(a)muse

Meghan Fitzmartin is an award-winning television, animation, comics and podcast writer.  Her credits include the TV series Supernatural, Supernatural Academy, and Monkie Kid.   Meghan’s writing credits also include the podcast - Red Rhino, the animation - DC Super Hero Girls, and comic - Batman: Urban Legends.

Visit Meghan's website for more:

meghanfitzmartin.com

Douglas Wolk is a pop culture critic, teacher and writer.   His work about music and comics has been featured in newspapers and magazines such as Time, Rolling Stone The New York Times, The Washington Post, Entertainment Weekly, & The Los Angeles Times. Douglas has been a National Arts Journalism Fellow at Columbia University and a Fellow in the USC Annenberg/Getty Arts Journalism Program. 

douglaswolk.com

www.strangemedia.com

Tim Seeley is a writer and comic book artist known for his work on books such as Grayson, and G.I. Joe: A Real American Hero. His writing work includes NY TIMES bestselling Hack/Slash, Batman Eternal, Money Shot and the critically acclaimed Revival.   Tim currently resides in Chicago, Illinois where he is also an adjunct professor at Columbia College Chicago.

www.timseeleycreative.com

www.strangemedia.com

Steve Lieber is a comic book illustrator known for his work on books such as Detective Comics and Hawkman, and the critically acclaimed miniseries Whiteout, which was adapted into a 2009 feature film starring Kate Beckinsale. His other works include the Eisner Award-winning sequel Whiteout:Melt, and the thrillers Shooters and Underground.   Along with writer Nat Gertler, he co-authored The Complete Idiot's Guide to Creating a Graphic Novel.

www.stevelieber.com/

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Mat Heagarty is a comic book writer living in Boise, Idaho.  His works include Lumberjackula, a story about a kid whose mother is a lumberjack and father is a vampire.  Other works include Martian Ghost Centaur, and Unplugged and unpopular.   Mat is currently an adjunct professor at Boise State University where he teaches a course on Writing for Graphic Novels.

www.matheagerty.com/

www.strangemedia.com

Chelsea Cain is a New York Times Best Selling author. Born in Iowa, she spent her early years growing up in hippy commune. Her master's thesis at the University of Iowa became Dharma Girl, a memoir about Cain's early childhood on that hippie commune. She now resides in Portland, Oregon where she focuses her writing skills on thrillers, comic books and others.  Her accolades include being named one of Four Hot Authors by Entertainment Weekly, and a New York Times Editor’s Choice for Heartsick and Confessions of a Teen Sleuth: a Parody. 

chelseacain.com/

www.strangemedia.com

Ray Harryhausen is a special effects pioneer and began his career in the 1940’s.   His stop motion animation technique known as “dynamation” influenced generations of visual effects artists and filmmakers around the world. 

In 1949, his work on Mighty Joe Young and his mentor Willis O’Brian captivated audiences and inspired future filmmakers.  In the 1950’s, 60’s and 70’s, Ray continued to produce films featuring his legendary stop motion work.  His notable films include 7th Voyage of Sinbad, Jason and the Argonauts, One Million Years BC, and Clash of the Titans. 

In November 2016 the British Film Institute compiled a list of those present-day filmmakers who claim to have been inspired by Harryhausen - They include Steven Spielberg, Peter Jackson, Joe Dante, Tim Burton, James Cameron, and Guillermo del Toro.

Dennis Muren is the Senior Visual Effects Supervisor and Creative Director of Industrial Light & Magic. A recipient of nine Oscars for Best Achievement in Visual Effects and a Technical Achievement Academy Award®, Muren is actively involved in the evolution of the company, as well as the design and development of new techniques and equipment. In June 1999, Muren became the first visual effects artist to be honored with a Star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame. In February 2007, he was honored with the Lifetime Achievement Award from the Visual Effects Society.

Scott Ross (born November 20, 1951) is an American digital media executive with a career spanning three decades. In the 1980s he led George Lucas' companies and in 1993 he founded, along with James Cameron and Stan Winston, Digital Domain, Inc.,

In the 1980s Ross was general manager of Lucasfilm's Industrial Light and Magic (ILM) and under his leadership, ILM won five Academy Awards for Best Visual Effects (Who Framed Roger Rabbit, Innerspace, Terminator 2: Judgment Day, The Abyss, Death Becomes Her). The company re-organized in 1991 and Ross was named senior vice president of the LucasArts Entertainment Company, which comprised Skywalker Sound, LucasArts Commercial Productions, LucasArts Attractions, EditDroid/SoundDroid and ILM.

Under Ross' direction, from 1993 to 2006, Digital Domain garnered two Academy Awards and three nominations, receiving its first Oscar in 1997 for the ground-breaking visual effects in Titanic. That was followed by a second Oscar for What Dreams May Come. Digital Domain received additional nominations for True Lies, Apollo 13 and I, Robot and won three Scientific and Technical Academy Awards for its proprietary software.

Today, Dr. Ross sits on several boards, consults with international companies and lectures on Virtual Reality, Augmented Reality and was one of the early adopters of Mixed Reality technologies. Dr. Ross was an early advisor to Magic Leap (an AR hardware and software startup that eventually raised over $2B), is a board member to Eyellusion (one of the world's leading hologram company which brings back deceased rock stars) and was a founding partner, along with Brett Leonard, the director of LAWNMOWER MAN in VR production company, Virtuosity. Dr. Ross has presented keynote speeches addressing new technologies such as AR/VR to SIGGRAPH in Shenzhen, BOAO in Hong Kong as well as to the Beijing Film Academy.

Hoyt Yeatman (born January 23, 1955, in San Francisco, California) is an American visual effects artist and supervisor. He has worked with Jerry Bruckheimer on a number of films, including Armageddon, Con Air, and The Rock.  He made his directorial debut with the film G-Force.

Yeatman is an alumnus of the UCLA School of Theater, Film and Television.

In 1979 Yeatman, Scott Squires, Rocco Gioffre, Fred Iguchi, Tom Hollister and Bob Hollister co-founded Dream Quest Images, a groundbreaking visual effects house, winning the Academy Award for Visual Effects in 1989 for the motion control and underwater effects in James Cameron's The Abyss. In 1996 Dream Quest was purchased by The Walt Disney Company, which became Disney's "The Secret Lab" in 1999.

He received an Academy Award for Technical Achievement in 1999.