MAKING - PUBLISHING - COACHING - TEACHING - CLASSES
6822B EL CAJON BLVD., SAN DIEGO CA 92115 - (619) 356.1103
Our Staff!
Alonso Nunez
Executive Director and Lead Teaching Artist
Alonso graduated from the School of Visual Arts majoring in Comic Illustration. A third generation San Diegan, he has always had a passion for the comic artform in all its various styles, genres, and purposes. He is an active comic professional, a 2021 Eisner Comic Industry Judge, and founder of Little Fish Comic Book Studio.
Serena Leitner
Assistant Lead Teaching Artist
Serena attended the School of Creative and Performing Arts and is currently pursuing a comic arts career while she attends Miramar college. When she isn’t drawing, she’s writing, and when she isn’t writing, she’s reading ridiculous amounts of fiction (comics and otherwise). During her time at Little Fish, Serena discovered a love of teaching and hopes to continue as an arts teacher and comic creator into the foreseeable future.
Mario Torres Jr
Teaching Artist
Mario is an artist and has been teaching at Little Fish since 2016. He has credits as an illustrator, cartoonist, graphic designer, self-publisher, and art director. He is currently editor in chief of the CASD (Comic Book Artists of San Diego) and is currently working on collecting his works together into a graphic novel series. He has been touring So-Cal with his arts installations called Ego Death since 2017. His mission is to inspire and show everyone that drawing is as essential as reading or writing.
TJ Shevlin
Teaching Artist
Born and raised in New York City, TJ had a long-time love affair with comics, thanks in part to seeing the Marvel Universe outside his window. Over the years, he has gone from comic fan, to comic retailer, to comic historian. In 2015, TJ had a hand in putting together IDW Publishing’s San Diego Comic Art Gallery and retail space, of which he then went on to manage both for 3 years. He currently works for Upper Deck as the product development coordinator for Marvel Publishing, but his heart always lies in storytelling. TJ has taken on the role of comic educator here at Little Fish, focusing on the art of script writing, character development, and storytelling. As of 2023, he's become an Eisner Awards Judge.
Aubrianna Robinson
Teaching Artist
Aubrianna graduated with a BFA in Illustration at the Lyme Academy College of Fine Arts at the University of New Haven and is continuing her education in animation at Mesa Community College in San Diego. She has experience in all illustrative practices including portraiture, traditional painting, and graphic design, but specializes in cartoons and comics. Aubrianna currently runs two webcomics and has multiple comics and books printed. She continues to create, sharing her process as examples during Littlefish classes.
Zyanya Hernandez-Grant
Teaching Artist
Zyanya graduated with a BFA in Animation from Otis College of Art and Design. She is a lover of storytelling and has pursued it her whole life, both visual and performance. When she’s not lost in a story, she is creating her own. As an active illustrator and storyboarder with a passion for the craft, she brings her experience to teach others how to do the same.
Kira Bacal Peterson
Teaching Artist
Kira is a San Diego born artist who has been enamored with the arts & drawing since they could hold a pencil. Kira now specializes in digital art but is no stranger to pencil and paper- their favorite medium outside of the digital realm of Clip Studio Paint and Procreate has to be pen and ink. When Kira isn’t making art, they’re probably thinking about art- or their cat. Also a thorough lover of comics and animation, Kira is extremely passionate about what they do & how it’s done.
Nikita Atrash
Substitute Teaching Instructor
Nikita is a webcomic artist (pen name “Shard”) from San Diego. She tends to dabble in a little bit of everything, from traditional to digital mediums, and from illustration to pixel art. She draws inspiration from all manner of Western and Eastern sources, and has a particular fondness for Squirrel Girl and One Piece.
Angela Chan
Graphic Designer
A self-taught digital artist, Angela does a majority of her work digitally, mainly on an iPad Pro. She creates many of the banners used for Little Fish's website, as well as Facebook and Instagram accounts. She has made illustrated posters for the San Diego Italian Film Festival in 2016-2020 and even has had some of her art exhibited in Toronto in 2016. She loves Manga and Anime, and dabbles in both 2D animation and a little of 3D modeling in her spare time.
