Grace Allison was born and raised in Iowa, much like Captain Kirk. She graduated from the Savannah College of Art and Design in 2011, majoring in sequential art. She now lives in Portland with her bratty tabbycat Cleo, and is a member of Periscope Studio. She is currently working on an ongoing series called Wander: Olive Hopkins and the Ninth Kingdom for MonkeyBrain Comics. More information can be found on her website, www.gracifer.com.

A 2006 graduate of the Gobelins Animation school in France, cartoonist Yves Bigerel works primarily as a storyboard artist and 2D animator. Currently, his focus is on comic books and digital comics; his groundbreaking About Digital Comics “manifesto” has influenced a generation of web artists and writers and (says Mark Waid) is required reading for anyone interested in digital storytelling. Currently, Bigerel is at work on a ongoing series, LASTMAN, with Bastien Vivès and Michael Sanlaville, to be published online and print in 2013. Visit Balak’s DeviantArt page and his Turbo Media site.

Christina Blanch is an educator who uses comic books as teaching tools. She has taught on college campuses, for online courses such as the “Gender Through Comic Books” SuperMOOC, and in the correctional system (a.k.a. prison). During her prison tenure, she heard many stories and learned many things most non-criminals would never know. Together, she and Chris Carr, a fellow correctional-facility instructor, concocted their first comic — about prison, of course. Christina lives in Indiana with her two children, one boyfriend, one dog, and two cats.

Chris Carr has taught English composition and literature at three Midwestern universities. He also spent several years teaching inside correctional facilities. This is where he met Christina Blanch, as well as two necrophiliacs, a cannibal, and scores of pimps and murders. He also believes that holding a pipe (not pictured) and looking off into the distance will make him look pensive in photos. Chris lives in a part of rural Indiana that you’ll never visit, with his wife and two daughters.

Chee is a Malaysian-based artist who has drawn comics like George Romero’s Dawn of the Dead, Star Trek II: The Wrath of Khan, Transformers: Bumblebee, G.I. Joe: Cobra, Keith Giffen’s Tag and Steve Niles’ Wake the Dead. He has storyboarded commercials for brands like McDonald’s, KFC, Nestle and MasterChef. You can also find his illustrations in the Malaysian edition of Esquire. Follow his tweets.

Jeremy Colwell lives in the Pacific Northwest with his wife and two sons. Formally trained as a fine arts painter, he enjoys using those skills in his life-long goal of working in comics. His coloring and inking have been printed by many indie and mainstream publishers including DC (as part of Hi-Fi Studio), Dark Horse, IDW, Image, and Zenescope, as well as included in various gallery shows. He is active in the education system, using art, technology, and graphic literature to foster a love of reading and visual exploration in young people. Visit Jeremy’s website.

Geoffo was in the “Best of IGN 2012″ Selection and won the Reader’s Choice Award at the Stumptown Comicfest (Portland) for his work on Vic Boone (215 Ink). He also graduated from an animation school, LISAA, for which he notably directed a short movie called Black Sun. His artistic formation helped him to develop an eclectic style which he will adapt according to the project he is working on. Sometimes it means to animate a triangle and a circle, most of the time things more figurative (hopefully).

With the turbomedia, Geoffo extends once again his graphic range and developw new ways of working and drawing. Visit Geoffo’s website.

Tim spent his formative years working in Animation and Design at WETA, before packing his Wacom pen and convincing a New Zealand government arts funder (Creative New Zealand) to help him launch Moth City. He combines 3D sculpting, animation and graphic design in an attempt to hide his badly drawn feet. He lives on a windswept hill in Wellington with neither pets nor children and is is active on both twitter and facebook.

Storyboards, graphic design, concept paintings, comic book art — Todd Harris has worked on many of the most popular films, games, and commercials of the last decade. His credits include: X Men Origins: Wolverine, God of War II & III, In Time, Halo 4: Forward Unto Dawn, and the upcoming After Earth.

