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George R. R. Martin
George R. R. Martin will be attending AggieCon as a very special guest, with the generous assistance of the Cushing Memorial Library. The staff of AggieCon would like to thank the amazing staff of the Cushing Memorial Library for helping to make this happen. Please visit the Deeper Than Swords page for more information on the Cushing event.
Martin is best known for A Song of Ice and Fire, his bestselling series of epic fantasy novels that HBO adapted for their dramatic pay-cable series Game of Thrones. Martin was selected by Time magazine as one of the "2011 Time 100", a list of the "most influential people in the world".
Martin was born on September 20, 1948, in Bayonne, New Jersey, the son of longshoreman Raymond Collins Martin and his wife Margaret Brady Martin who also had two daughters, sisters Darleen and Janet. In 1970 Martin earned a B. S. in Journalism from Northwestern University, Evanston, Illinois, graduating summa cum laude; he went on to complete his M. S. in Journalism in 1971, also from Northwestern.
Martin began selling his science-fiction short stories in 1971, his first story selling to Galaxy magazine. His first story nominated for the Hugo Award and the Nebula Award was With Morning Comes Mistfall, published in 1973 by Analog magazine. A member of the Science Fiction and Fantasy Writers of America (SFWA), Martin became the organization's Southwest Regional Director from 1977-1979; from 1996-1998 he served as its Vice President.
In 1991, Martin briefly returned to writing novels and began what would eventually turn into his epic fantasy series A Song of Ice and Fire (reportedly inspired by the Wars of the Roses and Ivanhoe), which will run to at least seven volumes. The first volume A Game of Thrones was published in 1996. In November 2005, A Feast for Crows, the fourth book in this series, became The New York Times No. 1 Bestseller and also achieved No. 1 ranking on The Wall Street Journal bestseller list. In addition, in September 2006, A Feast for Crows was nominated for both a Quill Award and the British Fantasy Award. The fifth book, A Dance with Dragons, was published in July 2011, quickly becoming a huge international bestseller, including a No. 1 ranking on the New York Times Bestseller list and many others; it remained on the NY Times bestseller list for more than a year. The series has received critical praise from authors, readers, and critics alike. In 2012 A Dance With Dragons made the final ballot for science fiction and fantasy's Hugo Award, World Fantasy Award, Locus Poll Award, and the British Fantasy Award; the novel went on to win the Locus Poll Award for Best Fantasy Novel.
George R.R. Martin's Official Website
Ernest Cline
Ernest Cline is the New York Times Bestselling author of the novel Ready Player One and the screenwriter of the 2009 film Fanboys. He lives in Austin, Texas, where he devotes a large portion of his time to geeking out.
For more information please visit his website:www.ernestcline.com
Sam de la Rosa
Artist Sam de la Rosa, native Texan, became a full-time comic book professional in 1982. That year he worked on Action Comics, Green Lantern, and World's Finest starring Batman and Superman.
Later that year he caught the eye of Marvel Comics when editor Mark Gruenwald and creator Bob Layton asked him to finish work on Layton’s Hercules which led to almost 2 decades of producing work for Marvel Comics.
Sam did inks/finishes on various Spider-Man titles, Spider Woman, Captain America, The Hulk, Thor, Iron Man (hey, it's the Avengers), Black Panther, Star Wars, Indiana Jones, Dr. Strange, Daredevil, Squadron Supreme, and many more.
On Marvel’s Epic Line Sam was chosen by creators Alan Weiss to work on Steelgrip Starkey and by Jim Starlin to ink a few hundred pagesof Dreadstar(and some covers) pencilled by Starlin himself. He also found time to once again work for DC Comics on All Star Squadron, Captain Atom, Firestorm, Batman, Static, and Star Trek.
His work for other comic companies includes the very first Predator series in 1989 by Dark Horse Comics, Roger Rabbit for Disney Comics, Sable and also The Badger for First Comics, inking Sam Keith and Eric Shanower for Eclipse Comics, finishing art over Steve Ditko (Spider-Man’s co-creator) on The Hangman for Red Circle/Archie Publications, Malibu Comics, Lone Star Comics, Antarctic Press on Areala Warrior Nun, Popeye the Sailor for Ocean Comics, Supreme and Vanguard for Image Comics, Fleetway/Quality Comics inking about 100 covers mainly Judge Dredd covers, Comico Comics on Elementals with Bill Willingham pencils, and Acclaim Comics inking the great Dick Giordano on Sliders (based on the sci-fi tv show). Sam, as a teenager in the early 1970’s, even inked some The Phantom pages and War comics pages for his friend, Charlton Comics artist, Pat Boyette.
