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***COMICS SYMPOSIUM WILL RETURN SPRING, 2013***
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Master of Ceremonies:
 Dr. Peter M. Coogan is the director of the St. Louis-based Institute for Comics Studies. He is cofounder and co-chair of the Comic Arts Conference, held during the San Diego Comic-Con International and the San Francisco WonderCon.
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sPECIAL gUESTS:
 Arlen Schumer has been creating award-winning comic book-styled illustrations for the advertising and editorial markets for over 25 years (www.arlenschumer.com), and is one of the foremost historians of comic book art—Comic Book Artist magazine named him "one of the more articulate and enthusiastic advocates of comic book art in America,” and his coffeetable
art book The Silver Age of Comic Book Art won the Independent Book Publishers award for Best Popular Culture Book of 2003. His other books are Visions from The Twilight Zone (Chronicle Books, 1991) and The Neal Adams Sketchbook (Vanguard, 1999), and he has lectured on American Popular Culture at universities and cultural institutions since 1988.
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 Brooke Keesling is an award-winning filmmaker, animator, educator, and overall lover of life. She has worked in visual effects for nearly a decade and is currently the Director of Development at New Deal Studios, a full-service visual effects commercial and film production studio, located in Los Angeles, CA, best known for their work on feature films such as The Dark Knight, The Aviator, Iron Man, I Am Legend, The Departed, Watchmen, Alice in Wonderland, and Shutter Island.
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 Cleveland-based writer Marc Sumerak has worked professionally in the comic book industry for over a decade. What started as an editorial internship during his Junior year at Bowling Green State University soon transformed into an Assistant Editor position at Marvel Comics in NYC. Four years and five hundred publications later, Sumerak left Marvel's editorial staff to pursue a freelance writing career. As both an editor and a writer, Sumerak has helped chart the course for a number of today's most popular characters, including Iron Man, Thor, Captain America, The Hulk, Spider-Man, The Fantastic Four, The X-Men, and many more.
Some of Sumerak's recent writing work includes Marvel Adventures: Spider-Man, Hulk Team-Up, Weapon X: First Class, and a highly-publicized story starring Iron Man and fashion icon Tim Gunn. In 2005, Sumerak helmed the successful relaunch of Marvel's Power Pack franchise. His work as co-writer on Franklin Richards: Son of a Genius earned him an Eisner Award nomination (2006) and two Harvey Award nominations (2006 & 2008). Sumerak has also written material for DC Comics, American Greetings, the Elks, SAMHSA, PBS Kids, Pepperidge Farm, Tyson Foods, Triple-A Baseball, SEGA, and the U.S. Army. |
| Discussion Session Facilitators: |
 Matthew J. Smith teaches courses in media studies at Wittenberg University in Springfield, OH, including “Graphic Storytelling: Comic Books as Culture,” “The Graphic Novels of Alan Moore,” and a week-long field study at Comic-Con International each summer (details of the latter may be found at www.powerofcomics.com/fieldstudy). In 2009, Wittenberg University's Alumni Association recognized him with its Distinguished Teaching Award. Along with Randy Duncan, he is co-author of The Power of Comics: History, Form & Culture (Continuum, 2009), a textbook for college-level comics arts studies courses (www.powerofcomics.com). The two are also editing the forthcoming Comics Criticism: Methods and Applications. |
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 Charles Coletta earned both his BA and MA in Literature from John Carroll University and his doctorate in American Culture Studies from Bowling Green State University. He has taught in the Department of Popular Culture at BGSU since 2000. In 2008 he co-chaired the "Comic Books in Popular Culture" conference at BGSU. In 2006, he assisted Eva Marie Saint in her preparing for her role as "Ma Kent" in Superman Returns. He most recently served as a contributing writer for the forthcoming Encyclopedia of Comic Books & Graphic Novels.
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