palette to create with: the only limit is my imagination, and as you see, that has never had any limits!”
Ricardo Pustanio’s hands have been busy creating artworks that have brought joy and pleasure to literally thousands of people over the years. It is no wonder that Ricardo has been named one of The Hardest Working Mardi Gras Artists in the City of New Orleans and in the history of Mardi Gras design.
Bill Oliver
Artist Bill Oliver is also a musician, composer, and award-winning song writer. His music is sometimes reflective and moody, and his compositions, like his art, often act as “sound photographs” that capture a moment of life and freeze it in time for further contemplation—even if that moment of contemplation involves a vampire, zombie, UFO visitor, or a werewolf.
Bill Oliver
Oliver resides in Vancouver, British Columbia, where he has nourished a life-long fascination for the paranormal, UFOs, the metaphysical, and all things esoteric, interests stemming from many personal experiences. His enthusiasm for pursuing the unknown brought him into personal contact and interview opportunities with experiencers in all aspects of the paranormal. These encounters have had significant influences on much of Bill’s work.
Brad Steiger first became familiar with Oliver’s exciting artwork when the Canadian won the Christmas Art contest on the Jeff Rense Program in 2005. In the art contest for Halloween 2006, Bill won honorable mention.
As the two men became better acquainted, Steiger was honored to learn that he had been one of Oliver’s boyhood heroes with his work on the paranormal, the esoteric, and things that go bump in the night.
“To be reading one of Brad’s classic books one day and being asked to do some art for one of his new books another is truly paranormal,” Oliver said.
Visit Bill Oliver’s website at http://www.boysoblue.com/.
Dan “Wolfman” Allen
Dan “Wolfman” Allen is the owner of Ronin Studio, where he has been perfecting his unique style of comic book art for many years. Wolfman also does incredible renderings of vampires, werewolves, and other assorted monsters in a very compelling and graphic manner. He is not really into the “superhero” genre that permeates the American comic book industry. Rather, most of his characters are more a part of the fantasy and sci-fi genre; his protagonists, while thought by some of their peers to be antisocial or disreputable, continue to be themselves and try to rise above their superficial visages or reputations to solve a key problem, rather than trying to save the entire world.
Dan “Wolfman” Allen
Dan is also fascinated by Native American lore and shares both tribal and Viking blood in his genes. As much as possible, he attempts to follow shamanic teachings in combination with Christian philosophy. He has studied the paranormal and the mystical since he was a boy, and he has experienced many aspects of the so-called supernatural on a personal basis. Contact him at [email protected].
Tim R. Swartz
Tim Swartz is an Indiana native and Emmy Award-winning television producer/videographer. He is the author of a number of popular books, including The Lost Journals of Nikola Tesla, Time Travel: A How-To-Guide, and Admiral Byrd’s Secret Journey Beyond the Poles. As a photojournalist, Tim has traveled extensively and investigated paranormal phenomena and other unusual mysteries from such diverse locations as the Great Pyramid in Egypt to the Great Wall of China. As well, he is the writer and editor of the Internet newsletter Conspiracy Journal, a free, weekly email newsletter considered essential reading by paranormal researchers worldwide. Visit his website at www.conspiracy journal.com.
Tim R. Swartz
Alyne Pustanio
Folklorist and occultist Alyne Pustanio is a New Orleans native whose roots go deep into the local culture; and it is from that proverbial “gumbo” that she draws her inspiration for most of her tales of terror and fascination.
Alyne Pustanio
A descendant of Portuguese and Sicilian immigrant families who trace their ancestry to European Gypsies, Alyne was exposed to the mysteries of the occult at an early age. Two great-grandmothers were gifted and sought out mediums and another relative is a verified psychic; however, Alyne credits her mother—an avid spiritualist—with inspiring her lifelong interest in the supernatural and unexplained.
These interests, combined with her avocations in folklore and history, result in a validity and passion that is immediately obvious in all her writings. Learn more at her website www.hauntedamericatours.com.
Pastor Robin Swope
Pastor Robin Swope, who is known as the “Paranormal Pastor,” has been a Christian minister for more than 15 years in both mainline and evangelical denominations. He has served as a missionary to Burkina Faso, West Africa, and ministered to the homeless in New York City’s Hell’s Kitchen. He is the founder and chief official of Open Gate Ministerial Services and a member of St. Paul’s United Church of Christ in Erie, Pennsylvania. His website is http://theparanormalpastor.blogspot.com.
Pastor Robin Swope
William Michael Mott
William Michael (Mike) Mott has been a creative director for a national toy and manufacturing company and a high-performance software company, an art director for a city newspaper, an artist/designer for Fortune 500 companies, as well as for an NSF Engineering Research Center, and has done work for a variety of clients on a freelance basis, such as book and magazine publishers. He is also a freelance artist and writer, and writes both fiction and nonfiction. His artwork and writing have appeared or been featured in many publications, such as Computer Graphics World Magazine, DRAGON Magazine, FATE, NEXUS, World Explorer, Undaunted Press, Lost Continent Library Magazine, and others. He has created artwork and graphic design for massmarket book covers, posters, brochures, packaging, CD-ROM covers and art collections, and digital/web-based media. And he has won several design awards, from regional Advertising Federation awards for printed material to awards for website graphics and design. His artwork has been featured in the exhibition “In Dreams Awake: Art of Fantasy” at the Olympia and York Gallery, NYC, 1988; at the 1987 World Fantasy Con, Con∗stellation, the DragonCon 2001 art show, several one-man exhibits, and digital galleries in various venues. He also researches and writes on Fortean, folklore, comparative religion, and paranormal topics.
William
