Celebrity Guests
Michael Rooker
Michael Rooker is a legendary actor who first rose to prominence for portraying Henry in Henry: Portrait of a Serial Killer in 1986. Also known for portraying Jared Svenning in the now cult classic Mall Rats in 1995. Rooker is best known for starring as Merle Dixon in the massive AMC series The Walking Dead and as Yondu Udonta in the MCU's Guardians of the Galaxy , followed by its sequels Guardians of the Galaxy Vol. 2 and Guardians of the Galaxy Vol. 3 achieving over 2.5 billion in box office revenue. He is a recurring collaborator of Guardians of the Galaxy writer/director James Gunn, appearing in his films Slither, Super and The Suicide Squad. Other notable roles include Chick Gandil in Eight Men Out, Frank Bailey in Mississippi Burning, Terry Cruger in Sea of Love, Rowdy Burns in Days of Thunder, Bill Broussard in JFK, Hal Tucker in Cliffhanger, Sherman McMaster in Tombstone, Detective Edward Kennesaw in Deceiver, Detective Howard Cheney in The Bone Collector, Detective Jake Riley in Replicant, and Buddy in F9. This summer he costars with Kevin Costner in Horizon: An American Saga.
Ross Marquand
Ross is widely known for portraying "Aaron" on the hit television series The Walking Dead (2015–2022), Red Skull in the MCU's Avengers: Infinity War and Avengers: Endgame and Ultron in various projects connected to the Marvel Cinematic Universe, and voices numerous characters in the animated television series Invincible (2021). Most recently it's been announced that Ross will voice Professor Charles Xavier in the upcoming animated series, X-Men 97 on Disney Plus!
Nakia Burrise
Nakia Burrise is an actress, writer, producer and film-maker. She is widely known for her role as Tanya Sloan, the Yellow Zeo Ranger and later, the first Yellow Turbo Ranger on the television series Power Rangers Zeo and Power Rangers Turbo and the Power Rangers Turbo movie. Nakia has also starred in the Nickelodeon series Danger Force, multiple voice acting roles with Barbie, Lisa in the House Party movie, and more. Nakia also recently wrote, produced and starred in the full length film, Back to Bridgewood that recently won "Best Comedy" at the 2024 Beaufort Film Festival. Nakia hosts a popular Youtube Series, Power Rangers Playback with her co-star and friend, Catherine Sutherland.
Catherine Sutherland
Catherine Sutherland is an actress, podcaster and writer known for her portrayal of Kat Hillard, the second Pink Power Ranger and later, the Pink Zeo Ranger and the first Pink Turbo Ranger in the Power Rangers television series and Power Rangers Turbo movie. Sutherland returned to Power Rangers in a 30th-anniversary special titled Mighty Morphin Power Rangers: Once & Always, which was a massive hit on Netflix in 2023. Catherine co-hosts the widely popular Youtube Series, Power Rangers Playback with her co-star and friend, Nakia Burrise.
Cal Dodd
Cal Dodd is an Irish-Canadian voice actor and singer. He is best known for his portrayal of the Marvel Comics character Wolverine in the groundbreaking X-Men: The Animated Series and the Marvel vs. Capcom series of video games. Cal makes his return to Wolverine in the new Disney + revival of X-men The Animated Series with X-Men 97!
George Buza
George Buza is an actor widely known for his iconic portrayal of Hank McCoy aka "Beast" in X-Men the Animated Series. He was the only voice actor out of the main leads that was familiar with the comic prior to being cast. He also reprised the role in the video games X-Men: Children of the Atom and both X-Men: Mutant Academy games and is currently back in the role in the massively successful series sequel, X-Men 97 on Disney Plus. Buza has also provided character voices in many animated series. He voiced Grandpa Granger in the English dub of Beyblade, Chief Chirpa on Star Wars: Ewoks, and additional roles in Star Wars: Droids, The Busy World of Richard Scarry, Mythic Warriors: Guardians of the Legend, The Neverending Story, Babar, Hammerman, Jayce and the Wheeled Warriors, Grossology, Iggy Arbuckle, Dog City, Pecola, Monster Force, Franny's Feet, Starlink: Battle for Atlas and Tales from the Cryptkeeper. George provided his voice in the English dubs of the Medabots and Power Stone video games. He's also been a live action actor in dozens of movie and television roles including a trucker in the 2000 movie, X-Men.
