Come celebrate the 25th Anniversary of the Baltimore Comic-Con with us on September 20-22, 2024 at the Inner Harbor’s Baltimore Convention Center. The Baltimore Comic-Con is excited to announce comics guests including Rodney Barnes, Keith Champagne, Ron Garney, Bob Hall, Carla Speed McNeil, and Don Rosa as guests for our 25th Anniversary event! Buy your tickets for the show now.
Rodney Barnes is an award-winning writer, producer, and comic book creator whose vibrant and emphatic creative voice has established him as a Hollywood mainstay.
Barnes was most recently an executive producer and writer for HBO’s Winning Time: The Rise of the Lakers Dynasty, which chronicles the professional and personal lives of the 1980s Showtime Lakers during the team’s wild and fast-paced golden years.
Barnes has a number of projects in different stages of development, including writing an adaptation of Chris Leslie-Hynan’s novel Ride Around Shining in development with Jonah Hill’s Strong Baby with LaKeith Stanfield attached to star, writing a miniseries based on the life of golf great Tiger Woods, and writing and executive producing HBO’s Jack Johnson limited series, starring Mahershala Ali.
In addition to TV, Barnes is a veteran comic book creator who earned an Eisner Award nomination for his critically acclaimed graphic novel Killadelphia, which now has a television show in development at Levantine TV. Barnes recently launched his own comic studio and publishing imprint, Zombie Love Studios, a creative space dedicated to storytelling from BIPOC perspectives in unique formats, among which include the graphic novels Blacula—an adaptation of the cult horror classic, Monarch—an apocalyptic sci-fi adventure series following a group of Compton school kids, Nita Hawes’ Nightmare Blog, Elysium Gardens, Johnny Gatlin, and 20° Past Rigor. Barnes has also penned issues for existing series Army of Darkness, James Bond Himeros, Marvel/Lucasfilm’s Lando: Double or Nothing, Lion Forge’s Quincredible, and Marvel’s Falcon and Secret Empire.
Keith Champagne is a veteran writer/artist/inker best known in the comics industry for his decades of work with DC Comics on titles such as JSA, Green Lantern, Superman, and many more. His creator-owned titles include The Mighty (with Peter J. Tomasi) and The Switch: Electricia. Current projects include Stranger Things, Neon Future, and Frank N. Stein: Private Eye. He enjoys Swedish Fish.
Ron Garney, over the course of his established thirty-five year career, has built a large fan following, illustrating some of the industry’s greatest characters, such as The Amazing Spider-Man, Incredible Hulk, Silver Surfer, X-Men, JLA (for DC), Captain America, Ghost Rider, Moon Knight, G.I. Joe, Skaar: Son of the Hulk, Wolverine, Ultimate Captain America, Uncanny X-Force, Thor: God of Thunder, his creator-owned Men of Wrath, Daredevil, Savage Sword of Conan, and is currently working with film legend Keanu Reeves on the comic BRZRKR, which has also been picked up for a live action film and anime series on Netflix. Ron has been nominated twice for the industry’s coveted Eisner Award for Best Artist and Best Serialized Story (Captain America) and an Inkwell nomination for BRZRKR. Ron has also worked in the film industry, notably on I Am Legend (starring Will Smith) as costume illustrator and did illustrating for Marvel’s Netflix series, Daredevil. He is also a songwriter and musician, a Brazilian Jiu Jitsu blackbelt and instructor, and resides in Connecticut with his wife and four children. You can reach Ron on Instagram @rongarneyart or @RonGarney on Twitter.
Bob Hall had a long association with Marvel Comics, where at one time or another he drew most of the major books and characters such as The Champions, Spider-Man, Dr. Doom, Conan, Thor, The Fantastic Four, The Submariner, Captain America, PSI Force, The Avengers, and The New Mutants. He was the artist for the West Coast Avengers mini-series and was the primary artist on the original Squadron Supreme. He drew movie adaptations of Willow, Dark Man, and the notorious first Captain America movie, as well as pencils and inks for the graphic novel, Emperor Doom. Bob was an editor at Marvel in 1979. For Valiant, he wrote and penciled the monthly series Shadowman, wrote Timewalker, and then created Armed and Dangerous, a black and white “comicbook-noir” series. For DC, he wrote and drew the Batman graphic novel projects Batman DOA, I Joker, and It’s Jokertime. Recently, he has been creating educational comics that have tackled measles, mosquitoes, COVID-19, and vaccine hesitancy. Bob is a member of the National Cartoonists Society, Actors Equity Association, and the Society for Directors and Choreographers. His work can be seen at www.bobhall.com. Commissions and original art are available through www.catskillcomics.com. He can be messaged on Facebook.