Sam's favorite work was always on SPIDER-MAN, VENOM, and CARNAGE! He worked on many high profile Spidey comics including the Maximum Carnage storyline and Venom Separation Anxiety (which both became video games), Spidey’s 30th Anniversary Hologram comics, the Spider-Man Clone storyline, Spider-Man Mutant Agenda, and Venom’s very first solo title comic book, the Lethal Protector series.
His first work on the black costumed Spider-Man (the Venom symbiote/black suit) was in 1984. Sam continues to do commission art and re-creations of all types. His original art cover to Venom Lethal Protector #1 recently sold at auction for over $28,600! You can find a partial checklist of his art credits at samdelarosa.com and a more detailed but still incomplete one on comics.org.
Check out http://www.samdelarosa.com
Dr. Dante Shepherd
Dr. Dante Shepherd is the writer and photographer of the webcomic "Surviving the World", which he has produced daily for four and a half years. His blend of humor and education in a photocomic format has touched on topics ranging from science to sports, literature to politics, and love to cats. In his spare time, he teaches chemical engineering students about thermodynamics at a college in Massachusetts.
Barbara Ann Wright
Barbara Ann Wright writes fantasy and science fiction novels and short stories when not adding to her enormous book collection or ranting on her blog: http://barbaraannwright.
Erin Ewer
Erin Ewer is a fantasy artist and illustrator currently working on her first self published fantasy novel, The Lord of Shadows. More than 10 full page watercolor illustrations can be found inside the book, which is due out on January 14th, 2013. When she is not painting or writing, she can be found gaming on the computer or working with her plants in her traditional herbalists garden. For more information about Erin and her art, visit LiquidFaeStudios.com.
Holden Shearer
Holden Shearer is the co-developer of the new third edition of White Wolf Game Studio’s Exalted roleplaying game, as well as a frequent writer for Werewolf: the Apocalypse and other White Wolf and Onyx Path Publishing games. Prior to developing Exalted books, he ran the Ink Monkeys Exalted blog as a writer and official content designer—one of the most successful early White Wolf digital publishing endeavors. He lives in Jacksonville, Florida with two dogs, a cat, and way too many RPGs for any one person.
David Liss
David Liss is the author of seven novels, most recently the historical urban fantasy, The Twelfth Enchantment. His previous books include A Conspiracy of Paper (2000) which was named a New York Times Notable Book and won the 2001 Barry, MacAvity and Edgar awards for Best First novel. The Coffee Trader (2003) was also named a New York Times Notable Book and was selected by the New York Public Library as one of the year’s 25 Books to Remember. A Spectacle of Corruption (2004) was a national bestseller, and The Devil’s Company (2009) has been optioned for film by Warner Brothers. Liss is the author of the graphic novel Mystery Men, has written Black Panther for Marvel Comics and currently writes The Spider for Dynamite Comics and Angelica Tomorrow for 215 Ink.
Learn more at: http://davidliss.com/
Keri Bean
Keri Bean is currently finishing up her master’s degree in atmospheric science at Texas A&M. She also has a bachelor’s in meteorology from Texas A&M, class of 2010. In her five years at Texas A&M, she has worked on five different NASA spacecraft: the Mars Exploration Rovers Spirit and Opportunity, the Hubble Space Telescope, the Phoenix Mars Lander, and the latest mission to Mars, the Curiosity Mars Rover. She spent the fall 2012 semester at the Jet Propulsion Laboratory, working on Mars time on Curiosity. Her main research focuses are on the water and dust cycles in the Martian atmosphere.
Area of Defect
AoD is a Nerdcore group hailing from Seattle, WA. They got their start with D-Town, the song that won them the first official League of Legends Songs of the Summoned contest. Since then, they have released many more hits on YouTube, including Press R and N-Game, the latter of which won the second SoS contest. They have also produced QWER, an album of original music about League of Legends. Their latest album, SOON (TM), has been released on YouTube for your listening pleasure.
Check them out at Area of Defect on Facebook and AreaofDefectMusic on YouTube.
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