Karl Kesel loves his job far more than he has any right to. Over the past 25 years he has written, inked, and occasionally penciled most of the major comics publishers’ major characters — including Superman, Superboy, Spider-Man, Fantastic Four, and Captain America — although he has an inexplicable fondness for minor, obscure characters no one else remembers except Mark Waid. In fact, it was Waid who gave Karl his first chance to write and draw a complete story, so in a way you can blame Waid for everything Karl’s done since. In 2011 Karl launched madgeniuscomics.com to showcase his creator-owned ideas, starting with Johnny Zombie Christmas. Karl has always loved zombies and plans to produce a new Johnny Zombie story every Halloween until he dies. And maybe a little after. Karl lives in Portland, Oregon with his amazing wife Myrna and their joyful son Isaac. He really can’t complain about much.

Peter Krause, artist of the Eisner Award-nominated IRREDEEMABLE, comes to the drawing board with over twenty years of experience as a comics illustrator. Some of his past credits include POWER OF SHAZAM! and METROPOLIS: SPECIAL CRIMES UNIT for DC Comics. Peter has also worked as a storyboard artist for the past fifteen years. A graduate of the University of Minnesota, Peter lives in Minneapolis with his wife Lisa and their three sons Timothy, David and Nicholas. Visit Pete’s website.

Jonathan Larsen is a journalist and TV news producer. He has worked as a writer/producer on ABC’s “World News Now,” CNN’s “Anderson Cooper 360,” MSNBC’s “Countdown with Keith Olbermann” and “The Daily Show with Jon Stewart.” At MSNBC he led the creation and launch of “Up w/ Chris Hayes” and continues to serve as executive producer of “Up w/ Steve Kornacki.” He also helped launch Air America Radio as executive producer of “Morning Sedition.” His previous comics work includes JG Jones’s series, “Rant,” and two Batman stories for DC’s “Legends of the Dark Knight.” Jonathan blogs about comics at pettylarseny.com and lives in New Jersey with his wife, Jennifer, and son, Jeremy.

Cecilia Latella was born and lives in Italy. She has been drawing since her childhood. Thanks to the English translation of her graphic novel The Boar, in 2010 Cecilia was selected by Craig Thompson as an associate artist for a residency about graphic novels held at the Atlantic Center for the Arts, Florida. After that, she realized various short comics for independent North American writers: Daddy (by Justin Heggs); By the Slice (by Giulie Speziani); Hexed (by Matt O’Keefe); a twenty-page preview of the graphic novel Community Service (by Dino Caruso); and more recently, Dr. Muscles # 5 (by Austin Tinius). She continues also to write her own stories, like In Absentia. Cecilia blogs at cecilialart.blogspot.com, and can be found on deviantArt as cabepfir.

Pat N. Lewis is a cartoonist and illustrator living in Pittsburgh, PA. His work has appeared in anthologies from BOOM! Studios (Zombie Tales), Fulcrum Books (Trickster), and Top Shelf Comics (Awesome 2: Awesomer). His first solo book, The Claws Come Out, was published by IDW Publishing. Currently, Pat is serializing his webcomic “Muscles Diablo in: Where Terror Lurks!” at patnlewis.tumblr.com. To see more of his work, please visit www.patnlewis.com.

Erik Lundy is a cartoonist, writer and comedian who has produced animation for the guys from Jackass and worked alongside folks from The Simpsons and Ren & Stimpy. As a standup, he’s performed at the Hollywood Improv, Ice House, Comedy Store, and various bowling alleys. He was once described as the bastard child of Woody Allen and Mark Twain. More of his goofiness can be found at www.eriklundy.com.

Mast has been working on the web since he was a little 16-year-old punk (recently on “Watchmen 3″, French webcomics “L’Affaire DSK”, “Gonzoo” and “La Synthèse des Auteurs BD”). He’s also one of the organizers of the Lille Comics Festival, the best comics convention in the whole universe. Visit Mast’s website.

Paul Mounts is a Harvey Award-nominated comic book colorist who’s worked for almost every major comic publisher in his over 20-year career. Past projects include Marvel’s The Ultimates, Supergirl in Wednesday Comics and an acclaimed run on Power Girl for DC, and Tellos for Image. He is currently working on Avengers Assembled and a 106+ issue run on Fantastic Four for Marvel, Jonathan Ross and Bryan Hitch’s America’s Got Powers for Image, and Before Watchmen: Silk Spectre for DC.

