GSRS HR 1: The Hero Initiative

In hour one HERO Initiative day, we\'ll hear from Jason Waters, Northern California rep for the HERO Initiative, Andrew Farago, curator of the Cartoon Art Museum in San Francisco, and Image Comics Founder Jim Valentino.

GSRS HR 2: More on The Hero Initiative

We continue our look at the Hero Initiative with writer/photographer Dan Wickline, who has written for the 30 Days of Night and Grimm Fairy tales comics franchises, and is currently writing the new Shadowhawk series for Image. Henry will also talk about what you can do to get involved with the Hero Initiative, and will get you caught up on the news of the day.

Hero Initiative Ebay Auctions

Help out the Hero Initiative by participating in one of their Ebay auctions.

The Hero Initiative Website

The Hero Initiative creates a financial safety net for comic creators who may need emergency medical aid, financial support for essentials of life, and an avenue back into paying work.

Jim Valentino

Jim Valentino was born in the Bronx, New York in 1952. He started his career in the late 1970s creating small press, self-published comics such as Christmas Comics and Kid Stuf’. His first full-color series, normalman, was published in 1984 by Aardvark-Vanaheim. In 1985, at Renegade Press, he launched his second series, the eponymously-titled Valentino. Jim left comics to work for a time in animation, He returned in 1989 at Marvel, where he re-created the Guardians of the Galaxy series. In 1992, he left Marvel along with a cadre of other artists to form Image Comics, for which he created the ultra-violent, HIV infected vigilante, ShadowHawk and the critically-acclaimed A Touch of Silver. He served as publisher of Image from 1999-2004, reshaping the company into one of the most stylistically diverse in the industry.

Jim has served on the Board of Directors of the Cartoon Art Museum and Image Comics, Inc., as well as on the steering committee of Free Comic Book Day. He has worked in an advisory capacity with the Comic Book Legal Defense Fund. He currently lives in Southern California with his sons Aaron and Joel.

Click here for Jim\'s Website

Dan Wickline

Dan Wickline is a writer/photographer/bassist living in Los Angeles, CA. In comics he has written for the 30 Days of Night and Grimm Fairy Tales franchises as well as the on-going ShadowHawk and 1001 Arabian Nights: The Adventures of Sinbad. He\'s also written prose for characters such as The Phantom, The Green Hornet and his own creation Lucius Fogg. As a photographer, Dan has been featured in numerous gallery shows as well as a collection of his black & white work published under the title Private Skin. Dan had a brief moment in the Hollywood spotlight playing a corpse on the hit series Dexter, but now spends his spare time as the bassist for the newly formed metal band Murder Most Foul. Dan is happily married to his lovely wife Debbie, who has an amazing capacity to put up with the insanity that is his life.

Click here for Dan\'s Website