“With great power comes great responsibility," according to Spider-Man comics. However, it also comes with great trauma as well. Spider-Man faces a great deal of trauma that he must overcome, both in and out of his mask. This panel considers how Spider-Man handles his trauma and builds his resiliency. Using the classic Amazing Spider-Man story "Spider-Man No More!," Daniel J. Kim (PopMythology.com) will discuss how Peter Parker's dilemma in the story reflects the tendency of neoliberal ideology to place the burden of endless resilience onto individual heroes, many of whom are already overburdened with the trauma of surviving in an individualist society. Alex Langley (Spider-Man Psychology: Untangling Webs) will discuss issues of resilience and trauma in The Amazing Spider-Man #33, "If This Be My Destiny," and Peter Parker: The Spectacular Spider-Man #310. Shelly Clevenger (Sam Houston State University) will discuss how Peter Parker dealt with the death of his beloved Gwen Stacy and how trauma played a role in his ability to cope with that loss. Panelists will identify the unique ways in which trauma and resiliency are linked in these comics.
Friday March 28, 2025 2:00pm - 3:30pm PDT
Room 210
During the 2023–2024 school year, book bans in U.S. schools surged significantly, and a notable portion of these bans targeted graphic novels and comics. As censorship movements continue to escalate, comics educators face increasing challenges in integrating graphic narratives into curricula. From book bannings targeting beloved comics to navigating administrations and departments skeptical of their academic value, the landscape for teaching comics is fraught with obstacles. Peter Carlson (Green Dot Public Schools), Susan Kirtley (Portland State University), and Antero Garcia (Stanford University) hold a discussion reflecting on these pressing issues and exploring strategies for resilience and advocacy in K–12 and post-secondary contexts. They’ll examine the evolving role of comics in education, highlight successes despite adversity, and brainstorm actionable solutions to ensure comics continue to inspire critical thinking and engagement for learners of all ages.
Friday March 28, 2025 3:30pm - 4:30pm PDT
Room 210
In the fall of 1974, the prestigious Children’s Television Workshop teamed up with Marvel Comics to publish the Electric Company Spidey Super Stories comic books. The simple, fun, diverse, and relatively nonviolent stories were designed to help 6- to 10-year-olds learn to read, and they have aged surprisingly well. Panel moderator Britton Payne (Nickelodeon), artist and editor John Jennings (MEGASCOPE, Marvel Super Stories), and speech and language therapist Hannah Bogen Novak discuss the origin of the venture, the structure of the stories, the “far-out” concepts (including the first black Spider-Woman, Spider-Man vs. Jaws, and the infamous Thanos-Copter), and the modern developmental value of the 57-issue run and its impact on modern comics for kids.
Friday March 28, 2025 4:30pm - 5:30pm PDT
Room 210
Stephen Burns (3D artist, author), Nikolai Svakhin (Adobe 3D engineer), and Eric Huelsman (Studio Arts Los Angeles) demonstrate the possibilities of using Blender 3D to design and create concepts that aid in telling great stories. Get a comprehensive exploration of Unreal Engine and Blender, two powerhouse tools renowned for their ability to turn concepts into interactive and visually stunning realities. Participants will be guided through the entire creative process, from conceptualizing ideas to mastering the intricacies of Blender's 3D modeling, texturing, and animation, followed by the seamless integration and interactivity provided by Unreal Engine.
Friday March 28, 2025 5:30pm - 6:30pm PDT
Room 210
Copyright and trademark are a cornerstone of protection for creators and businesses (whether in comics or otherwise) of their creative works and product branding. With the demand for content continuing to soar, and with more ways to both create and also fund your works than ever, creators will find themselves with myriad opportunities and options for getting their creative works in front of an audience. But beware: with every advancement comes the need for caution, as potential pitfalls abound. More than ever, knowledge of your rights will play a vital role in reaching success in this constantly shifting landscape. Fortunately for you, Jennifer Walters, Foggy Nelson, and Wolff and Byrd aren’t the only lawyers available to the superhero set, as WonderCon once again brings back noted IP attorney Michael Lovitz (author of The Trademark and Copyright Book comic book), joined by USD School of Law Professor Monica Sullivan to discuss the basics of intellectual property rights that every creator (and business owner) should know. They’ll address issues such as the ownership and protection of ideas, what exactly copyrights and trademarks are, how to acquire copyrights and trademark rights, and the application of those rights to works of authorship, characters, and names. (Please Note: The Comic Book Law School® seminars are designed to provide relevant information and practice tips to practicing attorneys, as well as practical tips to creators and other professionals who may wish to attend. However, the seminar is presented for information and entertainment purposes only, and the information presented and opinions expressed at the seminars do not constitute legal advice and should not be relied upon as such.) [This program is approved for one (1) credit of California MCLE.]
