Special Guests

KEITH GIFFEN Legendary writer/artist Legendary writer/artist 52, Countdown, Reign in Hell

Comics legend Keith Giffen was born in Queens, New York City. He is best-known for his long runs illustrating and later writing the futuristic superhero team book Legion of Super-Heroes in the 1980s and 1990s, and for co-creating the humorous, international version of the Justice League in the late 1980s (which he later revisited in "Formerly Known as The Justice League", calling them The Super Buddies). He also created the alien mercenary Lobo (with Roger Slifer), and the irreverent "want-to-be" hero, Ambush Bug. He also plotted & was breakdown artist for an Aquaman limited series and one-shot special in 1989 with writer Robert Loren Fleming and artist Curt Swan for DC Comics.

Giffen's first published work was "The Sword and The Star", a black-and-white series featured in Marvel Preview, with writer Bill Mantlo. He has worked on titles (owned by several different companies) including Woodgod, All Star Comics, Doctor Fate, Drax the Destroyer, Heckler, Nick Fury's Howling Commandos, Reign of the Zodiac, Suicide Squad, Trencher , T.H.U.N.D.E.R. Agents, and Vext. He was also responsible for the English adaptation of the Battle Royale and Ikki Tousen manga, as well as creating "I Luv Halloween" for Tokyopop. He also worked for Dark Horse from 1994-95 on their Comics Greatest World/Dark Horse Heroes line, as the writer of two short lived series, Division 13 and co-author, with Lovern Kindzierski, of Agents of Law.

He took a break from the comic industry for several years, working on storyboards for television and film, including shows such as The Real Ghostbusters and Ed, Edd’n’Eddy.
He and his Justice League cohorts (J.M. DeMatteis and Kevin Maguire) have recently unleashed their particular brand of storytelling on a title that he drew in the 1970s, Marvel Comics' The Defenders. The same trio produced more superhero humor in the 3-issue mini-series Hero Squared for Boom! Studios, and the 2-issue mini-series Planetary Brigade.

Keith Giffen was the breakdown artist on the DC Comic book 52, a weekly series following in the wake of the Infinite Crisis crossover (written by Geoff Johns, Greg Rucka, Mark Waid and Grant Morrison). He continued in that role with the follow-up weekly series Countdown (to Final Crisis). He is also the lead writer for Marvel Comics's Annihilation event, having written the one-shot prologue, the lead-in stories in Thanos and Drax, the Silver Surfer as well as the main six issues mini-series.

Giffen remains a prolific creator of independent comics. Between 2005 and 2007 he's co-created and often authored or co-authored such books as 10, Tag and Hero Squared for Boom! Studios for Zapt! and I Luv Halloween for TOKYOPOP, Common Foe and Tabula Rasa for Desperado Publishing/Image Comics and Grunts for Arcana. Many of these were co-authored with his frequent collaborator Shannon Denton.