New York Comic Con 300+ Guests in the Artist Alley

NEW YORK COMIC CON ANNOUNCES 300 GUESTS IN ARTIST ALLEY AND THE LIST IS GROWING!
Recently Added Artists Include J. Scott Campbell, Tom DeFalco, Steve Scott, Mark Morales, among many others …

Norwalk, CT, July 29, 2010: New York Comic Con (NYCC) has announced the preliminary line up of artists who will be appearing in Artist Alley this year. More than 300 guests have already signed up and show officials note that the list will continue to grow as the annual pop culture convention gets closer. This compares with 250 artists who appeared in Artist Alley last year. NYCC, which will be co-located with the New York Anime Festival (NYAF) in 2010, will take place October 8 – 10 at the Jacob K. Javits Center in New York City. Among the artists who have joined the top headliners in Artist Alley include: J.Scott Campbell, Jimmy Cheung, Chris Clarmont, Geof Darrow, Tom DeFalco, Leo Leibelman, Mark Morales, Steve Scott, and Leinil Francis Yu.

“This is an awesome Artist Alley and it’s only going to get better,” notes Lance Fensterman, Vice President for ReedPOP and Show Manager for both NYCC and NYAF. “It certainly underscores how popular the venue is, and how much the fans want to see and talk to these incredible artists. Artist Alley is an unparalleled opportunity since it offers a unique chance to get up close to some of the best artists working today. We are incredibly pleased to be able to facilitate this kind of ‘up close’ communication and interaction. Across the board, this is going to be New York Comic Con’s best year ever!”

For more information about the complete line up of artists participating in Artist Alley please go to: http://www.newyorkcomiccon.com/en/NYCC/Artist-Alley/. As noted, the 2010 New York Comic Con be co-located with the New York Anime Festival (NYAF) and will occupy the entire Jacob K. Javits Center in New York City. Tickets for NYCC and NYAF may be purchased at www.nycomiccon.com. Other information about the shows, as well as news about ReedPOP, which also organizes Chicago Comic and Entertainment Expo (C2E2), is available at Lance Fensterman’s blog, www.mediumatlarge.net.

J. SCOTT CAMPBELL: J. Scott Campbell is a renowned illustrator and a world famous comic book artist with over a decade and a half in the business. Best known for his landmark series Danger Girl, where he served as both creator and artist, Scott has also created a huge fan-base over the years from his work on such titles as Gen 13, Spider-Man, Wildsiderz and most recently his very first pin-up calendar FairyTale Fantasies, featuring his very recognizable, sexy and playful girly art. An all around talent, Campbell has also dabbled in the fields of film design, video games, toys, animation, commercial art, and self publishing. His current projects include upcoming interiors on Spider-Man in addition to many high profile covers for Marvel Comics.

JIM CHEUNG: Originally hailing from the UK, Jim now resides in Florida, pencilling exclusively for Marvel Comics. He is currently working on a new Young Avengers project with Allan Heinberg as well as providing covers for the Secret Warriors series. His past projects for Marvel have included Iron Man, X-Force, Uncanny X-Men, Illuminati and New Avengers, and he is responsible for co-creating the Young Avengers and Scion for Crossgen Comics.

CHRIS CLAREMONT: Writer Chris Claremont’s stories have achieved best-seller status, won numerous awards, and are trend-setters for the industry. Although best known for his work on Marvel Comic’s X-Men series, he has written other seminal characters such as Batman and Superman; originated several creator-owned series; is published throughout the world in many different languages; authored nine novels; and has had his first video game premier in Spring 2006. In total, Chris has sold approximately 500,000,000 comics, world wide. Chris is also known for his progressive treatment of women in a genre that oftentimes relies on stereotype. Active, intelligent, courageous women characters such as Jean Grey, Kitty Pryde, and Storm have made Chris’s X-Men as popular with women readers as men. The Summer of 2000 saw the release of the feature film, X-Men, based largely on material created by Chris. The sequel, X-2, contains characters and key story elements from Chris’s best-selling graphic novel, God Loves, Man Kills. X-Men: The Last Stand, released in May 2006, is grounded in the Dark Phoenix saga. The forthcoming second Wolverine movie is based largely on the graphic novel, Wolverine, by Chris and Frank Miller. Current projects include the on-going Marvel series X-Men Forever, the one-shot X-Women, drawn by renowned Italian artist Milo Manara, and several exciting, soon-to-be announced prose projects.