Carla Speed McNeil is the author and artist of Finder. She started working in comics in 1997 and hasn’t stopped since. She has also worked on a variety of projects like providing art for Queen & Country: Operation: Stormfront from Oni Press, adapted and drew Pendragon: The Merchant of Death (based on the prose book by D. J. MacHale) for Simon & Schuster, and drawn fan-favorite Frank Ironwine for Apparat/Avatar, as well as two pages of Transmetropolitan for DC/Vertigo, both by Warren Ellis. Bad Houses was released in 2013 by Dark Horse Comics, after which she began a long series of collaborations with writer Alex De Campi, including Ashes, My Little Pony (IDW), and No Mercy (Image) beginning April 2015. Other smaller projects have included drawing Legends of Red Sonja (Dynamite), the short story “Here. In My Head” (with writer Elizabeth Genco) for Comic Book Tattoo from Image, and shorts in notable anthologies such as The Sleep of Reason and Cautionary Fairy Tales of Africa. She has won an Eisner Award, Ignatz Awards, the Kim Yale New Talent Award from Friends Of Lulu, the L.A. Times Book Prize for graphic novel in 2012, and three Stumptown Comic Arts Awards.
Finder, the science fiction series Carla Speed McNeil started in 1996, was “born” in Maryland, and so were her two kids and three cats. She and her husband were born and raised in Louisiana, but we’ve lived here longer than we ever lived there, which is a funny thought sometimes. She teaches comics at MICA in Baltimore, and her COVID hobby-session is making teeny tiny doors.
Well known in American comics fandom since the 1960s for his vast comic book collection and comics fanzine activities, Don Rosa became internationally famous starting in 1987 when he began writing and drawing Uncle $crooge and Donald Duck comics for various licensed publishers in Europe. Just as they once were in America, Donald Duck comics (based on Carl Barks’ work) continue to be the best selling comics in Europe and South America where the weekly (!) Donald Duck comics have been read by hundreds of millions of fans for over 70 years. This makes Rosa one of the world’s best known cartoonists, but still very easy to visit with at American shows where he can relax in “relative obscurity”. American comics fans are mostly familiar with his most famous work, the Eisner Award winning Life and Times of $crooge McDuck series. But American fans can also now see his entire Duck comics career reprinted chronologically in the new Don Rosa Library from Fantagraphics. Rosa has quit producing new Duck comics due to several reasons, but he stays very busy with signing tours to Europe, visits to American comic cons, and his many hobbies including growing exotic chiles, of which he is even now probably giving away bags in the convention hall.
“We are so happy to welcome these amazing talents to our 25th anniversary event,” said Marc Nathan, show promoter for the Baltimore Comic-Con. “We bring in guests that our attendees want to meet, and these creators have worked on some of the biggest comics over the course of their respective careers. Their fans are going to be thrilled!”
Tickets currently available include:
- VIP*
- Weekend Pass
- Friday only
- Saturday only
- Sunday only
As always, children 10 and under are free with a paid adult admission!
This year’s confirmed guests for the show include: Rodney Barnes (Killadelphia), Marty Baumann (Pixar artist), John Beatty (Marvel Super Heroes: Secret Wars), Brett Breeding (Superman), Mark Buckingham (Fables), Jim Calafiore (NED, Lord of the Pit), John Cassaday (X-Force), Keith Champagne (Stranger Things), Howard Chaykin (Time Squared), Frank Cho (Harley Quinn), Michael Cho (Star Wars: Hyperspace Stories–Qui-Gon Jinn), Amy Chu (KISS: The End), Steve Conley (The Middle Age), Katie Cook (Nothing Special), Todd Dezago (The Perhapanauts), Chris Eliopoulos (Ordinary People Change the World), Steve Epting (New Avengers), Jose Luis Garcia-Lopez (DC Nation), Ron Garney (BZRKR), Bob Hall (West Coast Avengers), Greg Hildebrandt (Star Wars), Jamal Igle (Superman), Barry Kitson (Amazing Spider-Man), Jim Lee (Superman), Sam Maggs (Marvel Action: Captain Marvel), Shawn Martinbrough (Red Hood: The Hill), Bob McLeod (New Mutants), Carla Speed McNeil (Finder), Al Milgrom (Spectacular Spider-Man), Terry Moore (Strangers in Paradise), Jerome Opena (Uncanny X-Force), Dan Parent (Sabrina the Teenage Witch), Andrew Pepoy (Simone & Ajax), Andy Price (My Little Pony: Friendship is Magic), Tom Raney (Green Lantern), Afua Richardson (Omni), Don Rosa (Uncle $crooge), Craig Rousseau (The Perhapanauts), Alex Saviuk (Web of Spider-Man), Liam Sharp (X-O Manowar Unconquered), Don Simpson (Megaton Man), Louise Simonson (The Death of Superman 30th Anniversary Special), Walter Simonson (Thor), John K. Snyder III (Suicide Squad), Mark Sparacio (Omega Paradox), Joe Staton (Dick Tracy), Brian Stelfreeze (Black Panther), Babs Tarr (Batgirl of Burnside), Matt Wieringo (Stargate Atlantis: Gateways), and Marv Wolfman (What If…? Dark: Tomb of Dracula), Leinil Francis Yu (Wolverine).
In the coming weeks, look for more announcements from the Baltimore Comic-Con. We are looking forward to highlighting our guests, the Ringo Awards, programming, and more. The latest developments can always be found on our website, Twitter, Instagram, and Facebook pages, and follow us on YouTube, TikTok, BlueSky, and Snapchat.