Love, Commerce, War: Sci-Fi Adventure Thrillers

Conor McCreery is the swashbuckling wordsmith/former journalist behind the Kill Shakespeare (IDW) series, Adventure Time/Regular Show (BOOM!), Assassin’s Creed (Titan Comics), Sherlock Holmes vs Harry Houdini (Dynamite) and more! A former business journalist who worked on three continents, Conor started his career in the Canadian film and television industry. His newest projects are the creator-owned, YA adventure series The Last Witch (debuting through BOOM! in 2020), and a magic realism comics biography of the legendary Fela Kuti: Music is the Weapon (Amistad Press), with superstar artist Jibola Fagbamiye. He lives in Toronto with his wife and two children.

Ann Nocenti is an American writer and filmmaker. Her comics include Daredevil for Marvel and Ruby Falls for Berger Books/Dark Horse. Her falcon tale, The Most Expensive Road Trip in the World, appears in Anthony Bourdain’s Best Travel Writing 2008. Her filmmaking experiences in Haiti are detailed in Goudou Goudou for hilobrow.com. David Aja (1977) is a Spanish comic book creator and illustrator, best known for his work on The Immortal Iron Fist and Hawkeye for Marvel comics. He has worked as an illustrator in press, magazines, books, design, publicity on many other series for Marvel such as Daredevil or Wolverine and has produced covers for several titles across all major publishers. The Seeds (Berger Books) is an eco-fiction tech thriller-meets-love-story. The bees are swarming. What do they know that we don’t? In a broken-down world, a rebellious group of ruthless romantics have fled a tech-obsessed society to create their own, and a few cantankerous aliens have come to harvest the last seeds of humanity. When one of them falls in love with a human, idealistic journalist Astra stumbles into the story of a lifetime, only to realize that if she reports it, she’ll destroy the last hope of a dying planet. How far will she go for the truth? 

Brandon Thomas is the writer and co-creator of the comics action fantasy series Excellence (Skybound/Image), (co-created with artist Khary Randolph); the sci-fi conspiracy thriller Horizon (Skybound/Image) and The Many Adventures of Miranda Mercury. Previous work includes the comics series Noble (Lion Forge), which won an award for Best International Comic by the 2017 Lagos Comic-Con, in recognition of best usage of characters and stories based on persons of African descent; Voltron (Dynamite), and Fantastic Four Tales (Marvel). Since 2003, Brandon has written comics for several publishers, including Marvel, Lion Forge, Arcade, Dynamite, and DC Entertainment, and has published over 300 original columns as part of the Ambidextrous series. In Excellence, Volume 2 (Image Comics) Thomas and artists Khary Randolph, and Emilio Lopez, we meet Spencer Dales, born into a world of magic. His father belongs to the Aegis, a secret society of black magicians ordered by their unseen masters to better the lives of others–of higher potential–but never themselves. Now, Spencer Dales has one purpose: tear down the Aegis and free everyone under their “protection.” It won’t easy. But it needs to happen NOW.

Johnnie Christmas is a comic book creator whose work includes co-creating the series Sheltered with Ed Brisson; launching Angel Catbird with author Margaret Atwood, while continuing to write and illustrate his own titles, including Firebug. He also has collaborated with other artists including the sci-fi series Tartarus, with Jack T. Cole, and the supernatural romance Crema, with Dante Luiz. In Tartarus Volume 1 (Image Comics) Surka, a ruthless criminal warlord, escapes her prison pit and unleashes a wave of destruction that ripples across Tartarus, a vital colony in an everlasting galactic war. Years later when Tilde, a young cadet, learns that she’s Surka’s daughter, will she continue to fight on the side of galactic order or reclaim her mother’s dark crown? The Comic Bookcase review called it “a powerhouse of a debut comic, one that feels immersive both in terms of its artwork and the power of its themes. This comic is entertaining at the highest level while also conveying deep potential for twists, surprises, and grand meaning to come.”