Livesay   |   Matt / Mikey Cossin   |  Scott Shaw   |   Marv Wolfman |   Eric Ninaltowski
                           





   
   
Val Mayerik   Smiley face
  





Val Mayerik
                                        Val was born in Youngstown, Ohio. As a young adult, he worked in steel mills to pay his way through college.
    Under the auspices of Dan Adkins, Val got his first assignment at Marvel Comics: a series featuring the barbarian Thongor.
    From there, he went on to illustrate the classic monster series of the Frankenstein Monster and the Living Mummy and was the co-creator of Howard the Duck. 
    He has worked for almost every major comic book publisher.
    Since the 90's, Val has done most of his work in the advertising industry working on storyboards and the like, which he continues to do. 
     If interested in hiring Val for ad industry work, use the contact form to get in touch.
    Val has recently been inspired to come back to the world of comics, which has seen a new creative renaissance over the last few years.
    Following a successful Kickstarter campaign, he is currently working on Of Dust and Blood, an Original Graphic Novel about Little Big Horn. 
     He is also illustrating an upcoming story in the comic series Angel Punk (part of an upcoming run in Dark Horse Presents).
    Val has more comics work coming up that he can't talk about just yet, but suffice to say, he's happy to be back. 
     Val will be attending a limited number of conventions in the fall and winter of 2022, going into early 2023. 
      If you would like to invite Val to a convention, drop him a line. If you're a fan interested in a commission, do likewise.
    Val also paints western art and is an avid horseman. 
For more info about Val Mayerikn's career: > Val's Web-site




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Gary Gianni    
  





Gary Gianni
              Gary Gianni is an American comics artist best known for his eight years illustrating the syndicated newspaper comic Prince Valiant.
        After Gianni graduated from the Chicago Academy of Fine Arts in 1976, he worked for the Chicago Tribune as an illustrator and network 
        television news as a courtroom sketch artist.
	        He also illustrated numerous magazines, children's books and paperbacks. He made his comic book debut in 1990 with illustrated adaptations
        of The Tales of O. Henry and 20,000 Leagues Under the Sea for the Classics Illustrated series. 
        H    e went on to work for Dark Horse Comics he contributed to Indiana Jones and the Shrine of the Sea Devil and The Shadow.
        He illustrated Wandering Star Press's Savage Tales of Solomon Kane (1998) and Bran Mak Morn: The Last King (2001) by Robert E. Howard.
        After John Cullen Murphy retired from Prince Valiant in 2004, Gianni began drawing the strip, continuing until March 25, 2012, 
        when Thomas Yeates became the strip's illustrator on April 1, 2012.
        On October 6, 2015, the book A Knight of the Seven Kingdoms—a prequel to George R.R. Martin's A Song of Ice and Fire series—was released,
         which included illustrations by Gianni. 
For more info about Gary Gianni's career: > Gary's Facebok page




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Aaron Lopresti    
  





Aaron Lopresti
             Aaron Lopresti's first published work of note was the Malibu Comics title Sludge, in 1993. He has since gone on to illustrate such titles as Marvel's X-Men, 
             Captain Marvel, Planet Hulk and Ms. Marvel and was the artist for DC's Wonder Woman for issues #20-23, 26-30, 32-40, switching shifts with artist Bernard Chang. 
              He drew covers for both Adventure Comics and Superman: Last Stand of New Krypton, as well as interior art for Justice League: Generation Lost. 
              Lopresti was amongst the new creative talent running DC Comics' The New 52 relaunch in 2011, becoming the penciller of the new Justice League International series, 
              working with writer Dan Jurgens.In June 2012 it was announced that Lopresti and writer Christy Marx will be producing a revival of Amethyst, Princess of Gemworld 
               in the Sword of Sorcery title.
              Since that time, Lopresti has written and illustrated the serialized Garbage Man series for DC Comics which appeared in the anthology mini-series' Weird Worlds 
              and My Greatest Adventure and dealt with the adventures of a young corporate lawyer turned toxic muck monster who, according to Lopresti, was created because 
              "the DCU needed a monster/hero character to replace Swamp Thing which at the time was being held captive by Vertigo". 
               That project was followed by work on Detective Comics and Legends of the Dark Knight. 
              In 2015-2016, Lopresti wrote and illustrated his first creator-owned project, Power Cubed, published by Dark Horse Comics and wrote and 
              illustrated the revamped Metamorpho series for DC Comics. 
For more info about Aaron Lopresti's career: > Aaron Lopresti Web-site




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Randy Emberlin    
  





Randy Emberlin
            Randy Emberlin is a comic book artist/inker and animator who has
            spent the past 30 years working in a variety of creative fields. Whether as a comic book artist, 
            an illustrator of educational books or an animator on over 50 television commercials, he has made his presence felt through 
            his style and sensibilities. 

