The Baltimore Comic-Con will return to the Inner Harbor’s Baltimore Convention Center on September 8-10, 2023. We are thrilled to start announcing our 2023 guests, starting with comic creators Jon and Judy Bogdanove, Steve Conley, Greg Hildebrandt, Pop Mhan, John K. Snyder III, and John Workman. Tickets for the show are now on sale.
As one of the chief architects of the record-breaking epic The Death of Superman, Jon Bogdanove is best known for his long run as penciler and occasional writer on DC’s Superman: The Man of Steel (most issues between #1-#85) where his dynamic work brought to life many landmark Superman stories, including some of the best-selling comics of all time. He also co-created Steel with Louise Simonson.
At Marvel, Bogdanove penciled — and later wrote — Simonson’s Power Pack and drew Fantastic Four vs. The X-Men by Chris Claremont. In a career spanning nearly 40 years, a few of Jon’s other comics projects include X-Factor, X-Terminators, Superman vs. Savage Dragon 2, Superman vs. Aliens 2, and issues of Batman, The Hulk, Alpha Flight, Solomon Kane, and an upcoming science fiction series from Storm King, Terraformed.
In 2021, Jon drew animation keys and cycles for a special sequence in the episode of Cartoon Network’s Teen Titans Go, “Creative Geniuses”. In 2022, he reunited with Louise Simonson to draw a brand new Steel origin prequel story for DC’s The Death of Superman 30th Anniversary Special.
Judy Bogdanove aka Judith Kurzer, has worn many hats (she’s a Sagittarius) – singer, actor, composer, lyricist, teacher, editor, writer…wife to Jon and mom to Kal-El. In the world of comic books, she wrote for DC (Steel Annual #1) and for Marvel, stories in The New Mutants Annuals #5 and #7, and Power Pack #54, and was also editor of the Letters Column of Power Pack, during which time she had the pleasant task of awarding the coveted “No Prize.” She also wrote content for eight DuckTales stories in Disney’s Weborama Audio.
As Judith Kurzer, she performed with the New School Opera Workshop, the St. Bartholomew’s Cathedral Choir, and with companies that presented opera excerpts for children in the New York City School System. She sang the roles of Katisha in The Mikado and Meg in Damn Yankees for Maine Community Theatre productions.
Her music includes composing the score for Petunia’s Perils, an off-off Broadway show, new lyrics for the World Premiere of Scott Joplin’s Treemonisha: the Concert Version, and scores and lyrics for three shows with the Moving Target Theatre Company: I Suppose You’re All Wondering, Till Death Does Her Part, and So: A Guy Walks Into a Bar.
Long-time friend of the show, Ringo, Harvey, and Eisner Award nominee, and guest since our inception in 2000 (!), artist and writer Steve Conley has contributed to numerous comic titles, both printed and on-line. His Astounding Space Thrills was self-published, published by Image Comics, and collected as a trade paperback by IDW. He has been featured in titles such as JLA-Z from DC Comics, Star Trek: Year Four from IDW, and Michael Chabon’s Amazing Adventures of the Escapist from Dark Horse Comics. His self-published Bloop is available through his online store in print or soft copy editions, and you can find his Ringo and Eisner Award-nominated webcomic The Middle Age on his website, tapas.io, Line Webtoon, and GoComics, and hard copies and digital collections can be purchased from his online store.
The sons of a Chevrolet division chief, Greg Hildebrandt and his identical twin brother, Tim, were born in Detroit, Michigan in 1939. Both boys were avid artists and creative thinkers from a young age and carried their artistic passion with them throughout their childhoods.
After attending the Meinzinger Art School at age 18, Greg and Tim worked for the Jam Handy Organization and Industrial Film Production Corporation. They worked on animated training films for the auto industry, the military and major US corporations. In 1963, they moved from Detroit to New York City to work for Arch Bishop Fulton J. Sheen. He hired them to create art for his weekly TV show, Life is Worth Living, and to produce films on world hunger.
Eventually their focus moved on to commercial illustration, and in 1975, Greg and Tim illustrated the first of a series of Lord of the Rings calendars for Ballantine Books. This series of paintings launched the two men into international fame, with over a million calendars sold, and the name The Brothers Hildebrandt(R) was born! In 1977, Lucas Films hired the Brothers Hildebrandt to create the movie poster for the first Star Wars film, Star Wars: A New Hope. They only had 36 hours to create and paint the art. The movie was about to break in the theaters. They completed it on time. Lucas was very happy and another worldwide fandom was created.
