Comic-Con 2014

Ever wonder how the really good books suck readers in and hold their attention page after page? It's not the characters, nor the plot of the book. It is the way in which the author writes that separates his or her story from the pack. Award-winning author Maxwell Alexander Drake will use current examples to help you gain insight into how to put your story together in a compelling way that will keep your readers turning the pages to see what happens next.

With so many terms and styles, diving into the mechanics of the craft of writing can be scary. And Point of View (POV) can be one of the toughest to tackle. Yet, if used correctly, POV is a wonderful and powerful tool that is the backbone of your story. Award-winning author Maxwell Alexander Drake helps break this piece of the writing puzzle down into something you can use to enhance your writing style.

Learn how to digitally ink and take all your black-and-white artwork to the next level. Comics artist Brian Haberlin will delve into Photoshop's treasure trove of features old and new-as well as features in other programs-that not only enhance comic applications, but make possible countless creative pen and ink opportunities rarely seen before. If you're serious about your black-and-white artwork, this session is a must. Comic book creator, editor, writer, penciler, inker, and colorist Brian Haberlin is the co-creator of Witchblade, Anomaly, and many other comic books and graphic novels.

Adam Hughes will use the warm and cool gray Copic markers to render the tones on a drawing. Fellow artist Allison Sohn will narrate the process while Adam draws. Hughes has been working in comics for over 25 years. Some of his work from the past year includes a story in Batman Black and White as well as the covers to the Vertigo series Fairest and the Dark Horse series Rebel Heist.

Join game artist Matthew Doyle for a trip through the process of designing and building a character for games, from 2D concept to 3D modeling, painting, and animating, and finally into a game engine. The tools used in the workflow will include Sketchbook Pro, Maya LT, Mudbox, and the Unity game engine!

Matt Hawkins and John Nee present a discussion on how to pitch. They will talk about pitching your ideas and provide some mock pitches where they will alternate being the person pitching and person being pitched to. Writer, physicist, and social media maven Matt Hawkins has published over 1,000 comic books in his 21-year career at Image Comics and Top Cow and has created and/or written many, including Think Tank, Aphrodite IX, The Test, Alibi, Lady Pendragon, and Tales of Honor. Despite producing TV series, feature films, and video games, Matt still considers himself to be a comic book dude. John Nee was senior VP of business development for DC Comics, where his responsibilities included operational oversight of two publishing imprints (WildStorm and CMX Manga), global licensed publishing, international rights, interactive entertainment, book trade sales, and circulation and subscriptions for MAD magazine and DC Comics.

From Batman to My Little Pony, Madefire and DeviantArt have revolutionized the comic book online. Learn how to publish your comic to DeviantArt in less than 5 minutes using Madefire's unique cloud-based tool! Panelists for this session include Dave Gibbons, Bill Sienkiewicz, Liam Sharp, Yuumei, and Stanley 'Artgerm' Lau.