Friday March 28, 2025 6:30pm - 7:30pm PDT
Room 210
Are you passionate about writing, creating, and storytelling? Do you have a book, script, or idea in need of some TLC? Join creative professionals in an engaging, audience-led discussion designed for independent authors, creators, and artists like you! April Wahlin (author, Pandora Syndrome; reality show winner, Search for the Next Elvira) is joined by Chris Gore (creator, Film Threat, Attack of the Doc), Laurine Price (producer and writer, Phoenix), Jessica Maison (author and comics publisher, Wicked Tree Press; Plastic Girl Trilogy, Mary Shelley’s School for Monsters), Aristotle Dreher (content creator and performer, Aristotle Full Throttle, The Stoning Rolls), Dr. Travis Langley (writer, Batman and Psychology: A Dark and Stormy Knight, The Handmaid's Tale Psychology: Seeing Off Red), Alex Langley (writer, Spider-Man Psychology, The Geek Handbook series), and Cosmoe Tayson (producer, The Cosmoe Show; host, Delulu Canoe Podcast).
Friday March 28, 2025 7:30pm - 8:30pm PDT
Room 210
Being able to tell engaging stories is an art form. But what if you had specific techniques to capture an audience’s attention? Learn how to hypnotize your audience as certified hypnotherapist Grant Offenberger (Grant Me Peace: Hypnotherapy, Talk Is Jericho) moderates this panel of storytellers who will share their techniques for engaging an audience’s attention. Featuring Maria Kanellis (WWE, Playboy), Jon Allen (Rick and Morty, JoJo's Bizarre Adventure), Tim Chizmar (Comedy Central, FilmThreat Best Indie Horror Film 2024 winner), and Murray Sawchuck (Pawn Stars, Masters of Illusion on CW).
Friday March 28, 2025 8:30pm - 9:30pm PDT
Room 210
The lack of Black professionals in comics is staggering, though likely not surprising to those familiar with the complexities of the industry. More often than not, white people provide the primary decision-making concerning the representation of Black characters in comics. The risks of non-Black people crafting stories attempting to reflect Black experiences include inauthenticity, unintended reinforcement of stereotypes, and tokenism for any Black people who may be involved in the creative process. Professionals and scholars Vanessa Hintz (Carroll University), Victor Dandridge, Jr. (Vantage:Inhouse Productions), Ajani Brown (San Diego State University), and John Jennings (MEGASCOPE) discuss the value of authentic representations of Black lived experiences, created for Black people by Black people, and the dynamics and complexities of diversifying representation in both the comics industry and readership.
Saturday March 29, 2025 10:30am - 12:00pm PDT
Room 210
Juan Carlos Fermin (University of California, Irvine) compares Art Spiegelman's Maus and Joe Sacco's Palestine, examining their formal, narrative, and rhetorical content as commentaries on imperialism, fascism, ethnic nationalism, and how these forces rise to power. Mike Bittner (Stanford University) looks at the ways Native superheroes continue to be portrayed in mainstream comics and beyond, and how those representations can lead to harmful assumptions being made during wartime. Anuradha Dosad (Adamas University) uses the psychoanalytical theories of Sigmund Freud and the Lacanian framework of symbolic, real, and imaginary stages of the personality structure to offer insight into the mechanics of sequential narratives featuring the Joker. Daniel Ambord presents a feminist reading of Peter Milligan's Sub-Mariner: The Depths with an eye to what it has to teach us about Western attitudes towards chaos.
