We also have a small Indie Island Guest List addition to make today. You better believe that we have lots more announcements to make as the year winds down and as we gear up for HeroesCon 2011!

Paul Maybury is probably best known for his original graphic novel Aqua Leung. His forthcoming book DOGS of Mars, for which he did the art, will be released in 2011. He is also working on an original webcomic called Party Bear which you can read here. On stands now is Strange Tales 2 #2 which features a Spider-Man story by Maybury!

Tom Scioli is an award winning writer, artist and co-creating Godland, along with writer Joe Casey. He is also the writer and artist of the popular series The Myth of 8-Opus and American Barbarian. Currently he is working on Captain America: Hail Hydra which hits stores early next year.

Are you ready for even more additions to the HeroesCon 2011 Guest List? We are churning out guest list adds like they are going out of style! We haven’t even made it to 2011 yet and already our guest list is jam-packed with awesome guests and we keep adding more and more. I don’t know about you but I think that HeroesCon 2011 can’t get here soon enough!

The BPRD brain trust will be in attendance as John Arcudi joins Mike Mignola and Guy Davis on the HeroesCon 2011 Guest List, and we couldn’t be happier!  Arcudi has been a mainstay at Dark Horse since the late 80s and has worked on such popular titles as The Mask, Barb Wire and The Machine. His recent work includes the Superman story in Wednesday Comics and the original graphic novel A God Somewhere.

Richard Case is a well-known penciller and inker who has worked on Vertigo titles such as Doom Patrol, Ghostdancing, Shade The Changing Man and Hunter: The Age of Magic. According to his blog he hasn’t missed a HeroesCon since 1989, which is incredible! We are happy to welcome Case back for another year and help him keep that streak going!

HeadHunta’ Studios had a huge presence this past HeroesCon and it looks like they want to step it up even more for 2011. CBR did a really nice write up about them coming to HeroesCon last year. You can read that article here. Members Chuck Collins, Derrick Fish, John Floyd, Austin Janowsky, Nathan Massengill, Keith Miller and Chris Walker join the already announced Koi Turnbull. They are all ready to represent the Atlanta, GA based studio collective. Be sure to check  them out to see the awesome projects they are working on!

Jamal Igle has run the gamut by working for numerous companies in the comics, toys, gaming, film and television industries. Currently he is an exclusive artist for DC Comics and has worked on such fan-favorite titles as Supergirl, Nightwing, 52 and Superman: War of the Supermen.

Mark McHaley began his career when he was just 19 years old and since then he has illustrated for countless companies. Recently has done a wide array of sketch cards including DC Universe: Legacy, Indiana Jones: Heritage, Star Wars Galaxy 5 and Lord of the Rings: Masterpieces II. Check out some of the many galleries he has created to showcase his artwork!

Bob McLeod has been the artist on some of the biggest and best titles in comics! His career highlights include Conan the Barbarian, Star Wars and Hulk. He also had a long run on Action Comics in the 90s and did the art for the Kraven’s Last Hunt storyline in the Spider-Man titles. He is most famous for co-creating the New Mutants, along with Chris Claremont. Also, he was the editor of Rough Stuff, a magazine released through TwoMorrows Publishing. Most recently he has done a number of children’s books. McLeod is a versatile and talented artist!

Michael Watkins is the founder and owner of Highburn Studios but you may also know him from his art on Sonic The Hedgehog, Femme Noir or his creator owned title, Guardians. In addition to his comic work he designs fabric for Solid Stone Fabrics.

Skottie Young had to cancel at the last minute this past HeroesCon so we are doubly excited to have him confirmed for next year! You may remember seeing his artwork on our badges at HeroesCon 2010. We also used that artwork on our Holiday Sale fliers because we loved it so much! You can currently see Young’s distinctive work on countless covers and in the interiors of Ozma of Oz which is the third Oz mini-series that he has worked on with writer Eric Shanower. The first Oz series, Wonderful Wizard of Oz, won two 2010 Eisner Awards: Best Limited Series or Story Arc and Best Publication for Kids. We are super excited to have him as a guest next year!

