Guests of Honor

We have an amazing lineup of guests for Minicon 54

Naomi Kritzer - Guest of Honor

Hugo Award winner Naomi Kritzer grew up in Wisconsin's heart of oddness, Madison. She became a technical writer in Minnesota after attending college to attain a BA in Religion. From her home in Minneapolis, she wrote her first novel, Fires of the Faithful, followed shortly thereafter by Turning the Storm. She is currently working on a sequel to Freedom's Gate.

Read more at her blog.

Dave DeVries - Guest of Honor

Born and raised in West Orange, NJ, Dave DeVries has been illustrating for numerous companies his entire adult life. He has worked for Marvel, DC, and many other major comic creators as well as doing Fleer trading cards. He's worked for everyone from Sega to Columbia Records to Tor Books and Capitol doing various paintings and works. He even has a painting hanging in the Lucasfilm headquarters at Skywalker Ranch.

He teaches art frequently and has served as a staff member at Syracuse University, The Joe Kubert School of Art, FIT in NY and many other colleges. His ongoing project at TheMonsterEngine.com is to professionally illustrate children's concepts and stories of monsters and produce them in book form. It has been very popular.

Featured Artist Tom Fleming

Since he was a child, Tom Fleming always knew he wanted to be an artist. After graduating high school in Putnam Valley, New York, he went on to receive his BFA from the School of Visual and Performing Arts at Syracuse University, graduating at the top of his class in 1988.

In 1990, he landed his first full time position as an artist/designer for the World Wrestling Federation (now WWE) by answering an ad in the New York Times. Tom made his mark early in pop culture history by designing the costumes and logos for legendary characters such as: Papa Shango, Crush, Kane, Adam Bomb, Tatanka, The 1-2-3 Kid, Lex Luger, & Hall of famers Razor Ramon & Hulk Hogan. After four years of a corporate environment, he decided to return to freelance. Accomplishing his childhood dream, Tom has painted covers & trading cards for almost every major publisher in the comic book industry such as Marvel, DC, Dark Horse and has illustrated for some of the most popular gaming companies in the world such as: World of Warcraft, Magic the Gathering, and White-Wolf Publishing.

Tom has won numerous awards in the Fantasy genre including FOUR nominations for the prestigous Chesley Award!

In 2000 Tom landed a job as the official illustrator for the Jodie Foster movie "The Dangerous Lives of Altar Boys" with animation by Todd McFarlane. Since then, Tom has worked on movies & TV shows doing prop illustration & Storyboards for productions such as: "Stateside", "Stay Alive", "Surface", "Major Movie Star", "Super", "A Cinderella Story 3", "Smile as Big as the Moon" and the hit TV show "One Tree Hill." You can see more info on his IMDB page.

In 2012 Tom won his landmark copyright infringement case against corporate giant HomeGoods and ATI Industries, which he considers a huge victory for all artists! (the case was later settled)

Tom resides in beautiful Wilmington, NC, and works out of his home studio when he is not lecturing and doing shows worldwide.

Tom is now exploring the world of Fine Art and Galleries with his award winning Giclee prints, original art and stunningly beautiful yoga mats.