In 2015, Greg had the opportunity to return to Star Wars after 20 years for Marvel Comics. He painted three new pieces for them for Star Wars compendium covers. He also painted Deadpool, Old Man Logan, Secret Wars, Captain America vs. Hitler, Black Panther, Thor, Thanos, The Inhumans, Conan and Old Man Logan comic covers for them.
In 2015, Greg started a new series titled “The Dark Side”. In this series, he painted his favorite villains in extremely large paintings, focusing mostly on giant head shots. The first three in the series are The Joker, Harley Quinn, and Batman.
In 2018, Greg began a new series titled “What If”. What if he wasn’t a kid in the 40’s and 50’s? What if he was an artist hired to paint the movie posters for the films he has loved since his first movie at age 5? So, he started with Creature from the Black Lagoon. The second painting he completed in this series is a painting for King Kong, 86 inches tall! This one is a killer piece of art. Then, Greg decided to repaint the 1977 Star Wars poster. In 1977, he painted it in 36 hours with his brother Tim. This time, he painted it in 36 hours alone.
Recently, Greg was honored by the Air Force at Dover Air Force Base in Delaware. They requested a license to put one of Greg’s pinup paintings titled, “Keep em Flying”, on the nose of a transport plane. Greg, of course, said yes. This is a dream come true for him.
Pop Mhan was lucky enough to get his jump into the comics industry under the tutelage of Jim Lee at Wildstorm Productions. Since those early days, his art has graced the pages of comics from Marvel Comics, DC Comics, Top Cow, Dark Horse Comics, and Tokyopop. His recent work can be seen at DC Comics, where he has been penciling licensed properties like Gears of War 3 and He-Man and the Masters of the Universe, and Marvel Comics on All-New X-Factor and variant covers for Amazing Spider-Man.
John K. Snyder III is an Eisner-nominated illustrator and writer of comic books and graphic novels. Creator of the independent comic series Fashion In Action, and adapter/illustrator of the graphic novel adaptation of Grand Master mystery writer Lawrence Block’s classic novel Eight Million Ways to Die published by IDW, he has worked for nearly every major publisher including DC, Dark Horse, Marvel, IDW, and many others. Snyder worked on Suicide Squad during its classic 1980’s run with writers John Ostrander and Kim Yale, and provided covers for the 2007 Suicide Squad mini-series. Along with Matt Wagner, Snyder co-created the Pieter Cross version of Doctor Mid-Nite for DC and Lady Zorro for Dynamite. Snyder also worked with Wagner on the epic Grendel: God and the Devil storyline. John’s recent work includes work for The Doors’ graphic novel anthology, Morrison Hotel written by Leah Moore and published by Z2 Comics, and a return to Suicide Squad with new covers for DC Comics to coincide with the release of the Warner Brothers movie. John’s future work includes all-new Fashion In Action adventures to be published by Clover Press. John encourages all artists and writers, young and old, to actively pursue their own creator-owned aspirations.
John Workman managed to turn a love for the comics form into a career. During the past five decades, he has held the position of editor, writer, art director, penciler, inker, colorist, letterer, production director, and book designer for various companies. He created (with some help from Bhob Stewart and Bob Smith) the offbeat stories in Wild Things (with much of that material having first appeared in Star*Reach and Heavy Metal) and both wrote and drew the comics series Sindy, Fallen Angels, and Roma. In 1991, he reflected on model Bettie Page in Betty Being Bad (Eros), and later produced the hardbounds Heavy Metal: 25 Years of Classic Covers and Innocent Images: The Sexy Fantasy Females of Viper and Kiss, as well as The Adventures of Roma, a reformatted graphic novel version of his earlier series. He continues to write and draw and to do a whole lot of lettering for a number of comics companies on an international level.
“We are really excited to kick off our guest announcements for 2023 with these creators,” said Marc Nathan, show promoter for the Baltimore Comic-Con. “We’re featuring old friends and new, all of whom have created some great comics (and continue to do so!), and we know our fans are going to be as excited to see them as we are.”
Visitbaltimorecomiccon.com/ticketsfor more information and to purchase your advanced tickets!
In the coming weeks, look for more announcements from the Baltimore Comic-Con. We are looking forward to highlighting our guests, the Ringo Awards, industry exclusives, and programming. The latest developments can always be found on ourwebsite,Twitter,Instagram, andFacebookpages.
