Tara Booth is an Eisner and Ignatz Award Winning comic artist, illustrator and painter from Philadelphia. Tara’s candid autobiographical comics shed lightness and humor on issues related to mental health, addiction, and sexuality. Known for her painterly approach to comics, often using bright colors and dizzying patterns- Booth’s work has been featured in publications like The New York Times, The New Yorker, The Washington Post, Vice, Bloomberg Businessweek, and Best American Comics. Tara loves to travel and hike with her two dogs. https://www.tarabooth.club
Katie Cook is the creator of the Nothing Special webcomic on Webtoon and the oldie-but-goodie webcomic Gronk: A Monster’s Story (which was one of the first webcomics archived by the library of congress!). She spent several years as one of the primary writers on IDW’s My Little Pony: Friendship Is Magic comics to the point that they made her a pony on the show (really). Then there’s all those books she has illustrated and written for a tiny franchise called “Star Wars”. Maybe it’ll take off one day. Time will tell. She has also written and drawn comics for Marvel, Disney Publishing, Boom! and many other publishers.
More Katie at https://katiecandraw.com/
Beetle Moses (Harris Fishman) is a contemporary webcomic artist and illustrator whose surreal humor and vibrant visual voice have made him one of the most distinctive figures in digital cartooning today.
https://www.instagram.com/beetlemoses/
Jeanne Stern is an animator, artist, and filmmaker who experiments with tactile materials. She creates bizarre cinematic worlds that combine elements of playfulness with darker more complex themes. She holds an MFA in Film Production from the University of Texas at Austin and a BA in Studio Art from Connecticut College. Her work has been showcased internationally at venues such as the Smithsonian, Heather Henson’s “Handmade Puppet Dreams,” South by Southwest, PBS, the Toronto Film Festival, the Athens Video Art Festival, and the Moving Things Festival in Cape Town, South Africa. She has also animated several independent films, notably Ruth Fertig’s award-winning documentary “Yizkor,” which won the CINE Gold Eagle Prize and Student Academy Award Gold Medal.
Jeanne has completed artist residencies at the Atlantic Center for the Arts and the Elsewhere Artist Collaborative. Her teaching repertoire includes experimental animation at the UT Austin-Portugal Summer Institute, “Victorian Gothic Animation” at the Austin School of Film, and a workshop at the Futureplaces Digital Media Festival in Porto, Portugal, titled “Ghosts of Spaces,” where artists investigated and interpreted the memories embedded in different environments. She is now Assistant Professor of Animation at St. Edward’s University.
Chris Beaver is currently a Supervising Background Artist at Powerhouse Animation Studios. He has been drawing or animating there since 2009 across a wide range of projects, techniques, and positions. He dabbles sometimes in comic art and in 3d modeling, and draws habitually to stay in practice — which includes running the monthly cosplay + figure-drawing event “CosSketchers!” at Dragon’s Lair Austin.
In his downtime Chris is usually lost in videogames, beer, coffeemaking, and/or TTRPG’s. He has a slowly-growing shelf of artbooks, and his idea of a great afternoon is sketching with friends on a brewery patio.
Ken Lowery is an indie game designer and long-suffering writer living in San Antonio, Texas. He primarily writes solo games, including the ENNIE winning VOID 1680 AM. https://bannerlessgames.bigcartel.com
Paul Benjamin is a New York Times bestselling author who has written and produced comics and video games for diverse properties including DC Universe Online, MultiVersus, and Marvel characters such as Hulk, Spider-Man, and Wolverine, as well as Disney Princesses, Star Wars, Star Trek, Starcraft, World of Warcraft, the Muppets, Monsters, Inc., G.I. Joe, and more. He is currently Creative Brand Manager for Dungeons & Dragons.
https://paulbenjaminwrites.com/
Johnny Villarreal is a visual artist, motion designer, and educator in Austin, Texas. Since 2008, he has been exhibiting his custom-built stop-motion animation studio, The Edge of Imagination Station. During that time, he has had the opportunity to work with students of all ages, skill levels, and abilities in schools, libraries, museums, festivals, and other learning environments across Texas and beyond. Johnny currently serves as the Digital Animation & Art Instructor at a school for Adults with Autism. He also works as a freelance motion designer and continues to engage the community with The Edge of Imagination Station.
When he’s not pushing pixels or in the classroom, you can find him spending time with his family, making art, and working in his garden.
Phil Machi is an indie animator in Austin. Currently, he is traditionally animating (on paper!) a seven-minute short based on his long-running comic strip series “Retail Sunshine.” In 2018, he created and hosted the podcast Stay ‘Tooned! which led to hosting other animation events such as “Animation NEXT”, “The Animation Show of Shows”, and a retrospective look at “Who Framed Roger Rabbit” with the Musco Center for the Arts in California.
For fun, Phil enjoys building his animation video library, playing Pokemon GO!, and analyzing movies with friends.
Brian Colin entered the tabletop gaming industry in 2016 with hand-sculpted monster taxidermy from his fantasy setting Revilo. Over the past four years, he has focused on Vast Grimm, an infectious sci-fi horror ttRPG. The vibrant colors and art-punk graphic style of the game juxtapose with the dark themes of the dying universe. The core book has been translated into Italian and Spanish, and is currently being translated into Hungarian. Brian has expanded the line into a collectible card game, miniatures skirmish game, and so much more. He wants to create all the things his 13-year-old self would have wanted. https://briancolin.com/ https://creaturecuration.com/
John Baltisberger is a multi-award winning author and game designer of speculative and genre fiction and gonzo games. Known for his brutal splatterpunk, occult musings, and innovative prose, John has written sci-fi, fantasy, horror, poetry, nonfiction, and romance.
