The Shanghai Film Festival is proud to announce our distinguished guest speaker for 2009, Scott McCloud.

Biography:

Scott McCloud has been writing and drawing comics professionally since 1984. His first series, Zot!, garnered

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multiple nominations in the prestigious Harvey and Eisner awards. His book Understanding Comics was a New York Times Notable book for 1994, and has since been translated into over 16 languages.  McCloud began the international 24-Hour Comics movement, wrote the influential Bill of Rights for Comics Creators, and is one of the very first American comics artist to incorporate manga influences into his work—nearly 20 years before manga exploded onto the American comics industry.  Throughout the 1990s, McCloud was an ardent supporter of webcomics. His theories have been influential in game, web, and interface design. He has lectured on comics and digital media at Google, MIT, Pixar, Microsoft, and the Smithsonian Institution.

In recent years, McCloud launched a series of seminars on the art of storytelling through comics, culminating in his 2006 book, Making Comics. He is currently beginning work on a graphic novel; his first original work of fiction intended for print in nine years. Frank Miller (Sin City, 300) has described McCloud as "just about the smartest guy in comics." Locus magazine called him "arguably, the most important cartoonist alive."  Scott has been brought over from the USA as a special guest of the S2F2 Student Film Festival.  

In addition to speaking at the Film Festival, Scott will spend time with students at partner schools in more interactive discussion.