What creators are attending a festival in Arizona

CBS-5 in Arizona announced what creators are attending a comics art festival in the state next February, and the list appears to include at least a few with tasteless products on their record:

• Mitch Gerads (DC Comic’s Batman, Strange Adventures & Mister Miracle)
• Darick Robertson (Co-creator of The Boys and Transmetropolitan, artist for DC & Marvel Comics)
• Andrew MacLean (Creator of Image Comics’ Head Lopper)
• Alexis Ziritt (Co-Creator of Space Riders, Creator of Tarantula, artist at Image Comics & Heavy Metal)
• Scott Godlewski (DC Comics’ Justice League, Superman, & Co-Creator of Copperhead at Image Comics)

I wonder why we're supposed to care about at least 2 artists whose resumes include some very disrespectful takes on classic creations, and whose original scriptwriter for Transmetropolitan, Warren Ellis, has since been marginalized for alleged sexual misconduct? It goes without saying, as the Comics Journal once noted, that Transmetropolitan's description of Spider Jerusalem's 2 female colleagues as "filthy assistants" could be viewed much differently today. Very little of Ellis' portfolio interests me from a modern perspective either. And Gerads' work with Tom King was reprehensible in the extreme. What good does it do to invite these kind of pretentious artists and writers to the upcoming festival?

“With more and more comic conventions becoming large pop culture spectacles, I thought it was time to try a throwback approach to when comic conventions were all about comics and the creators who made them,” festival founder Ryan Cody said. “To that end AZCAF will be comics and creator focused which I think makes a wonderful event for fans to interact with some of our amazing guests.”

But why did they decide to invite men like Gerads and Robertson, whose resumes are overrated and pretentious? Particularly dismaying is when left-wing creators who've turned out the worst of mainstream stories in modern times figure the most prominently at these conventions, and that's exactly why it's a shame this festival's unlikely to live up to its potential.