            Over the last 25 years Randy Emberlin is best known for his work as an inker on over 4000 pages of comic art, 
            with a resume that includes long runs for Marvel on Amazing Spider-Man #339- 410, (Co-Creator of Carnage, Maximum Carnage etc.) 
            Web of Spider-Man #117-129, (the Clone Saga), GI Joe #65-126, (5 years) Doctor Strange/Strange Tales #76-81 & #1-19, (3years) 
            and Alien Legion #8-20 (2 years), plus additional work on the X-men, Avengers, Punisher, Silver Surfer, She Hulk, the Defenders, 
            Quicksilver, Captain America and Conan.  For Dark Horse he had long runs on Ghost #12-36, Star Wars: Crimson Empire II #1-6, 
            Aliens and Predator, plus the R.I.P.D. graphic novel the movie is based on!  For DC comics: Batman; “Legends of the Dark Knight” 
            and “Shadow of the Bat”.  
            Randy has worked with a wide range of pencilers and has many distinctive styles that fans are well acquainted with. 

            In July each year, Randy and his wife Judy also host 3 weeks of Summer Comic Book Art Camps for students, supported by Marvel, DC, 
            Dark Horse, and Archie Comics, for ages 10-18 in their hometown of Portland, Oregon. 

            Randy is more than happy to sign books or send autographs. Please Contact him by email. Thanks! 
For more info about Randy Emberlin's career: > Randy Emberlin's Web-site




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Mike Royer













	                    Mike was drawn to Southern California, spring 1965, by the lure of a career in Comic Art, 
                    Mike 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 (at the end of their working relationship Mike 
                    lettered and inked the last 6 months of Russ’s TARZAN syndicated Sunday strip and the first 4 months 
                    of the daily and Sunday syndicated STAR WARS, late 1970s) and then inking and pencilling for Western Publishing 
                    (Gold Key).
	                    Mike inked such West Coast talents as Sparky Moore, Mike Arens, Paul Norris, and Doug Wildley.
                     His drawing asignments were on TARZAN, SPACE GHOST, coloring books, puzzles, etc. for Western and doing 
                     layout on network animation series like SPIDERMAN. At Gold Key he wrote/adapted and drew SPEED BUGGY, 
                     BUTCH CASSIDY AND THE SUNDANCE KIDS, TARZAN, MAGNUS, and designed and executed covers for Hanna-Barbera
                    TV ADVENTURE HEROES, etc. Mike contributed to James Warren’s CREEPY, EERIE, and VAMPERELLA 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, Mike inked artists Don Heck, Steve Ditko, Ramona Fraden and others, but during this period 
                    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 themepark 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.
	                    June 1993 Mike left his staff position to spend the next 7 years full time free lancing for The Disney Store’s 
                    creative group, becoming their “Main POOH Man” and creating 3-D products utilizing Disney characters. 
                    Since Spring 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 work books, 
                    RESCUE HEROES toy packaging, etc.










         

Mike's Bio web-site




John Livesay
                            










	                    John Livesay was born in Detroit Michigan and has been a professional comic book artist for the last 28 years. 
                          He has worked for just about every comic publisher out there, including Marvel, DC, Image, IDW, and Valiant. 
                          He’s also worked on some of the most popular and classic characters in the history of the medium, such as 
                          Spider-Man, The Avengers, X-Men, Batman, and The Flash. 
                          John lives in Southern California with his wife, Felicia, and daughter, Olivia. 
                          He’s a huge collector of comics and comic art and has long run out of places to store all his long boxes.

         

        

John's Instagram

        
        






Matt Cossin
Mikey Cossin

                            










	                    Matt Cossin was born in Detroit, Michigan. He is an American artist, colorist and writer. 
                        He has worked for Devil's Due Publishing on G.I. Joe, Boom! Studios on Zombie Tales and 
                        Hunter's Fortune, and Humanoids on Flywires. He works with his brother Mikey, also a 
                        comic artist, under the name Cossin Bros, with whom he self-published the comics, 
                        Weirdos volumes 1 and 2, in 1995.
                        Matt  splits his time between comics and film, driven by his true love, storytelling.
                        When Matt is not drawing, he is most likely sitting in the darkly lit room,
                        writing screenplays. .

	                  About Mikey
                        I like talking to straight talking , nice people.
                        I like creating stories, comic, and building things.
                          Mikey is a passionately ,prolific character designer 
                        and loves creating sequential images in black and white
                        but currently he makes his way as a Comic Book Colorist, 
                        known for his Deadline Marksmanship.   
                        Favorite quotes
                        "...The world don't meet no one half way.".

      King Maker's Web-site

      Mikey's interview



         

        

Matt's Twitter

        
        



Joe Rubinstein
                            










	                   Josef “Joe” Rubinstein started his artist career in the early 1970s as a teenager. 
                        Primarily working as an inker, his artwork has been published by every major U.S. 
                        comics publishers including Marvel Comics , DC Comics and Dark Horse Comics .
                        One of his most important works has been inking The Official Handbook of the Marvel 
                        Universe over a span of twenty years for which he holds a Guinness World Record of inking 
                        more pencilers than any other inker.
                        Among his extensive inking credits (which include more than 2,500 comic books), were 
                        work with Michael Golden on Micronauts , Jim Starlin ‘s Warlock ,Frank Miller’s 
                        original Wolverine min-series that was the bases for the last WOLVDRINE movie  and 
                        Aquaman with Don Newton . Later assignments included a mini-series for Dark Horse Comics 
                        called Archenemies , and co-inked issues of DC Comics ‘s Ion mini-series. 
                        You can see more of his work at https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Josef_Rubinstein
                        He currently inks projects for DC Comics,Marvel comics and Kingstone Publishing.  

