2026 GUESTS
Michael Golden
One of THE storytellers in the industry, influencing generations of comics fans and professionals, MICHAEL GOLDEN boasts creations that are some of the most licensed and enduring in the industry. Co-Creator of Rogue, Bucky O'Hare, Micronauts, and "The 'Nam," among many more, Golden is known as one of THE artists on such characters as Batman, Doctor Strange, G.I. Joe, and the Punisher. Golden's recent covers can be seen on everything from "Spawn" to the "Walking Dead" to World Wrestling work. Recent covers include works on "The Walking Dead," "Deadpool," and "Daredevil," to name a few. In short, no history of comics is complete without touching on the influence that this legendary artist has had on this industry. Recent books on the colorful life and vibrant art of Golden include "Michael Golden: Alchemy" "Modern Masters: Michael Golden" and "Excess: The Art of Michael Golden," and "Michael Golden: Dangerous Curves." In addition, having served as both Senior Art Director at Marvel Comics and Senior Editor at DC Comics, Golden's lectures and classes in storytelling are sought after worldwide, with recent venues including places as diverse as Spain, France, Russia, Norway, Brazil, Chile, and China. With recent gallery shows mounted in New York City, Maryland, Spain, and Russia.
Bob Hall
For Marvel, Bob drew Spider-man, Thor, What If, Squadron Supreme, The Avengers, Emperor Doom, the Spider-man/SNLTeam-Up, and many others including Willow, Dark Man and Captain America movie adaptations. He co-created The West Coast Avengers. He was a Marvel editor in 1978.
For Valiant he wrote and drew Shadowman, wrote Timewalker and created, Armed and Dangerous.
For DC, he wrote and drew Batman/Joker graphic novels: I, Joker, It’s Jokertime and Batman DOA as well as guest stints on Weird War, Chase and Batman.
Sam de la Rosa
Sam de la Rosa is currently a MARVEL COMICS Cover Artist and he has penciled/inked art for Marvel, DC, Image, Disney, Dark Horse, IDW, and others since 1982. His first work was in Charlton Comics Fightin’ Army #120 in 1975. Credits include Spider-Man, Venom, Carnage, Black Panther, The Avengers, Star Wars, X-Men and more. At DC COMICS he worked on Superman, Batman, Green Lantern, Star Trek, Firestorm and others. In 1989 for Darkhorse he worked on the 1st and 2ndPREDATOR comicbooks. He's also drawn a cover for Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles #1. Sam's work on VENOM LETHAL PROTECTOR #1-6 and Venom Separation Anxiety 1-4 is the main basis for the first VENOM MOVIE. VENOM: Let There Be Carnage movie is based on Maximum Carnage which Sam penciled/inked art over layouts on its conclusion. His work on Maximum Carnage and Venom Separation Anxiety were made into video games. Recently he’s drawn covers for Venom Lethal Protector II #1, The Uncanny Spider-Man #1, Predator vs Wolverine #2, Superior Spider-Man #3, Wolverine: Madripoor Knights #3, Avengers #17, The Amazing Spider-Man #259 Facsimile Edition, and Miles Morales #23.
William Bernhardt
William Bernhardt is the #1 bestselling author of over sixty books, including the nonfiction book The Superman Wars and the Daniel Pike legal thriller series (The Last Chance Lawyer). His previous works include the historical novels The Florentine Poet and Nemesis, three books of poetry, children’s and young adult books, and several books on fiction writing. In addition, Bernhardt hosts an annual writers conference (WriterCon), an annual writing cruise, small-group writing retreats, a magazine, plus a free e-newsletter and podcast. He is also the president of Bernhardt Books.
Bernhardt has received the Southern Writers Guild’s Gold Medal Award, the Royden B. Davis Distinguished Author Award (University of Pennsylvania) and the H. Louise Cobb Distinguished Author Award (Oklahoma State), which is given "in recognition of an outstanding body of work that has profoundly influenced the way in which we understand ourselves and American society at large." He has been nominated for the Oklahoma Book Award over twenty times in four different categories and has won the award three times. In 2019, he received the Arrell Gibson Lifetime Achievement Award.