When not writing fiction, John edits, writes, and designs games like the Wandie-winning Odd Gobs and the Ennie-winning Obscure. He is well known for his work in the Mork Borg space for having written several novelizations of the game and for creating third-party content such as Morkkabeans and Apostles of Affliction.
Beyond his writing career, John is the Publishing Editor of Madness Heart Press, including its imprints; Aggadah Try It and Gutter Mystic Books, which focuses on transgressive fiction, Jewish genre fiction, and gonzo nonfiction respectively. He is also the Creative Director of Madness Heart Games, which focuses on creating interesting TTRPGS and pioneering the BADASS system.
Ho-Seh Esquivel is an artist and designer from Dallas, TX. He started his career by self publishing comics and as time went on delved into game development. His work can be seen in Art of Flight, BIGFOOT: Roll & Smash, and the upcoming book Luchadores vs Everything.
Anton W. Blake is a multimedia cartoonist, illustrator, and ttrpg designer living in Austin TX. He is the creator of the comic series Zethia Space Witch, as well as the editor of the comix magazine Lion Cosmique, both published by Cosmic Lion Productions. He has also been featured in G.H.O.S.T. Agents, Image Grand Design, and Pirate Borg’s Cabin Fever, and you can find out more about his work at https://www.antonwblake.com
CARLOS MENDIETA is a Senior Animator and Artist with 25 years of experience creating games for Nintendo/Retro Studios, Microsoft Game Studios/InXile Entertainment, Nickelodeon and 2K/Visual Concepts to name a few. He lives and works in New Orleans, LA, animating for games, creating art and self-publishing his creator-owned comics under the “a.wake” imprint.
Dale Wallain is a designer, illustrator, writer, and the Art Director of FÖDA, an award-winning brand consultancy in Austin. He spent a whole entire decade drawing caricatures at an amusement park and a year as an editorial intern at Marvel Comics while attending Sarah Lawrence College. Dale holds an MFA in Design from the University of Texas and has served as an Adjunct Design Faculty member at St. Edward’s University. Though he is currently working in New York City, Los Angeles, Aspen, Houston, San Antonio & Menlo Park, his favorite shop, Austin Books & Comics, has kindly let him hang out on the payroll for nearly twenty years. Dale is a co-creator of the infinitely hiatal Misprint Magazine.
Kevin Garcia is a certified educator and professional writer whose work has appeared in the Associated Press and Marvel Comics. He gives a variety of workshops, moderates panels, and teaches journalism and graphic design at the Liberal Arts and Science Academy in Austin. His work can be found at www.KevinGarcia.com or www.Monomythic.com.
Nicole Williams is an independent creative consultant, communications specialist, and writer based in Gainesville, Florida, who collaborates with indie writers, directors, producers, and cartoonists to refine their concepts and strengthen their creative vision!
With a Bachelor’s from the University of Florida and a Master’s from Boston U., she has worked in development roles at Enclave Entertainment and DreamWorks Animation, with credits on films like Puss in Boots: The Last Wish, Kung Fu Panda 4 and more.
Nicole likes to read and write about emerging media innovation, pop culture, Gen Z/Millennial Culture, and identity. An active member of Women in Animation, you can typically find her learning the latest Kpop dance or petting the neighborhood cat. Currently, she is working on an animated short based on her experience with creative burnout, entitled “GLOW.” https://nicoledwilliams.weebly.com/
Jason Neulander is a writer, filmmaker, and theater director based in Austin, Texas. His “live action graphic novels” have been presented at theaters and festivals around the world, including FantasticFest, Fantasia Film Festival, the Kennedy Center, Lincoln Center, and on Broadway at the New Victory Theatre. His feature film Fugitive Dreams (2024) is 100% Fresh on Rotten Tomatoes and streams on Amazon. You may have seen or heard him on NPR’s “All Things Considered”, CONAN, the New York Times, the Wall Street Journal, MovieMaker Magazine, PBS’s “Arts in Context” and “On Story” or hundreds of other media outlets (and if you haven’t, well, your loss). His newest project is a graphic novel adaptation of Treasure Island called Jane Hawkins and the Pirate’s Gold. https://www.treasureislandreimagined.com/
Lance Myers is an artist, animator, writer, and musician whose career spans more than two decades. His animation credits include Space Jam, Anastasia, Quest for Camelot, The Prince of Egypt, and Richard Linklater’s A Scanner Darkly, along with video game titles such as Star Wars: The Old Republic and Towerborne. His essays and comics have appeared in the Austin American-Statesman, The Austin Chronicle, JINX, and Powerball Magazine, and he has written and directed short films for HBO, MTV, Adult Swim, PBS, and Movieola. His paintings are represented by Wally Workman Gallery in Texas and On Center Gallery on the east coast. He currently serves as lead animator at Stoic Studio and teaches 2D animation at The University of Texas at Austin.
Skye Wallin is an Austin, Texas-based filmmaker with fifteen years of experience in film and storytelling, holding a BA from Denison University — where he also studied at FAMU, the prestigious film academy in Prague — and an MFA in Screenwriting from Spalding University. He spent several years filming alongside scientists at more than twenty water-related environmental disasters across the United States, working in partnership with Mark Ruffalo’s organization Water Defense. His 2021 award-winning feature documentary American Gadfly, available on Apple TV and Prime, earned him a spot as a featured speaker at SXSW 2022. In 2025, he expanded his storytelling into a new medium with the publication of his debut graphic novel, Wolf’s Edge, in which a boy stranded on a deserted island must embrace the legend of a character from his father’s book series in order to survive. He is currently in production on a modern adaptation of Patrick Hamilton’s Rope, the classic 1929 thriller that inspired Alfred Hitchcock’s iconic film of the same name. https://samwolf.net/