The next San Diego Comic-Con is just a few months away, returning to the San Diego Convention Center on July 24-27, 2025. The comic and pop culture event has announced that the first group of special guests are J.M. DeMatteis, Emil Ferris, Daniel Warren Johnson, J.G. Jones, and Paul Karasik.

DeMatteis is an Eisner Award winning comic writer, novelist, TV writer, and music journalist. He worked on superhero titles starring Spider-Man and Captain America, wrote Brooklyn Dreams and Moonshadow, and collaborated with Keith Giffen on Justice League, Hero Squared, and other titles. Some of his recent projects are The Excavator novella, Batman: Caped Crusader animated series, and the comics Godsend, Anyman, and Wisdom.

Ferris is the writer and artist of the My Favorite Thing is Monsters series. She has an MFA in Creative Writing and was given the rank of Knight in the Order of Arts and Letters. She has won multiple Eisner Awards, Ignatz Awards, and other honors.

Johnson is a comic writer and artist who has worked for Image, Skybound, DC, Marvel, and more. His work has appeared in Beta Ray Bill, Wonder Woman: Dead Earth, The Ghost Fleet, Murder Falcon, and the Eisner winning Do a Powerbomb and Transformers.

Jones has spent 30 years in comics as an illustrator and writer. He is best known for his work in 52, Wanted, Final Crisis, Black Widow, Marvel Boy, Final Crisis, and many others. He has been nominated for multiple Eisner Awards for Wanted, Codename: Knockout, and Transmetropolitan.

Karasik is an Eisner winner, cartoonist, and teacher. His works include the graphic novel adaptation of Paul Auster’s The New York Trilogy, How to Read Nancy, and The Ride Together, a Memoir of Autism in the Family. His work has appeared in the New York Times, The New Yorker, and Washington Post.