50 Jewish Reasons to Attend Comic-Con International in San Diego

Tomorrow night will be the preview night for one of the biggest comics events of the year - San Digeo Comic Con International aka SDCCI.

As I try to do every year, I've made a list of "Jewish" people and sessions that atand out from the less "Jewish" ones.

(1) Sergio Aragones (who illustrated the "Fanny Hillman : Jewish Madam" books and adapted the Jonah story for Testament)

(2) Antarctic Press (publisher of Families of Altered Wars [which included the "Stars of David" storyline] and Dictators of the Twentieth Century : Hitler #1-4)

(3) Arsenic Lullaby (issue #12 contains "Pilsbury Doughboy at Auschwitz"")

(4) Kyle Baker (Eisner-winning author-illustrator of the King David graphic novel from Vertigo, as well as a funny 1-page cartoon in his Kyle Baker : Cartoonist TPB in which a Jewish Cinderella has a mishap under the chuppah)

(5) Mike W. Barr (author of the story "Sympathy for the Führer!" (Adventures of the Outsiders #35)

(6) Howard Chaykin (author-illustrator of American Flagg, as well as Batman / Houdini : The Devil's Workshop)

(7) Aron Coleite (author of the online Heroes stories "Wireless", "The Path of the Righteous", and "The Death of Hana Gitelman", all featuring Israeli character Hana 'Wireless' Gitelman and all reprinted in the Eisner-nominated Heroes volume 1)

(8) Peter David (who infamously used the names of seder plate items for aliens in a Star Trek novel and who wrote the stories for The Incredible Hulk #386-387 ; see
http://www.leaderslair.com/noexcuses/hulk2-386.html and http://www.leaderslair.com/noexcuses/hulk2-387.html)

(9) Tony Dezuniga (illustrator of the stories "Black Crossing" and "There Comes Now Raging Fire" in Strange Tales #176 & #177)

(10) Colleen Doran (illustrator of a one-page illustration in The Death Gallery, in which Death is at a concentration camp

(11) Mark Evanier (author of a Crossfire story for a Free Comic Book Day comic involving a Holocaust survivor who tries to kill a suspected Nazi war criminal)

(12) Al Feldstein (author of "Master Race"Impact #1)

(13) Danny Fingeroth (author of Disguised as Clark Kent : Jews, Comics and the Creation of the Superhero

(14) Robert Loren Fleming (co-author of the Ragman miniseries)

(15) Keith Giffen (illustrator and co-author of the Ragman miniseries and author-illustrator of the Heckler series which introduced the characters Rabbi Zone and Dreidel)

(16) Mike Gold, editor

(17) Mike Grell (author-illustrator of Green Arrow #57-58 and Jon Sable : Freelance #22-24)

(18) Pia Guerra (one of the illustrators of the Eisner-nominated Y: The Last Man)

(19) Jaime Hernandez (co-author of the graphic novel Love & Rockets X)

(20) Al Jaffee (one of the cartoonists featured in the online article "Jews and the Graphic Novel")

(21) Phil Jimenez (illustrator of Wonder Woman: Donna Troy #1 and the Heroes online comic " Wireless Part One)

(22) Arie Kaplan (author of From Krakow to Krypton: Jews and Comic Books, who will be signing copies of his Speed Racer comic book at the IDW Publishing booth (#1705) on Thursday July 24th from 4-5 PM)

(23) Neil Kleid (author of the graphic novel Brownsville, as well as the forthcoming Migdal David and The Big Khan)

(24) Peter Kuper (author-illustrator of the short biographical story "Promised Land"(Bleeding Heart #2), as well as the book-length autobiographical Stop Forgetting to Remember : The Autobiography of Walter Kurtz)

(25) Scott Kurtz (author-illustrator of PVP, the Eisner-award-winning online comic strip which in 2006 made a joke about the Superman Returns movie being "a Jewish conspiracy to convince Christians that Jesus was gay")

(26) Stan Lee (Jewish comics legend who co-created the Fantastic Four, which has a Jewish chartacter called The Thing and who appeared in the story "What if the Original Marvel Bullpen was the Fantastic Four?" in What If? #11)

(27) Paul Levitz (author of "Tradition" in DC Comics' 9-11 September 11th 2001)

(28) Miriam Libicki (author of the jobnik! series, the first volume of which has been collected in trade paperback)

(29) Rob Liefeld (illustrator of stories in the Youngblood series, which included the Israeli superheroine Masada)

(30) Rutu Modan (author-illustrator of the Eisner-nominated graphic novel Exit Wounds)

(31) Steve Niles (author of the golem story Criminal Macabre: Feat of Clay)

(32) Jim Ottaviani (author of Wire Mothers: Harry Harlow and the Science of Love and Fallout : J. Robert Oppenheimer, Leo Szilard, and the Political Science of the Atomic Bomb)

(33) Jimmy Palmiotti (co-creator of the short-lived golem series The Monolith from DC Comics)

(34) Jerry Robinson (Batman series artist who also did illustrations for Bible Tales for Young Folk)

(35) Jon Rosenberg (author-illustrator of the webcomic Goats), which includes the Jewish character "Jon", as seen in the strip from Nov. 24, 2005)

(36) Steve Rude (author of many Nexus stories ; one of the main characters in Nexus is Judah Maccabee aka "The Hammer")

(37) Ariel Schrag (editor of Stuck in the Middle)

(38) Gail Simone (who wrote the story "Li'l Krusty in Give a Hoot, Stay in School" in Simpsons #62)

(39) J. Michael Straczynski (author of the Spider-Man story "You Want Pants with That?" and the Rising Stars story "Selah")

(40) James Sturm (author-illustrator of The Golem's Mighty Swing, reprinted in the Eisner-nominated God, Gold, and Golems)

(41) Roy Thomas (who had the Thing battle the Golem in Marvel Two-in-One #11 and introduced Jewish superheroes Nuklon {Infinity Inc. / JLA} and Golem {The Invaders})

(42) Jim Warren (publisher behiod Warren Publishing, whose titles included After Hours, Creepy, Eerie, Famous Monsters and Vampirella)

(43) Len Wein (writer of the golem story in Strange
Tales #174 - see http://www.marvunapp.com/Appendix/golem1.htm)

(44) Judd Winick (author-illustrator of Pedro and Me and Caper #1-4)

(45) G. Willow Wilson (author of the graphic novel Cairo)

(46) Marv Wolfman (author of The Tomb of Dracula #27, The New Teen Titans #24 and Homeland : The Illustrated History of the State of Israel)

(47) session - Comics Arts Conference Session #4 (Thurs., July 24th, 2:00-3:30 PM) Superman’s 70th Anniversary— Price Hamilton (American Falls High School) compares three different versions of the Superman origin story and three versions of the Jewish folk tale "The Golem of Prague" to demonstrate how certain images begin to appropriate larger meanings through their consistent repetition.

(48) session - screening of Will Eisner: Portrait of a Sequential Artist (Thurs., July 24th, 7:00-9:00 PM)

(49) session - Will Eisner Tribute (Sat., July 26th, 1:00-2:00 PM)

(50) session - Jack Kirby Tribute (Sun., July 27th, 10:00-11:00 AM)