In addition to his novels and poetry, Bernhardt has written plays, a musical (book and score), humor, children stories, biography, and crossword puzzles for The New York Times. He is also a Jeopardy! champion (2013). He has edited two anthologies (Legal Briefs and Natural Suspect) as fundraisers for The Nature Conservancy and the Children’s Legal Defense Fund. In his spare time, he has enjoyed surfing, digging for dinosaurs, trekking through the Himalayas, paragliding, scuba diving, kayaking, caving, zip-lining over the canopy of the Costa Rican rain forest, and jumping out of an airplane at 10,000 feet.
OSU has called Bernhardt “Oklahoma’s Renaissance Man.” When Bernhardt delivered the keynote address at the San Francisco Writers Conference, chairman Michael Larsen noted that in addition to penning novels, Bernhardt can “write a sonnet, play a sonata, plant a garden, try a lawsuit, teach a class, cook a gourmet meal, beat you at Scrabble, and work the New York Times crossword in under five minutes.”
Zavier Leslie Cabarga
Zavier Leslie Cabarga is a cartoonist, illustrator, font, and logo designer, and author of many published books including Progressive German Trademarks, Dynamic Black and White Illustration, The Logo, Font & Lettering Bible, Designer’s Guide to Color Combinations. His first book, The Fleischer Story, about Max Fleischer the pioneering animator and creator of Betty Boop, and Popeye the Sailor, was published when he was 22 years old. His newest book is a graphic Novel called "Wild Girl of the River Bottom."
Zavier is in part responsible for the renewed popularity of Betty Boop. He painted over 50 greeting cards and designed dozens of ceramics and statuary featuring Betty Boop.
Beginning his career as a cartoonist, Zavier soon turned to illustration. Wikipedia says, “By the 1980’s Cabarga was one of the most popular illustrators in New York.” Zavier’s work appeared in The New York Times, Wall Street Journal, Los Angeles Times, and on the covers of magazines such as Time, Newsweek, Fortune, and National Lampoon. He did advertising work for Sony, Pepsi, HBO, Showtime, and Nintendo, for which he illustrated the first ads for the Donkey Kong video game. For Ralston Purina he drew the first series of G.I. Joe cereal boxes. He also did lots of work for TOPPS Bubblegum and for the Disney Store.
By 1993 Cabarga, who changed his name from "Leslie" to "Zavier," an old family name, created the first of many successful computer fonts including Magneto Bold, Streamline, BadTyp, Saber, and Casey Bold.
He has also created hundreds of logo designs including those for Sunset magazine, and Tetris, and his font Magneto was used as the logo for Disney/Pixar’s Cars animated features.
A resident of Ojai, California for over seventeen years, Cabarga has recently turned his lifelong interest in architecture and fine woodworking into a profession, creating lavish interiors in the Art Nouveau style for his own Tiny House. Zavier’s carpentry and design can be found at artcraftcustomdesign.com/
Thomas Yeates
THOMAS YEATES is an award winning comic book illustrator who has worked for most of the major comic publishers and was one of first graduates of the prestigious Joe Kubert School. He is best known for illustrating The Saga of The Swamp Thing for DC, Tarzan, John Carter, Zorro and for his current dream job illustrating Hal Foster’s Prince Valiant Sunday newspaper strip. In the past he drew Timespirits and Universe X specials for Marvel. In recent years he has drawn Groo Versus Conan with Sergio Aragones, Louis L’Amour’s Law of the Desert Born, and illustrated lots of legends and mythology.
Jason Heil
JASON HEIL is an Oklahoma-based freelance card artist who has done work for Unstoppable Cards, Topps, Cryptozoic, and Brand Vending. Card sets he has worked on include: Star Wars, Garbage Pail Kids, Wacky Packages, Gerry Anderson, Art of TMNT, Stranger Things, The Walking Dead, Steven Universe, Sports Uglies, Mars Attacks, Terminator 2 25th Anniversary, Cryptkins, and Rick and Morty.
Daniel Scott Jr.