Saturday March 29, 2025 12:00pm - 1:30pm PDT
Room 210
Ishita Sehgal (Indiana University, Bloomington) explores the construction and reproduction of memory through the graphic medium while focusing on female authorial agency in Malaka Gharib’s I Was Their American Dream, Mira Jacobs’s Good Talk, and Marjane Satrapi’s Persepolis. Audrey Garcia (University of North Carolina, Chapel Hill) uses Maaheen Ahmed’s theory of openness in comics in a case study of 1940s Franco-Belgian cowboys to examine social values in children’s comics magazines. Callum McNutt (Cape Breton University) argues for the integrity of the Batman Noir series, notwithstanding its having appeared originally as individual comics written and drawn by different artists. Michael Mazzacane (University of California, Los Angeles) reads Spy x Family through the lens of asexuality in order to deconstruct compulsory sexuality and gender through the manga's reflexive construction of the “normal” heterosexual family.
Saturday March 29, 2025 1:30pm - 3:00pm PDT
Room 210
Emilio Soltero, Ph.D., M.A. (John Buscema: A Life in Sketches; Gorillas in da Mix) presents a primer on drawing the figure for popular media, including drawing for comics and character design. The focus will be on anatomy and figure drawing. Emilio will lecture and demonstrate on figure drawing.
Saturday March 29, 2025 3:00pm - 4:00pm PDT
Room 210
Property Masters Guild members James “Skip” Torvinen, PMG, and John Harrington, PMG, reveal what it takes to translate fan-favorite iconic film props from script to screen in a discussion and Q&A session moderated by Michael Corrie (Props to History).
Saturday March 29, 2025 4:00pm - 5:00pm PDT
Room 210
Daniel Fingeroth is the author of A Marvelous Life: The Amazing Story of Stan Lee. Mark Evanier is the author of Kirby, King of Comics. So the authors of the most-read books about Stan Lee and Jack Kirby will discuss both men and what they meant to the comic book industry, the Marvel Age of Comics, and the childhoods of an awful lot of people.
Mark Evanier attended his first San Diego Comic-Con in 1970 and has been to every one of these annual events ever since. He was then an assistant to the great Jack Kirby, whom he wrote about in his book Kirby, King of Comics. Mark has also written for live-action TV shows, animated... Read More →
Danny Fingeroth is a cultural historian and commentator. His books include Superman on the Couch: What Superheroes Really Tell Us About Ourselves and Our Society and Disguised as Clark Kent: Jews, Comics, and the Creation of the Superhero. His 2019 biography of Stan Lee, A Marvelous... Read More →
Saturday March 29, 2025 5:00pm - 6:00pm PDT
Room 210
Illustrator and comic book artist Cutter Hays will demonstrate and teach his fast methods of achieving cool-looking inks in a flashy, sped-up sumi style. It's fun to watch; he takes questions while doing it, and you, too, can learn to be fast, good, and braver with a brush and ink. Often Cutter will even take on suggestions for subjects as a fun challenge. These drawings are 1–5 minutes, but the method can be taken as far as you want. If you're a beginner, this can be your launching pad. If you're advanced, you can put a new tool in your arsenal.
Saturday March 29, 2025 6:00pm - 7:00pm PDT
Room 210
Esteban Cifuentes (FIST; GI Joe design expert), Rob Wiggins (Get R Done Dudes; ex-designer for Hasbro), Elliot Garnett (Centerpoint Studios; Star Wars custom figure designer and painter), and Adam Rodriguez (designer for micro action figures) discuss the successes and failures of creating toys we will never see in the stores. From digital design to custom painting to new technology in 3D printing, they will show and talk about what it takes to make these figures come to life and how you can, too. Moderated by Mike Syfritt (HTB Toys; toy designer and 3D printing expert). Stay to the end for a chance to win a resin 3D printer of your own!
Saturday March 29, 2025 7:00pm - 8:00pm PDT
Room 210
Learn techniques from Fon Davis (25-year veteran of miniature VFX who has worked on over 25 movies), Brooke Wheeler (technical sales manager and materials specialist with Reynolds Advanced Materials and distributor of Smooth-On), Sam Girgis (owner of BiggerBoxModels), Shawn Thorsson (founder of Thorsson & Assoc. Workshop whose props and armor are produced for films and collectors), and Julia Jenkins (cosplayer, seamstress, and builder with experience in 3D printing).
Saturday March 29, 2025 8:00pm - 9:00pm PDT
Room 210
This family-friendly interactive workshop led by Angel Halo Chang (author and illustrator of the Adobo, Boba, Chai collection) shows how to bring your own main character to life. Pencils and paper provided. Coloring pencils and crayons are encouraged but not required.