Phew! Thanks for sticking around till the very end! It is an exciting time at Heroes and we have got lots of announcements and news coming your way so you better keep it tuned to the Heroes blog!

Most people would be cruising through this week in anticipation for the holiday. Not us! We are busy, busy, busy! Just consider this seven more reasons why you should be thankful for HeroesCon. We have got a ton of names that need to get on the HeroesCon 2011 Guest List so stay tuned because we plan on making another big announcement next week! In the meantime, have a very Happy Thanksgiving!

Mark Brooks is a phenomenal artist whose HeroesCon 2010 Art Auction piece went for an astounding $8,000! We can’t wait to see what he has in store for us next year! Until then you can enjoy his art work at much more affordable prices in books like Dark Reign: Young Avengers, New X-Men, Amazing Spider-Man and Avengers: The Initiative. (Photo courtesy of Patrick Sun‘s Flickr page.)

Nathan Edmondson is an up-and-coming writer whose newest title, Who Is Jake Ellis?, isn’t shipping until January but it is already getting a lot of buzz. You can find out more about Edmondson and Who Is Jake Ellis? by reading this interview from Newsarama. He is also the writer of Olympus and The Light. Our very own Jenny Bement reviewed The Light #1-#4 a couple months back on our blog.  He might deny it, but he is also a very talented painter.

Gene Gonzales is a diverse artist whose work ranges from comic to commercial. He does everything from pin-ups to sketch cards. Also, he is the artist on Diary of Night and he is the writer, illustrator and publisher of Tales of the Cherokee. In addition to all of that he is currently working as a DC licensing artist.

Craig Hamilton is best known for his painterly art style. He has worked on such popular DC titles as Sandman, Fables, Lucifer, The Spectre and Starman. It was announced last year that he will be doing the art for Fables: Werewolves Of The Heartland which will be a graphic novel focusing on Bigby.

Joe Pekar is probably best known as a “good-girl artist” especially because of art books like Strawberry. Recently he has done work on Hexed, Grimm Fairy Tales and Escape From Wonderland. He is also well known for his self-published comic Brandi Bare. Additionally, he is an artist on Marvel Ultimate Alliance 2 and Spider-Man: Shattered Dimensions.

Rachelle Rosenberg is a rising star in the comic industry. She is a colorist for Marvel and Boom! Studios who has worked on such diverse titles as Cars: The Adventures of Tow Mater, Namora and Captain America and the Korvac Saga. This will be Rosenberg’s first HeroesCon as a guest and we are super excited to have her!

Stuart Sayger is the creator of the independent comic Shiver in the Dark. You might also know him from his work on Lego‘s Bionicle comic. He recently was the artist on Bram Stoker’s Death Ship. He also did the art on Machete #0 which is based on the Robert Rodriguez movie.

Didn’t we just add names to the HeroesCon 2011 Indie Island Guest List a couple of days ago? Yet here we are, making another announcement! We are working ’round the clock to bring you the best convention ever and here are three more reasons why HeroesCon 2011 will be off the charts awesome!

Van Jensen is the writer of Pinocchio, Vampire Slayer and its sequel, Pinocchio, Vampire Slayer and the Great Puppet Theater, both of which are published though Slave Labor Graphics. The sequel is scheduled for release later this month so keep checking our New Releases page for it! You may also know him from his autobiographical mini-comic Nebraska. Nebraska #1 and #2 are available online on Jensen’s Flickr page.

GB Tran‘s new book, Vietnamerica, will be released this January through Villard. You can check out some of the amazing preview art on Tran’s website by clicking here. He also has self-published several books and mini-comics including Content, Mobile and Morning Emails. He also had a story in Awesome: The Indie Spinner Rack Anthology alongside some other incredibly talented creators. Be sure to make him feel extra welcome as this will be his first appearance at HeroesCon!

