Golden Gate Riot

Ian “Pen” Merch (they/them/their) is an Atlanta-based artist from rural Illinois. They worked in the animation industry in a professional capacity from 2007-2010, and then full-time in the games industry from 2010-2013. Since then they have mostly worked freelance, doing sprite work, animation, illustration, and sometimes things they don’t feel comfortable talking about where their family might find it.

They always wanted to make comics but didn’t know where to start. It turns out you can just make them, and no one will stop you. In July of 2012, they launched pilotside.us, filled with original works, written and illustrated by them. It contains three complete graphic novels, an ongoing series, as well as various other one shots and shorter stories.

Jeremy W. Kaufmann (he/him/his) is a San Francisco-based writer, musician, and VR developer. He grew up in Michigan. He worked in the games industry sometime in the 2000s as everything from game designer/creative writer to production assistant to QA robot. The rest of the time he worked in IT while making the occasional comic and performing in bands like Unicron/Wicked Tribe, Devil-Land, and Violence Mars. He also hosted Destroy All Podcasts for nine years.

He wrote Golden Gate Riot, published by Front Froid, and The Tale of Peter Rabbit, Murderer published in White Rabbit Magazine, as well as several self-published mini-comics.