Bitten by a radioactive drifter, Troy Peteri (spelled Peter-eye, pronounced like Petri Dish, stupid ancestors) was gifted with the proportional speed and strength of a freelancer who sits at his desk approximately 33 hours daily. Since that fateful day he has lettered many comics, and written a few. He hopes to rearrange the last part of that sentence in the very near future. He has worked on everything from AMAZING SPIDER-MAN to WITCHBLADE, and surely something obscure that started with X, Y, or Z, but that’s neither here nor there. He should probably have his own website one of these days. And do more sit-ups.

Tom Peyer, best known for DC Comics’ Legion of Super-Heroes and Hourman, has written nearly every major comic book character for nearly every major publisher. He lives in Syracuse, NY.

Ron Randall has been drawing comic books and graphic novels for over twenty-five years. He has worked for all the major comics publishers in the United States, including Marvel Comics, DC Comics, Image and Dark Horse on properties as varied as Spider-Man, Supergirl, and Star Wars. Trekker is his own creation and labor of love, which he is currently returning to by posting all the existing stories and continuing with all-new tales at trekkercomic.com. Ron is a founding member of Periscope Studio, the largest collective of professional cartoonists in the country.

Jeremy is an illustrator who began his professional career at Avatar Press, where he worked on such titles as NARCOPOLIS, NIGHT OF THE LIVING DEAD and THRESHOLD. He then worked for BOOM! Studios, where he drew short stories for ZOMBIE TALES, and illustrated COLD SPACE. Visit Jeremy’s Tumblr.

John Rogers’ 16-year career is built on successes in numerous media. He’s written and produced a wide range of television series including COSBY and JACKIE CHAN ADVENTURES; most recently he co-created the hit caper series LEVERAGE for TNT. His film work includes over twenty scripts and rewrites including THE CORE and TRANSFORMERS. John has also worked in role-playing games and comics; his relaunch of BLUE BEETLE with Keith Giffen was critically acclaimed and a fan favorite. He’s currently running the fifth season of LEVERAGE and is developing several online projects. In case the entertainment business falls through, John has a Physics degree to fall back on. Visit John’s blog.

Robt was born in Dallas, Texas. Met his wife at South Garland High School, they had two daughters and moved to Rochester, New York. When he’s not working, he’s in his season seats at Frontier Field, visiting neighboring zoos or searching for authentic Mexican restaurants. Visit Robt’s DeviantArt page and his Google+ page.

James Tynion IV got his start in the pages of Scott Snyder and Greg Capullo’s acclaimed run on Batman at DC Comics in early 2012, where he co-wrote the backup stories for the best-selling Court of Owls and Death of the Family storylines. He has since written stories for Detective Comics, as well as writing the ongoing series Talon, and Red Hood and the Outlaws. He lives and writes in New York City, and is consistently amazed that people are actually letting him work on comic books professionally. He alternates between taking in the most grisly horror media he can get his hands on, and trying not to get choked up while listening to musical theater soundtracks. You can find him on Twitter @JamesTheFourth, or on his Tumblr.

A New York Times bestselling author, Mark has written thousands of comic books and graphic novels in his 28-year career. His award-winning graphic novel with artist Alex Ross, KINGDOM COME, is one of the best-selling comics collections of all time. Currently, he writes DAREDEVIL for Marvel Comics, IRREDEEMABLE for BOOM! Studios, and ROCKETEER: CARGO OF DOOM for IDW. Mark maintains a process blog at markwaid.com that is full of advice and discussion for experienced print-comics professionals and aspiring digital-comics creators.

In 2006 Nolan gave up a lucrative career as a retoucher for Nike, Starbucks, and EA to teach at SCAD-Atlanta in their Sequential Art department. Over the past two years he has also cultivated a career as a colorist working for BOOM! Studios, Dark Horse Comics, Image Comics, Marvel Comics, and Oni Press. If two simultaneous careers don’t keep him busy enough, doing sketch cards for TOPPS’ STAR WARS lines and being a husband and new dad surely does. Nolan might be a shade nuts. Credited works include IRREDEEMABLE, INCORRUPTIBLE, PLANET OF THE APES, FARSCAPE: SCORPIUS, LADY DEADPOOL, FANBOYS VS. ZOMBIES, and 28 DAYS LATER. Visit Nolan’s website.