Drew Weing’s most recent book Set to Sea is a testament to his craft. Since its release it has garnered a lot of critical acclaim and I won’t be surprised to see it on several Top 10 of 2010 lists.  He also known for his mini-comics and webcomics including Blar, Pup and The Journal Comic. Also, he has collaborated with his awesome wife Eleanor Davis on books like Bugbear and Secret Science Alliance. He is an incredibly talented creator and we are thrilled to have him back in Indie Island for another year! Click here to read my review of Set to Sea.

We have a ton of announcements to make within the next couple of weeks and we are sorting through lists and going through emails so we can bring all those names to you. For right now though, we will give you just a little taste of things to come. It is our pleasure to add these incredibly talented creators to the HeroesCon Indie Island Guest List! HeroesCon 2011 is shaping up to be our biggest and best show ever!

Rich Barrett is a great guy and a long time customer of the store. Last year’s convention was his first time as a guest and we are happy to welcome him back for a second year.  He is currently working on his graphic novel Nathan Sorry and is posting a page at a time on his website. Click here to read the story of an investor who should have been in the World Trade Center on September 11, 2001.

Jason Horn is best known for his creator-owned title Ninjasaur which is about a dinosaur who is also a ninja. You can also check out his humor and wit in Gruff which is a sequel to the Three Billy Goats Gruff and, like Ninjasaur, stars anthropomorphic characters. Tim O’Shea recently interviewed Horn over on the Robot 6 blog. It is a great interview and definitely worth your time.

David Mack hails from Athens, GA like a number of our Indie Island guests. You may know him from his mini-comics Wolf City, Otto and Some Things I’ve Dreamed or from his weekly comic in Athens’s Flagpole Magazine. In addition to the comic and illustration work on his website he also showcases some of his ceramics. Check out a few of his tiles here!

Dean Trippe is a writer, artist and colorist, a veritable powerhouse of talent! He is probably best known for his superhero parody strip Butterfly. He is also the founder and editor of Project: Rooftop. He also collaborated with Jason Horn on a story in the award-winning anthology Comic Book Tattoo that features stories inspired by Tori Amos songs.

We here at Heroes Aren’t Hard to Find couldn’t wait to let you know who is coming to HeroesCon 2011 so we are updating our guest list one more time this week! There isn’t much I can say about these creators that hasn’t already been said before. They are the cream of the crop, the best of the best and their reputations precede them so I will keep their bios short and sweet.

Guy Davis first made a name for himself with his work on his creator-owned Baker Street. He continued to solidify his place in the industry with his work on Sandman Mystery Theatre and The Marquis, but he is probably best known as artist on BPRD.

Todd Dezago is renowned for his work with Mike Wieringo on The Sensational Spider-Man and Tellos. Currently, he is pleasing audiences with Marvel Super Hero Squad and The Perhapanauts.

Steve Epting continues to astound and amaze, especially with his current work on Fantastic Four. His career spans nearly 20 years and he has worked on some of the best books around including Avengers, Captain America and The Marvels Project.

Just when you think that Matt Fraction’s name can’t get any bigger he goes out and writes Thor. He first came into prominence with  Casanova, which is currently being re-colored, re-lettered and reprinted through Marvel’s creator owned imprint, Icon. He is also writing Invincible Iron Man and Uncanny X-Men. Fraction was just announced as the winner of the 2010 PEN USA Literary Award for Graphic Literature. To top it all off, he is a former employee of Heroes Aren’t Hard to Find!

Jonathan Hickman first broke into comics only a few years ago with Nightly News but quickly established himself as a premiere wordsmith by writing such acclaimed books as SHIELD, Secret Warriors, Fantastic Four and Pax Romana. With an already impressive catalog, I can’t wait to see what else he has in store for us.

Mike Mignola got his start on superhero books like Cosmic Odyssey and Batman: Gotham by Gaslight, but Hellboy is where his art and writing style found a home. He will soon return to doing art on Hellboy after the current epic storyline is completed. He is also currently writing Baltimore: The Plague Ships which is a mini-series based off of characters in his novel Baltimore.

