Comics Salopia The festival with a difference!

Former British Comics Laureate and local hero Charlie Adlard is not only one of the most talented artists in the industry, but without a doubt, one of the most hard working and dedicated. Charlie has been a “veteran” of the comic industry for over 20 years. He’s spent the majority of his time since 2004 working on The Walking Dead for which he has received many industry awards. In his time as a cartoonist he has worked on many other projects as far reaching as Mars Attacks, the X-Files, Judge Dredd, Savage, Batman, X-Men, Superman etc and creator-owned projects closer to his heart like Astronauts In Trouble, Codeflesh, Rock Bottom, and White Death

Tyler Kirkham is an American Comic book artist/creator whose professional career stretches back almost 15 years. Currently well known for his dynamic cover art on titles like Vemon and Deadpool for Marvel Comics he has also worked for DC, Image, and others on titles like Amazing Spider-man, Superman, Deathstroke and Green Lantern.

Christian Ward is a Shrewsbury-based illustrator, comic artist and writer. Some of his clients include Marvel Comics, Dynamite Entertainment, The Guardian, Fence Records and Forbidden Planet amongst others. Past comic-book projects include Image Comics’ best seller The Infinite Vacation with Nick Spencer. He’s also worked with Matt Fraction on ‘The Time Ben Fell In Love’ a DHP Short, Kieron Gillen on Young Avengers and previously with Nathan Edmondson on his debut Image mini Olympus.

John’s career in comics began in the late 1960’s as a member of the editorial staff with D. C. Thomson & Co. before becoming a freelance writer and a staff editor at IPC in the 1970s. In that decade he wrote an immeasurable amount of material and established himself as a highly sought after and talented writer. Most well known for the creation of the iconic Judge Dredd along with artist Carlos Ezquerra, Wagner also created other great characters like Strondium Dog and Robo Hunter for 2000ad.

Sarah McIntyre loves making books and comics set in places she knows well, such as her neighbourhood in south London. But then she takes out the people and replaces them with unusual inhabitants. The animal tower block setting inspired her Vern & Lettuce comic, and she went on to make a picture book set in the same block, called The New Neighbours. She’s also created a fictional town for dinosaurs, featured in her picture books Dinosaur Firefighters and Dinosaur Police. Her Shark & Unicorn strip ran for several years in The Funday Times section of The Sunday Times.

Dan Berry is an illustrator, designer, cartoonist and lecturer based in the town of Shrewsbury, UK. He is the Programme Leader for the BA/MDES Illustration, Graphic Novels and Children’s Publishing degree courses at the School of Creative Arts, Wrexham Glyndwr University. Since 2012 he has produced the podcast Make It Then Tell Everybody in which he has spoken to over a hundred other artists about what they do and how they do it. He also records a comedy podcast with Hannah Berry (no relation) entitled No YOU Hang Up. He has produced illustration work for The NME, Michael Rosen, The National Union of Teachers and more.

Al Ewing began his career writing stories in the five-page Future Shocks format for 2000 AD and eventually moved on to regular stints on Judge Dredd where he wrote a story, “Doctor What?” that marked Brendan McCarthy’s return to 2000 AD. The two would go on to work together on a new series The Zaucer of Zilk. Recent work includes Damnation Station and Zombo.

Kieron’s fruitful partnership with Jamie McKelvie has grown in the last few years bringing us the hugely acclaimed “The Wicked + The Divine series” and his prolific output of stories continues with current series ‘DIE’ with artist Stephanie Hans and the recent collaboration with Caspar Wijngaard On ‘Peter Cannon, Thundebolt’ which we recommend you take a look at! Of course he rose to the levels of super stardom over the last few years when he took the reigns on the popular Darth Vader series for Marvel and then eventually taking over writing duties for a stint on the main Star Wars title, were he had lots of fun playing in the Lucasfilm character Sandbox.

Eric Stephenson is the Publisher and Chief Creative Officer at the third largest comics publisher Image Comics. The publisher behind such massive hits as The Walking Dead and The Wicked + The Divine. Eric will be taking part in an exclusive Image Comics Panel, joined by some of the biggest stars in creator owned comics working today.

Yanick Paquette is Shuster award winner Canadian penciller. He has worked for Topps, Marvel and DC, wildstorm and Vertigo Comics and since 1994. Among the titles Paquette contributed to are Wonder Woman, Superman, Avengers, Codename: Knockout, Gambit, JLA, Civil War: X-Men, Wolverine Weapon X, Terra Obscura with Alan Moore and Seven Soldiers: The Bulleteer with Grant Morrison. Paquette was the regular artist on Ultimate X-Men. He later supplied the art for Morrison's Batman: The Return of Bruce Wayne #3 and Batman Incorporated. He was the artist on the relaunch of the acclaimed New 52 Swamp Thing, with writer Scott Snyder. Yanick is currently drawing Superman stories with writer Brian Bendis and Batman with Tom King.