Daniel creates his art entirely out of candy wrappers. Pop culture icons rendered in true pop colors. The texture and limited palette give the art an original, expressive vibrancy. With over 30 years perfecting this technique, his portfolio consists of stunning portraits depicting the likenesses of pop culture icons and the silver screen
Anthony Tollin
ANTHONY TOLLIN has a 25-year history in comics, including a 15-plus year tenure with his late wife Adrienne as the regular colorists on about 85% of DC's top-selling titles: Superman, Green Lantern, New Teen Titans, Batman, Detective Comics, Mike Grell's Warlord, Crisis on Infinite Earths, Justice League of America, Ambush Bug, etc. He started out on DC's staff back when they numbered only 33 people (including the payroll department upstairs), and his two immediate bosses had both worked on Action Comics #1. He worked regularly with almost all the major Silver and Bronze Age artists including Curt Swan, George Perez, Don Newton, Gil Kane, Jim Aparo, Joe Kubert, Irv Novick, Don Heck, Jerry Ordway, Mike Grell, etc., and co-authored 1979's The Shadow Scrapbook with Walter Gibson (creator of The Shadow).
Buddy Saunders
We are proud to welcome back BUDDY SAUNDERS from MyComicShop.com this year! Saunders started out in the world of fanzines. As part of the "Texas Trio" (with Larry Herndon and Howard Keltner) Saunders published the fanzine Star-Studded Comics from 1963–1972. It featured early work by George R. R. Martin, Grass Green, Jim Starlin, Roy Thomas, Sam Grainger, Alan Weiss, Dave Cockrum, Mike Vosburg, Biljo White, and Keltner, among others, and featured the early appearances of Dr. Weird, Xal-Kor, Wildman and The Eye. Saunders' cover for its second issue won an Alley Award in the amateur division in 1963. In addition, during this period Saunders was a regular contributor (as an artist) to the seminal comic book fanzine Rocket's Blast Comicollector.
Saunders operated his own mail order service starting in 1961. He owned and operated Lone Star Comics, a chain of seven Texas comic book stores founded in 1977. With the sale of the Lone Star comic book store chain in 2013, Mr. Saunders and his family now operate the online Lone Star Comics, www.mycomicshop.com.
As a writer, he co-authored A Voice and Bitter Weeping with Howard Waldrop, later expanded into the 1974 novel The Texas-Israeli War: 1999, as well as Time and Variance, with Waldrop and Steven Utley. Saunders' story "Back to the Stone Age'" was nominated for a Nebula Award for Best Short Storyin 1976. Saunders' recent work includes two novels based on the works of Edgar Rice Burroughs: The Martian Legion (2014) and Tarzan and the Cannibal King (2017).
Buddy will be buying collections on the exhibit floor. We also want to thank him for sponsoring the show!
Larry Hama
LARRY HAMA is an Eisner Hall of Fame writer/artist/editor/actor who has is best known as the writer of MARVEL’S GI JOE and WOLVERINE comics in the ‘80s and ‘90s. Larry created and scripted BUCKY O’HARE, which was a comic, an animated show, and Toy line from Hasbro. He has also written, edited or drawn for AVENGERS, CONAN, BATMAN, WONDER WOMAN, X-MEN, SPIDER-MAN, and dozens more. His illustrations and cartoons have appeared in NATIONAL LAMPOON, ESQUIRE, NEW YORK and ROLLING STONE. His most recent novel is THE DEATH OF CAPTAIN AMERICA, which was also released as an audio book. In comics, he has recently scripted IRON FIST /Heart of the Dragon for Marvel, and SPY HUNTER/PAPER BOY for DC. He has also done layouts for DEATHSTROKE, DAMAGE, and MICHAEL CRAY @ DC. Currently writing GI JOE ARAH for SKYBOUND. He is also an INKPOT award winner, and an inductee in the HARVEY AWARDS Hall of Fame.
As an actor, he has appeared on TV in M.A.S.H., SNL, and ANOTHER WORLD. He originated the characters of Lord of the South, and Lt. Williams in the 1976 Broadway production of Stephen Sondheim’s PACIFIC OVERTURES, and has done commercials and voice-overs.
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