From left, Jim Steranko, Bill Sienkiewivz, Jackie Estrada, Steve Leialoha, and Walt Simonson.
Jackie Estrada has been involved in comics fandom since the late 1960s, when she and her then-husband Davey Estrada collected comics and subscribed to just about every fanzine. She attended the first San Diego Comic-Con in the summer of 1970 and she has been to all of them ever since. She began volunteering with Comic-Con in 1975, handling PR chores in tandem with Jeff Gelb. She went on to edit the Souvenir Book and other publications beginning in 1977 and off and on through the 1980s and into the 1990s and also put in a stint as official Con photographer. Since 1990 she has been the administrator of the Will Eisner Comic Industry Awards, comics’ most prestigious awards program, and over the last decade she has produced Comic-Con’s at-show Events Guide, in addition to serving as the chair of the guest committee and performing other tasks for Comic-Con and its other shows, WonderCon and APE (Alternative Press Expo).
Jackie’s other accomplishments with Comic-Con include helping to establish the Robert A. Heinlein Blood Drive in 1977, starting Artists’ Alley in 1986, and instigating a separate registration for professionals in 1987. She received Comic-Con’s Inkpot Award in 1977.
In 1994, Jackie married cartoonist Batton Lash and they founded Exhibit A Press, a publishing company devoted to producing Batton’s comic book series Supernatural Law. She has been the co-publisher, editor, and letterer for the company ever since.
Jackie is particularly proud of having edited the book Comics: Between the Panels by Mike Richardson and Steve Duin (Dark Horse, 1998) and co-written Comic-Con: 40 Years of Artists, Writers, Fans, and Friends (Chronicle Books, 2009).
Jackie is the author of two books of photos she took at Comic-Con and other fan events in the 1970s-1990s: Comic Book People: Photographs from the 1970s and 1980s, and Comic Book People: Photographs from the 1990s. Both were published by Exhibit A Press (www.exhibitapress.com) and make great “yearbooks” for collecting autographs.
Jackie Estrada with husband, Batton Lash, at their Exhibit A Press booth.
Jackie hanging with Alex Toth at the El Cortez in 1979.
Jackie Estrada signing books at the 2009 Comic-Con 40th-anniversary party.