Don Rosa is THE Uncle Scrooge artist (next to Carl Barks of course). His humor comes through as he breathes life into the character. Uncle Scrooge is over sixty years old yet when you read a story by Rosa the character feels fresh and new. His stories are classic and timeless.

Craig Rousseau is the co-creator and artist of The Perhapanauts, along with previously announced Todd Dezago. He has also worked with Dezago on Impulse and Tellos. His recent work includes Spider-Man Loves Mary Jane, Iron Man & The Armor Wars and Her-oes.

Richard Thompson writes Cul de Sac which is one of my favorite comic strips. I am not alone in saying that it rivals Calvin & Hobbes in quality. Simply put, it chronicles the foibles of a suburban family. He also does Richard’s Poor Almanac which appears in the Washington Post.

Bernie Wrightson began his career working on horror anthologies like House of Mystery and House of Secrets and he has continued scaring readers with his distinct style. Some of his past work includes co-creating Swamp Thing with Len Wein and illustrating Mary Shelley’s Frankenstein. More recently he has been teaming up with Steve Niles on such popular titles as Dead She Said and The Ghoul.

Quite frankly if these were the only guests coming to HeroesCon 2011 I would be thrilled to be there and meet these incredibly talented creators. With eight more months to go and already a guest list is this huge, I can’t wait to see what other tricks we have up our sleeves!

Welcome Cliff Chiang to the HeroesCon 2011 guest list! Chiang is an awesome artist whose recent credits include Brave and the Bold #33, Birds of Prey #3, cover artist for Justice League: Generation Lost and Neil Young’s Greendale. He made his mark in the industry with his work on Human Target and  Green Arrow/Black Canary. Earlier this year he did some Star Wars posters for Acme Archives which were amazing! Also, I was super excited to hear that he will be doing the art on Zatanna #8!

Artist Francesco Francavilla is blowing up these days so you better stop by his table early to get on his commission list! He will be doing the Jim Gordon co-feature starting in Detective Comics #871. And recently announced he will be doing the art for Black Panther: The Man Without Fear where Black Panther will take over for Daredevil following the events of Shadowland. Francavilla also maintains several blogs which are definitely worth checking out. His Pulp Sunday blog is currently running Halloween-themed posts based on classic horror movies. He also has a sketch blog that he updates regularly with concept art and illustrations. He is also a regular contributor to the Comic Twart blog. This leaves me wondering, when does he have time to sleep?

New to the guest list but not new to HeroesCon is Buddy Prince! He is a long time friend of the store and a super great guy! He is probably best known for his work on Night published through Jester Press Comics. Recently he has been busy as a Marvel Sketch Card artist, specifically on the Marvel 70th Anniversary and Marvel Heroes and Villains lines. He is also a Moonstone Maximum Sketch Card artist.

We are proud to add the talented Chris Roberson to our guest list! He is the writer for iZombie, the fabulous new series he created with artist Mike Allred. He wrote Cinderella: From Fabletown with Love and it was just announced that he will write the sequel, Cinderella: Fables are Forever. He developed and is the writer for the new ongoing series Starborn for Boom! Studios which he co-created with Stan Lee. He is also the writer of Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep: Dust to Dust the prequel to Philip K. Dick‘s novel. In addition to all of his comic work, he is a prolific science fiction novelist and the publisher of MonkeyBrain Books along with his wife, Allison Baker.

I have the pleasure of adding several guests to the HeroesCon 2011 Indie Island guest list today! First up is Tyson Hesse who is a webcomic artist and Savanna College of Art and Design graduate. Both of which are having an increasing presence at HeroesCon. Hesse is the force behind the digital-animation-infused webcomic Boxer Hockey which updates every Sunday and Wednesday. He also has a new book out called Diesel which follows the futuristic adventures of a young girl as she travels on an airship garage.

