Bob Budiansky began his comics career on Ghost Rider — first as a cover artist, and later as both co-writer and artist. However, he is best known for his work on the Transformers franchise, naming most of the original characters and writing the Tech Specs blurbs for the toys’ packaging. Budiansky soon began writing Marvel’s Transformers comic, which he helmed for nearly 50 issues and several spin-offs. During the 1990s, Budiansky launched Sleepwalker. He also served as a Marvel editor, overseeing the Spider-Man titles.
Writer Todd Dezago began his career on X-Factor. He then penned several Clone Saga-era Spider-books, including a lengthy Spectacular Spider-Man run. Dezago soon moved to Sensational Spider-Man, where he teamed with artist Mike Wieringo. For DC Comics, Dezago co-created Young Justice, wrote the JLA: World Without Grown-Ups miniseries and penned an acclaimed run on Impulse. In 1999, Dezago and Wieringo re-teamed to create the Image Comics fantasy series Tellos, and he co-created the Perhapanauts with artist Craig Rousseau in 2003. Dezago has written several stories for Marvel’s all-ages titles, including Marvel Age Spider-Man and Super Hero Squad.
From a start at short-lived Atlas/Seaboard, Danny Fingeroth moved to Marvel to edit multiple Spider-Man titles; and write for Avengers, Dazzler and What If? During the 1990s, he scripted all fifty issues of Darkhawk, as well as Spider-Man’s Deadly Foes and Lethal Foes miniseries. Leaving Marvel in 1995, he became Virtual Comics’ editor in chief, and then Visionary Media’s senior vice president for creative production; he has also taught comic-book writing courses at select universities. In the prose field, he has written several nonfiction books about the comic-book field, as well as children’s books on noted actors.
Steve Ditko (1927 - 2018) began his comics career in the anthologies of the 1950s, where his unique style and perspective quickly earned recognition and respect. Recruited to join Stan Lee’s Atlas Comics, later Marvel, in 1958, his nuances contrasted well with Jack Kirby’s bombast. In 1962, in the pages of Amazing Fantasy, Ditko and Lee brought to life Peter Parker, the Amazing Spider-Man, changing the industry forever. Leaving Marvel in 1966, he drew Blue Beetle and Captain Atom for Charlton, Creeper and Shade the Changing Man for DC, and his independent effort Mr. A. Ditko returned to Marvel during the late 1970s and remained for much of the 1980s, co-creating Speedball, Squirrel Girl and other characters who would prove of unexpected importance in Marvel’s later years.
Chris Samnee has drawn comics for major and indie publishers including Marvel, DC/Vertigo and Oni Press. His credits include the Vertigo graphic novel Area 10 with writer Christos Gage and the Marvel series Thor: The Mighty Avenger with writer Roger Langridge. He subsequently joined a team of artists including Mike Deodato Jr. and Butch Guice on Ed Brubaker’s Captain America, and helped launch Captain America and Bucky. His two collaborations with writer Mark Waid, on Rocketeer: Cargo of Doom and Daredevil, won him the 2013 Eisner Award for Best Penciler/Inker, shared with Hawkeye’s David Aja. Waid and Samnee continued their professional relationship on Black Widow.