Voice Actors
My Hero Academia
Big Lick Comic Con welcomes Leah Clark, Chris Wehkamp, Luci Christian and Kyle Phillips from My Hero Academia! Don't miss the celebration, August 3-4th!
Leah Clark
Leah Clark has provided voices for countless Japanese anime series and video games with some of her major roles including Mavis Vermillion in Fairy Tail, Suzuka Asahina in Suzuka, Saki Morimi in Eden of the East, Kagura Tsuchimiya in Ga-Rei: Zero, Eri Sawachika in School Rumble, Mio Naganohara in Nichijou, Blair in Soul Eater, Minami Shimada in Baka and Test, Kobayashi in Miss Kobayashi's Dragon Maid and Himiko Toga in My Hero Academia.
Chris Wehkamp
Chris Wehkamp is an American voice actor affiliated with FUNimation Entertainment/Crunchyroll, Bang Zoom! Entertainment, Sound Cadence Studios and OkraTron 5000. He is known for his roles as Eraserhead/Shōta Aizawa in My Hero Academia, Miles Edgeworth in Ace Attorney, Kishou Arima in Tokyo Ghoul:re, Takehisa Hinawa in Fire Force, Susumu Kodai in Star Blazers: Space Battleship Yamato 2199, Tenka Kumo in Laughing Under the Clouds and Jotaro Aragaki in The Gymnastics Samurai.
Kyle Phillips
Kyle Phillips is an American voice actor, ADR director and ADR engineer working for FUNimation Entertainment. He is known for voicing Denki Kaminari in My Hero Academia, Genshiro Saji in High School DxD, Suigin Riku in The Silver Guardian and Toru Kishiri in Fire Force.
Luci Christian
Luci is a prolific voice actor of hundreds of anime and game titles, including fan favorites Ochaco and Recovery Girl in My Hero Academia and Nami in One Piece. She's also a narrator of corporate videos, e-learning projects, and audiobooks (receiving a 2021 Audie nomination for Cara Bastone's Call Me Maybe), and is a long-time commercial voice talent. On-camera, Luci has appeared in numerous commercials, industrials, and film projects, including playing opposite Tessa Thompson in the film Little Woods.
Doug Cockle
Doug Cockle is an actor, voice-actor and director known for his voice-over roles in video games, most notably of Geralt of Rivia in The Witcher series, winning numerous awards as the star of one of the biggest selling video game series of all time.
Creators
Kevin Nowlan
Kevin Nowlan is a penciler, inker, colorist, and letterer and a 40+ year veteran of the comics industry. He has been called "one of the few artists who can be called 'artists's artist'", a master of the various disciplines of comic production, from "design to draftsmanship to dramatics". Credits include Batman: Sword of Azreal, Tomorrow Stories and Superman vs. Aliens. Nowlan contributed character designs to the iconic Batman: The Animated Series, most notably The Penguin, The Mad Hatter and the Man-Bat.
