Welcome Comic Book Artists David Finch and Mark Brooks to STGCC 2018!

STGCC 2018 announced their first round of guests was well as opened online ticketing for the event yesterday.

Comic book artists David Finch and Mark Brooks will be meeting fans at the pop-culture event, held on 8 and 9 September at the Marina Bay Sands Expo!

David Finch started out in Top Cow Productions' "Cyberforce", working closely with creator and studio founder Marc Silvestri. After the run for "Cyberforce" ended, he created the titles "Ascension" with writer Matt "Batt" Banning, and "Aphrodite IX" with David Wohl.

In 2003, David returned to comics collaborating with Brian Michael Bendis on Marvel's "Ultimate X-Men" and "Avengers", as well as the relaunch of the superhero team called "The New Avengers". Sometime in 2010, David switched to DC Comics, providing covers for "Brightest Day" by Geoff Johns and Peter Tomasi. He also wrote and drew for 18 issues of the "Batman: The Dark Knight" series, before moving on to "Justice League of America" and "Forever Evil".

As for comic book artist Mark Brooks, this is not his first time visiting Singapore. Mark, who has worked on various of Marvel's popular titles, like "Deadpool", "Ultimate Spider-Man" and "Secret Wars", made an appearance as a guest hosted by the now-defunct Invasion! Toys, back in STGCC 2012.

His career has grown in leaps and bounds since then, with his art gracing the covers and interiors of several Star Wars comics, like "Han Solo" which was published in 2016. The limited series garnered favourable reviews and earned Mark Brooks and writer Marjorie Liu an Eisner Award nomination in 2017. Not only that, his pencil work caught the eye of Star Wars creator George Lucas, and he had requested to buy every page of the original art from the first two issues of "Han Solo"! Wowzas, right?

Mark's recent projects include Marvel's "Amazing Spider-Man #1", variant covers for DC's "Detective Comics" and "Justice of America". More excitingly for toy collectors is his collaboration with Sideshow Collectibles for an artist series statue collection for characters, like Spider-Gwen, Silk and Spider-Man from the Spiderverse. Click on this link to check out the preview of the first statue - Spider-Gwen!

To offer another side to comic book art is Head of Visual Development at Marvel Studios, Ryan Meinerding. Ryan was the lead designer of "Iron Man II" movie, and has done concept work for several other Marvel films, including "Thor", "Captain America: The First Avenger", "The Avengers" movies and "Black Panther".

For those who love Japanese pop-culture, character designer Range Murata is included in the initial guest line-up. Range Murata has worked on video games, magazines and books, and is famous for his unique concept work for anime such as "Last Exile" and "Blue Submarine No. 6". His full-coloured manga compilation "robot" is so popular, it has been translated into several languages including English, Chinese, Korea and Spanish.

Talented musician YUC'e, who has produced her own album called "Future Cake", will also be at STGCC. She also does animation remixes and songs for rhythm games like KONAMI's “beatmania IIDX” and SEGA's "CHUNITHM”.


TICKETING INFO

Fans can now buy their STGCC tickets online at this link.

There are various options for ticketing, all a higher price compared to last year's. So be prepared to fork out more money for the passes.

* VIP Loot Pack at SGD 150 with the following items included in the purchase.
- Early Access for STGCC x GGXP (8 & 9 Sept @ 9:30am)
- 3 x VIP Fast Pass (For quick access to Walk of Fame)
- 1 x VIP T-Shirt
- 1 x Mystery T-Shirt
- 1 x VIP Lanyard
- 1 x VIP Badge
- 1 x VIP tokidoki x STGCC sports towel (60cm x 120cm)
- and some more items to be announced, according to STGCC's website

* STGCC x GGXP (i.e. the game section of the convention) at SGD 20.50 for 1-day pass; SGD 32 for 2-day pass. (For comparison, last year's price was SGD 19 for 1-day; SGD 28 for 2-day).

* GGXP at SGD 10 for 1-day pass; SGD 15 for 2-day pass

What's interesting is that this year, STGCC is offering passes for groups, called SQUAD PACKS, at a discounted rate. These are available only for online purchase.

* 4 Man Squad Pack at SGD 71.90 (i.e. 50% for the 4th person) - 1 day passes only each
* 5 Man Squad Pack at SGD 82.00 (i.e. free for the 5th person) - 1 day passes only each

These squad packs are great if you have a bunch of friends, and are only intending to attend STGCC for 1 day. The cost per pax for the 5 Man Squad Pack is SGD 16.50, lower than last year's price of SGD 19.

Red Dot Diva knows there will be more guests announcement on its way, so if the first wave of guests do not float your boat, watch out for who's coming to the convention in the next round! Whatever you decide, make sure you don't miss out on the tickets if you want to join in the pop-culture fun in September!