I am pleased as punch to announce Roger Langridge as a guest to HeroesCon 2011! It is no secret that he is one of my favorite cartoonists and with his work on The Muppet Show Comic Book, Thor: The Mighty Avenger and Fred the Clown I know I am not alone! The Muppet Show Comic Book recently won a Harvey Award for Best Publication for Young Readers. Welcome him to the show by stopping by his table and checking out some of his mini-comics especially Mugwhump the Great and Frankenstein Meets Shirley Temple!

Next up is Ed Piskor who first made a name for himself with his collaboration on American Splendor: Our Movie Year with Harvey Pekar. He also worked with Pekar on Macedonia and The Beats: A Graphic History. Piskor is currently working on his webcomic, Wizzywig, which he has self-published into three volumes, so far. It is about Kevin “Boingthump” Phenicle who is a phone phreaker and computer hacker. He two updates his site twice a week on Sunday and Wednesday.

Newcomer Mitch Rogers is the writer and artist of the mini-series The Boger. Currently he is working on a new book called Raw Nerve which will debut around the time of HeroesCon. He has been steadily publishing new material since the release of The Boger #1 and I am excited to see what he will bring to the table with Raw Nerve!

It has been a few years now since Rich Tommaso was a guest at HeroesCon and we are happy to welcome him back! He has been in the industry for over 15 years and his recent work on Satchel Paige: Striking Out Jim Crow with James Sturm garnered him much acclaim. You may know him from his other work like 8 1/2 Ghosts, The Horror of Collier County or Clover Honey. His website is full of some amazing artwork so I can’t wait to see what he brings to HeroesCon!

We have great news for those of you who like to plan for HeroesCon months in advance. Shelton has worked his magic and the special HeroesCon rate at the Westin is live and ready for you to reserve your room! We are stunned at just how super early we are making this announcement!

Reservations at the Westin Charlotte are now open at the special HeroesCon rate of $115 per night! That group rate will be available until May 13, 2011 but we strongly suggest that you reserve your room early rather than late. We fully expect an early sellout of rooms. So don’t miss out on the Westin’s comfy beds, warm showers and close proximity to the Charlotte Convention Center.

Check out our Hotels page for the complete list of area hotels that we recommend, including the Westin; or go straight to the reservation page. If you have any problems please let us know and we will do our best to fix it right away. They group the rooms in blocks so sometimes the computers say the rate is sold-out but Shelton just needs to release another block and, presto, problem solved!

I feel honored and privileged to be able to announce today that Dustin Harbin (sometimes known as Dustin K. Harbin) will be appearing in Indie Island at HeroesCon 2011. All of us at Heroes Aren’t Hard to Find are proud to have him on our guest list! He keeps churning out some great work. He does a (somewhat) daily web strip, the first six months were published through Koyama Press as Diary Comics #1 and is currently available at Heroes Aren’t Hard to Find. Or if you are headed to SPX this weekend you can pick one up directly from him! And in addition to that he is the letterer for Casanova. He is a busy, busy man! You should definitely check out his awesome work on his website and his Flickr page. While his new work is incredible, I think my favorite strip of his is still the three-part What Would Dharbin Do? The Skating Kazoo. Beautiful! Please stop by and welcome him to the other side of the table. I’m sure it will be a surreal experience to go from organizer to guest, so be sure and help make his transition a little easier!

That is a tough act to follow, but I think Mike Maihack has the chops! Maihack currently does a weekly webcomic called Cleopatra in Space. He is also the man responsible for Cow & Buffalo, which is another weekly webcomic but it is temporarily on hiatus. He is a super sweet guy and his commissions and convention sketches are fantastic! He has a great style and a wonderful sense of color. Just check out that print he did for this past HeroesCon! Wow! And it is for sale on his website! Go check that out and I’m sure you will get pumped for his appearance in Indie Island at HeroesCon 2011. Be sure you stop by his table and say hi! And maybe pick up a copy of Cleopatra in Space #1!