The Anti-Hero Within

Martyn Pedler is a writer and academic, currently completing a creative PhD on superhero stories. He was a film critic until he wrote the arthouse independent feature Exit – which premiered at Montreal's Fantasia Festival back in 2011 – and he realised how hard it is to make a good movie. He now has several film and TV projects in development, both in Australia and the USA. Oh, and he once wrote death monologues for every fatality in the Steven Seagal classic Under Siege.

Angela Ndalianis is Professor of Media and Entertainment and founding co-Director of the Centre for Transformative Media Technologies at Swinburne University of Technology. She researches entertainment media (films, videogames, television, comic books and theme parks) and the technologies that drive them. She also specialises in genre studies, in particular the science-fiction, superhero and horror genres. She is currently writing a book on Batman.

Cienan Muir is a proud Yorta Yorta and Ngarrindjeri man, whose family is rooted along the Murray River and the Coorong in South Australia. Raised in country Victoria and Northcote, Melbourne, Cienan has a deep passion for comic books and coffee. He is the founder of INDIGINERD, a platform that celebrates the Indigenous artistry of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander people in the pop culture world. His efforts focus on highlighting Indigenous creativity and perspectives, which aligns with the growing movement towards more diverse and inclusive storytelling in comic books, including within major franchises.

Brodie Lancaster is an author and essayist from Melbourne. Her work has appeared in publications including the New York Times, Vogue Australia, the Guardian and New York magazine. Her first book, the pop culture memoir No Way! Okay, Fine, was published by Hachette in 2017, and she co-hosts the podcast See Also.

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Go behind the screens. Discover articles, interviews and more about big picture thinkers, rebels and trailblazers past and present.