Sunday March 30, 2025 10:30am - 11:30am PDT
Room 210
“I always loved Batman. The way I looked at it, you had to come from another planet to be Superman, but I could be Batman. And you know I tried!”—Bob Dylan. With the recent release of the acclaimed biopic A Complete Unknown, there’s more interest in Nobel laureate Bob Dylan than there has been in years. As he has profoundly affected creators in many media, Dylan has influenced comic book, comic strip, and graphic novel writers and artists for the past six decades. In an expanded version of the presentation he gave at the Dylan in Tulsa, WonderCon special guest Danny Fingeroth (A Marvelous Life: The Amazing Story of Stan Lee; Jack Ruby: The Many Faces of Oswald’s Assassin) explores Dylan references in comics as well as comics references in Dylan’s oeuvre.
Danny Fingeroth is a cultural historian and commentator. His books include Superman on the Couch: What Superheroes Really Tell Us About Ourselves and Our Society and Disguised as Clark Kent: Jews, Comics, and the Creation of the Superhero. His 2019 biography of Stan Lee, A Marvelous... Read More →
Sunday March 30, 2025 11:30am - 12:30pm PDT
Room 210
In the 1950s, “sick” humor emerged in comics, novelty recordings, and club acts. By 1959, “sick” had a specific genre identity, which Time magazine described as “partly social criticism liberally laced with cyanide, partly a Charles Addams kind of jolly ghoulishness, and partly a personal and highly disturbing hostility toward all the world.” The comics medium dominated every aspect of that description—Addams as point of origin, the “ghoulishness” of EC horror books, equal parts horror and humor, and, finally, “hostility,” specifically identifying Lenny Bruce, but signifying MAD’s humor in a jugular vein. James Thompson (A People’s History of Comics), Charles Hatfield (California State University, Northridge), and Michael Dooley (Pasadena’s Art Center College of Design) examine the intersection of the comics medium and the sick comedy genre, using the lens of critical genre theories. Did “sick” become an actual label for exhibition/distribution? If not, why not, and what did it say about the comics, the times, and the genre?
Sunday March 30, 2025 12:30pm - 1:30pm PDT
Room 210
WonderCon special guest Danny Fingeroth spent 18 years at Marvel, where he ran the Spider-Man line and wrote hundreds of comics. As a cultural historian, Danny’s books include Superman on the Couch: What Superheroes Really Tell Us About Ourselves and Our Society and Disguised as Clark Kent: Jews, Comics, and the Creation of the Superhero. His 2019 biography of Stan Lee, A Marvelous Life, tackles the controversies surrounding Lee. Danny’s most recent book, 2023’s Jack Ruby: The Many Faces of Oswald’s Assassin, chronicles Ruby’s bizarre life. Today, Danny speaks about his career with popular culture expert Travis Langley (Spider-Man Psychology: Untangling Webs).
Danny Fingeroth is a cultural historian and commentator. His books include Superman on the Couch: What Superheroes Really Tell Us About Ourselves and Our Society and Disguised as Clark Kent: Jews, Comics, and the Creation of the Superhero. His 2019 biography of Stan Lee, A Marvelous... Read More →
Sunday March 30, 2025 1:30pm - 2:30pm PDT
Room 210
The right mentor can offer critical support during pivotal moments, instilling lasting values and helping individuals navigate their unique paths. Psychologists Christie Pickel (Psychology Specialists of Maine), Sita-Marie Pillay (Hanna Center), and Francisco Rojas delve into the intersection of comic book mentorship and therapeutic relationships. The panelists will explore how iconic mentors like Professor X from The X-Men, Uncle Ben from Spider-Man, and Uncle Iroh from Avatar: The Last Airbender embody diverse mentoring styles that shape their protégés’ personal growth and decision making. Panelists will provide insights on how to find the right therapist to navigate life’s challenges.
Sunday March 30, 2025 2:30pm - 3:30pm PDT
Room 210
Some of the best voice directors in the business are once again stepping out of the booth for an insightful and delightful discussion about their craft with journalist Taimur Dar (The Beat).
Sunday March 30, 2025 3:30pm - 4:30pm PDT
Room 210