         

                             



Scott Shaw!
                            










	                   For over fifty years, Scott Shaw! has written and drawn underground comix 
                        (Fear and Laughter, Gory Stories Quarterly), mainstream comic books 
                        (Captain Carrot and his Amazing Zoo Crew!, Sonic the Hedgehog, Simpsons Comics), 
                        children’s books (Marooned Lagoon, Marooned Lagoon, Too!, and the upcoming 
                        Marooned Lagoon: Where Is My Pretty Thing?), syndicated comic strips 
                        (Bugs Bunny, Woodsy Owl), graphic novels (Shrek, Annoying Orange), 
                        TV cartoons (Jim Henson’s Muppet Babies, The Completely Mental Misadventures 
                        of Ed Grimley, Camp Candy), toys (McFarlane Toys’ line of Hanna-Barbera and 
                        Simpsons action figures), trading cards (Garbage Pail Kids, Oddball Comics), 
                        video games (also GPK), advertising (Pebbles Cereal commercials, print ads 
                        and premiums featuring the Flintstones), T-shirts (MeTV's Svengoolie, San Diego Comic Fest) 
                        and music package art (The Monkees’ A Barrel Full of Monkees and Just Us, 
                        Staring at the Sun, Spice Train). Scott recently produced. wrote, designed and 
                        storyboarded a Marooned Lagoon promotional animated short. He's finishing 
                        the first story in his Aces Weekly online series, Kilgore Home Nursing, 
                        as well wrapping up his long-awaited Oddball Comics book from TwoMorrows and 
                        launching a new line of original T-shirts. 
                        Scott also continues to write an ongoing bimonthly column for Retrofan magazine, 
                        including an in-depth interview with his friend Sergio Aragonés. Scott's work 
                        has garnered him four Emmy Awards, an Eisner Award, and a Humanitas Award. 
                        He's known for his presentations of “the craziest comic books ever published”, 
                        Oddball Comics Live! and his regular participation in Quick Draw! with 
                        Mark Evanier and Sergio Aragonés. 
                        Scott was also one of co-originators who created what is currently known 
                        as Comic-Con International.
                          Scott's Web-site 
                       

         

                             



Marv Wolfman
                            










                        Marv Wolfman is a multi-award winning writer of comic books, animation, 
                        videogames, theme park shows and rides, children’s books, novels, television, 
                        internet animation and much more. He has also created more characters that have 
                        gone onto TV, toys, games and film than anyone since Stan Lee. 
                        Among Marv’s creations are:  Blade, Black Cat, Terrax, Bullseye, Nova, Nightwing, 
                        Starfire, Raven, Cyborg, Deathstroke and dozens of others. The New Teen Titans, 
                        written by Marv and drawn by George Pérez, was DC’s best selling comic for more 
                        than a decade and the mini-series, Crisis On Infinite Earths, revamped the entire 
                        DC Comics line and created the concept of company-wide crossovers.
                        Marv was also editor-in-chief of Marvel, senior editor at DC Comics and founding 
                        Editor of Disney Adventures magazine. 
                        Beyond comics, Marv has also been novels and videogames. His novelization of the movie 
                        “Superman Returns” won the industry’s Scribe Award, and his 2012 script for Epic Mickey-2, 
                        for Disney Interactive, was nominated for a Writer’s Guild of America Award.
                          Marv's Web-site 
                       

         

                             



Eric Ninaltowski
                            










                        Eric has been a published professional for 15 years, working on indie-comics, graphic novels, 
                        sketch cards, and sketch covers at various Con around the country. 
                        Works of note include illustrating the comic book intro to Disney XD’s Mighty Med Tv show; 
                        background inks on The MEG comic adaptation; 2 issues of Rooted Chronicles Samson adaptation; 
                        Pencils on Ossm Comics, 3 issue Monomyth series; Numerous Sketch Cards for Upper Deck’s Marvel 
                        series, as well as Rittenhouse and Cryptozoic sets. 
                        Eric is currently producing his own comic called Shadow Sentry-- an X-Men meets the Matrix 
                        superhero team book with a Supernatural twist! Eric is also known for his magnificently detailed 
                        sketch cover commissions, and is always available for your custom commissions at the show! 
                        See you there!!.
Eric's Web-site

         

        

Eric's Instagram

        
        



California Comic Convention

in Orange County

at the Hotel FERA, a DoubleTree by Hilton,

100 The City Dr N, Orange, CA 92868

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