GEOF DARROW: Geof Darrow was born in Cedar Rapids, Iowa and studied drawing at the Chicago Acadamy of Fine Arts and Hanna-Barbera School of Frustration. He has lived and worked in four countries: U.S.A., France, Japan, and California. His credits include the comics work HardBpiled, Big Guy (with Frank Miller) and Shaolin Cowboy (with his split personality The Chubby Johnson). He has done concept work with film directors Wachoswki Brothers, Ridley Scott, and JJ Abrams amongst others. He has met President Frederick Mitterand of France and has never met either Bush Presidents. He continues to work in comics, film, animal husbandry, and never intends to meet either Bush' or maverick media vampire Sarah Palin.

TOM DEFALCO: A former editor-in-chief of Marvel Comics with over thirty books currently in print, Tom DeFalco has written comic books, graphic novels, short stories, prose novels and books like Spider-Man: The Ultimate Guide and Comic Creators on Fantastic Four. He was also a major contributor to The Marvel Encyclopedia and The Marvel Chronology. DeFalco has recently worked on Star Wars: The Clone Wars for Titan Comics, The Man From RIVERDALE for Archie Comics, Flash Gordon for Ardden Entertainment, The Flying Fool for Moonstone Books and, of course, The Spectacular Spider-Girl for Marvel Comics. He is currently writing a new Thunderstrike limited series with co-creator Ron Frenz.

LEO LEIBELMAN: Leo Leibelman went to the HS of Music and Art and took a How to Draw Comic Books class under Carlos Infantino. Those classes paid off because a few years later in 1994 he began working for Marvel Comics on Savage Sword of Conan. From there, Leo worked for Acclaim Comics on Turok: Dinosaur Hunter and Majick: the Gathering and Topps on Hercules. Leo eventually moved to the Great White North and found himself in the film industry while still keeping his hand in the comics business. Besides comics and film, Leo has painted covers for romance novels and has illustrated for educational CD roms. Currently, Leo is working on films and TV shows full time and has produced some covers for magazines like Heavy Metal.

MARK MORALES: A graduate of New York's famed School of Visual Arts, Mark Morales is a longtime comics veteran. Over the course of his 15 year career, he has worked for Marvel Comics, DC Comics, Image Comics and various others, mostly as an inker. Through the years, Mark has worked on such titles as Uncanny X-men, Secret Invasion, Justice League, New Avengers, Thor, Daredevil and many others. Currently he is hard at work on 'Siege' from Marvel Comics.

STEVE SCOTT: Comic artist Steve Scott's work recently graced the X-Men Forever series with writer Chris Claremont as well as a current Green Lantern special project at DC Comics. He is also the only artist tapped by DC Comics to do any work relating to Batman Forever, depicting the now legendary turn of Heath Ledger as The Joker. Steve’s work has also often been seen on the television show Smallville and in other special projects for DC Comics. He began his comics career at Malibu Comics and enjoyed immediate success but continued to lead a dual life as firefighter by day and artist by night-- for more than sixteen years, in fact! After 9/11, Steve was selected among the few to contribute to DC Comics’ The Worlds Finest Comic Book Writers & Artists Tell Stories to Remember. Recent and current projects at Marvel Comics, and DC Comics include working with industry legends Louise Simonson and Chris Claremont on the titles Magik and Exiles, the Marvel Adventures line featuring Fantastic Four, Avengers, and the Hulk, work on She-Hulk, and a Kyle XY one shot for Disney/ABC with writer Jeff Parker.

LENIEL FRANCIS YU: Leinil Yu's first interest in Comics was sparked by a copy of How to Draw Comics the Marvel Way when he was 11. It was later reinforced by positive responses from talent scouts from Wildstorn/Homage and Darkhorse, published fan art in Wizard Magazine and first professional work on Entity Comics' Aster. The major break was Whilce Portacio's tutelage where the training landed him his first mainstream comics gig: Wolverine in 1997. After a lengthy run, he later took on the Uncanny X-men, X-men, Highroads, Superman: Birthright, Silent Dragon, Ult, Hulk/Wolverine, New Avengers, Marvel's 2008 Epic: Secret Invasion, and a series of projects with writer Mark Millar, Ultimate Avengers and their creator-owned project: Superior. He lives in Manila, Philippines.

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New York Comic Con Press Release