San Diego Comic-Con 2026 Special Guests [UPDATE June 3]

Comic-Con International has started rolling out this year’s list of Special Guests for San Diego Comic-Con 2026, highlighting the writers, artists, and creators being officially honored during the convention. While at most conventions, the Special Guests would be actors and high-profile celebrities, San Diego Comic-Con doesn’t need to work to get those folks to show up. Instead, these invited guests are typically featured in dedicated “Spotlight” panels throughout the weekend, giving attendees a chance to hear directly from some of comics’ and pop culture’s most influential (and often under-represented) voices as they discuss their careers, creative process, and latest projects.

From their site, here’s the list of the Special Guests headed to SDCC 2026:

[NEW] Matt Dinniman • Writer/Artist • Dungeon Crawler Carl
[NEW] Jim Lee • Artist/Writer/Editor/Publisher • Batman, Wonder Woman
[NEW]Shawn Martinbrough • Artist • Luke Cage Noir, The Black Panther, Detective Comics
[NEW] Steven Butler • Comic book creator • Punisher War Journal, Web of Spider-Man, The Badger
[NEW] Leuyen Pham • Artist • Lunar New Year Love Story, As I Dream of You, Templar
Kelly Sue Deconnick • Comic creator/author • Wonder Woman Historia: The Amazons, Bitch Planet, Pretty Deadly, FML
Javier Fernández • Comic artist • Captain America, Magneto, Batman, Nightwing, Detective Comics, Justice League, Green Arrow
Paul Levitz • Comics writer, editor, historian, executive, CEO • The Comic Reader, Batman, Legion of Super-Heroes, 75 Years of DC Comics: The Art of Modern Mythmaking
Belén Ortega • Comic artist • Miles Morales: Spider-Man, Guardians of the Galaxy, Captain Marvel, Batman: Urban Legends, Trinity: Daughter of Wonder Woman miniseries
Jeff Smith • Comic writer and artist • BONE, RASL, TUKI, SHAZAM: The Monster Society of Evil and Little Mouse Gets Ready!
Deniz Camp • Comic writer • 20th Century Men (Image Comics), Ultimates (Marvel), Absolute Martian Manhunter (DC), Bleeding Hearts (Vertigo), and Assorted Crisis Events (Image)
Howard Mackie • Comic writer, Ghost Rider, Spider-Man, Hawkeye, The X-Men, X-Factor, Mutant-X, Gambit, Wolverine, Batman
Katie Skelly • Cartoonist, Heaven, My Pretty Vampire, The Agency, and Maids
Mark Waid • New York Times bestselling author, Batman, Superman, Spider-Man, The Avengers, X-Men, Archie, Star Wars, The Incredibles, Fantastic Four, Wonder Woman, Daredevil, Captain America
Caspar Wijngaard • Comic artist, The Power Fantasy, All Against All, Home Sick Pilots, and Limbo
Frank Miller • Author, artist, and novelist • Daredevil: Born Again, Batman: The Dark Knight Returns, Elektra Assassin, Sin City, 300
Huda Fahmy • Author and illustrator of the webcomic series Yes, I’m Hot in This, the graphic memoir That Can Be Arranged, and the widely popular Huda F graphic novel series
Brianna Loewinson • Author of the graphic memoir Ephemera (Fantagraphics, 2023), Raised by Ghosts (Fantagraphics, 2025)
Gordon Purcell • Comic book artist, The X-Files, Xena, Lost in Space, Godzilla, Young Indiana Jones, Barb Wire, and Stargate Atlantis. His many other credits include Deep Space Nine, Voyager, Soulsearchers and Company, The Flash, Fantastic Four, Superman, Robin, Wonder Man, What If?, Kolchak, Justice League, Ben 10, and Elvira
Derek V. Song • Asian American writer, The Last Bloodline, The Primal Hunter, Paranoid Mage, and the recent adaptation of Dimension 20’s hit D&D series, Fantasy High
Peter Bagge • Cartoonist, Neat Stuff, Hate, Buddy Bradley, Woman Rebel, Fire!!, Credo
Stephan Pastis • Cartoonist and author, Pearls Before Swine, Timmy Failure, Trubble Town, Looking Up
Pornsak Pichetshote • Writer and former editor, Infidel, The Good Asian, Absolute Green Arrow, Exquisite Corpses: Lone Gunman, Marvel’s Cloak & Dagger, Two Sentence Horror Stories
Mimi Pond • Cartoonist, humorist, and writer, The Valley Girls Guide to Life, Over Easy, The Customer Is Always Wrong, Do Admit: The Mitford Sisters and Me, Pee-wee’s Playhouse, The Simpsons
Victoria “V. E.” Schwab • Author, Villains, Shades of Magic, The Invisible Life of Addie LaRue, Bury Our Bones in the Midnight Soil, Gallant