Ron Marz
Ron Marz has been writing comics for three decades, starting his career with a lengthy run on Silver Surfer for Marvel. Since then, he has worked for virtually every major publisher and compiled a long list of credits, including stints on Thor for Marvel, Green Lantern and Superboy for DC, Star Wars for Dark Horse, and the historic Marvel vs. DC crossover. He co-created the Green Lantern Kyle Rayner during his landmark run on the title. Marz is also known for penning numerous inter-company crossovers, including Green Lantern-Silver Surfer, Batman-Aliens, Batman-Tarzan: Claws of the Catwoman, Green Lantern-Aliens, and Amalgam title Doctor Strangefate. He was Senior Writer at CrossGen Comics, where his titles included Mystic, Scion, Sojourn, and The Path. Other credits include his acclaimed run on Witchblade, as well as Magdalena, Artifacts, and Cyber Force for Top Cow/Image, the Skylanders series for IDW, the Justice League: Endless Winter crossover for DC, Almost American for Aftershock, John Carter: Warlord of Mars and Turok for Dynamite, X-O Manowar at Valiant, Fathom for Aspen, and Swamp God in Heavy Metal magazine. He served as Editor-in-Chief for Ominous Press, penning Dread Gods, Demi-God, Beasts of the Black Hand, and Harken’s Raiders. Marz’s creator-owned series include the all-ages tale Dragon Prince at Top Cow; the historical adventure Samurai: Heaven and Earth at Dark Horse; the vampire tale Shinku at Image; and cosmic graphic novel Resolution. Marz has also written for video games, including multiple Skylanders titles, Marvel Ultimate Alliance 2, Spider-Man 2, and more. He is currently part of the narrative team for Blizzard’s Diablo franchise. Marz also teaches comic book writing at the Jacob Krueger Studio, based in Manhattan.
Mark Morales
A longtime comics pro, Mark Morales has worked for many companies, including Image, Dark Horse, Chaos, DC Comics, and Marvel Comics, mostly as an inker. Past projects from Mark include Thor, Daredevil, Batman, X-Men, Avengers vs. X-Men, Spider-Man/Deadpool, and Astonishing X-Men. Currently, he is working on Heroes Reborn and The High Republic from Marvel Comics.
Bob Hall
Bob Hall has quite an extensive history in the comic industry as a writer, artist, and editor. Hall is the original artist and co-creator of the West Coast Avengers team. Bob also served as the regular artist on Avengers and penned issues of Amazing Spider-Man. Bob has been in the comics industry for more than forty-five years, starting at Charlton Comics in 1974, illustrating horror stories and drawing covers. That same year he took a course in creating comics taught by the legendary John Buscema and at the end of the class, Buscema recommended him to Archie Goodwin, Editor-In-Chief at Marvel, as a penciler. His earliest Marvel work was on Champions and Super-Villain Team-Up. Over the next fifteen years, Bob drew most of Marvel’s Major books and characters, The Champions, Doctor Doom, the Red Skull, The Avengers, The West Coast Avengers, The Squadron Supreme, Spider-man, including Spider-Man meeting the original Saturday Night Live cast, Thor, Nick Fury, Moon Knight, one issue of The New Mutants, and What If Conan Were Trapped In the Twentieth Century, Part 2. He also did a slew of Movie adaptations including Willow, Dark Man, and the 1980s Captain America. Also during this period some of his favorite work at Marvel on the graphic novel, Emperor Doom. Jim Shooter, as new Marvel Editor-In Chief at the time, offered Bob a job as one of a new group of sub-editors. Bob would eventually go on to join Jim at Valiant Comics for a popular stint with numerous projects. Lately Bob is lending his talents to independent comics work to include illustrated poems, to portraits, to comics stories, commissions and much more.
Cosplay Guests
Lane Fenimore
Lane (Laney) Fenimore is a Washington DC based cosplayer and model with a massive social media following known for her incredible designs and a love of Krytonian heroes! We are so excited to welcome her to her first Big Lick Comic Con!
Many more to come!
Let's celebrate the things we love!
Welcome to Big Lick Comic Con in Roanoke, Virginia – where the pop culture universe and cosplay fans collide! Our celebrity guests include actors, actresses, TV hosts, voice actors and comic book creators who have captured the hearts and imaginations of millions around the world. Whether you're a fan of comic books, sci-fi, fantasy, horror, or action, you're sure to find something to love at our con. Our team is committed to creating a welcoming and exciting atmosphere where comic lovers from all walks of life can come together and celebrate their passion for all things pop culture. We can't wait to see you there!