Nicholas Eskey
Executive Assistant
Nicholas received his Bachelor of the Arts in English from Arizona State University. It was during his studies there that he joined Little Fish as an intern and has been with the nonprofit ever since. He also serves as the Digital Marketer and a bookseller at Mysterious Galaxy Bookstore. When not working, he enjoys reading, traveling, and writing his own stories.
Angeni Loewy
Studio Assistant
Angeni is an aspiring artist who works with various traditional mediums. She enjoys all kinds of fiction, from films, comics, anime, and manga. She loves to create fan art from whatever piece of media she's currently obsessed with that week. She hopes to one day start her own online shop to sell
her work.
Emilia Quintanar
Studio Assistant
Emilia is a student artist and cartoonist, as well as an occasional D&D Dungeon Master & writer. Her other interests include cartoons, zines, and comics of all kinds. For Little Fish, she’s an all-purpose assistant and helper, from assembling Ikea furniture to organizing bookshelves; no challenge is too big or too small! When she’s not working, she’s often found haunting bookstores and hanging out with her two dogs.
Cassandra Mullens
Studio Assistant
Cassandra "Cassie" Mullens is an artist in the making who loves animals almost as much as she loves drawing. She's passionate about comics, manga, anime, and especially dragons. Her specialty is character and creature design, and she is currently working towards her BFA in Multimedia Art while learning how to develop her own comic series and market her fan art. If she isn't nose-deep in a book or sketching new ideas, you can usually find her baking cookies to heavy metal music or basking in the rubber-suit glory of giant monster movies.
Lyric & Mia
Studio Intern
Lyric & Mia, two beings in a body, are High Tech High seniors interning under Little Fish until June 9th. Aiming to go into the art field someday, they have an eye for the abstract, surreal, and liminal views.
Our Board Members!
Alison Flynn
PRESIDENT
As former owner of Villainous Lair Comics, Alison is a well-known figure in the local comic book community. She regularly attends comic book conventions such as San Diego Comic-Con and San Diego Comic Fest while maintaining her alter-ego as a mild-mannered software developer.
Mark Habegger
VICE PRESIDENT
Mark is an artist and writer who has worked in the entertainment industry for over 25 years. He produces and directs music videos, commercials, and promotional videos, and has worked on feature films and television series in various capacities. Mark is a strong promotor of literacy and art programs and has originated creative writing classes for elementary school children, which produced collaborative illustrated books by student authors.
More recently, Mark acts as a participating artist at school and hospital charity events, including the annual City of Hope Pediatric Picnic.
Aubree Miller
SECRETARY
Aubree is a graduate of San Diego State University, where she earned a Bachelor of Arts in Journalism and Anthropology. She is also the founder/owner of Assault Media Marketing, a full-service advertising and marketing agency, and serves as a creative consultant to many businesses as well as acting Creative Director for Amplified Ale Works. Her passions include art, messaging, research, and culture.
Matt Dunford
BOARD MEMBER
Matt Dunford started his love of comics before he could even read and has attended every San Diego Comic-Con since 1994. This inspired him to pursue a career in comics, leading him to be an editor at Semantink Publishing, Senior Editor of Keyleaf Comics, and Little Fish's first Board President. In 2017, he was unanimously elected as Chairman of San Diego Comic Fest and continues to spearhead the convention. He has taken up an active role in the community with a focus on WWII history, serving as the PR & Marketing Director for the video game publisher Crytivo, and as a member of the Non-Profit organization, Creators Assemble! Matt currently is the Talent Relations Coordinator at Upper Deck Entertainment, representing the Marvel Comics trading card lines.
Charlene Clingman
BOARD MEMBER
Charlene holds degrees in Anthropology and Native Indigenous Studies from UC Santa Barbara, as well as non-profit business management from the University of San Diego. She has served a variety of local non-profit organizations, such as the San Diego Natural History Museum, the San Diego Museum of Us (formerly SD Museum of Man), and KPBS public broadcasting.
Jocelyn Bojanowski
BOARD MEMBER
Jocelyn has been involved with Little Fish since the beginning, providing much of the seed money that helped the studio get on its feet. She has spent years in the medical field as a registered nurse, providing care for those most in need. Currently, she works in Kaiser Permanente’s Hospice Care.
Klaus Janson
BOARD MEMBER
Klaus Janson is a German-born American comics artist, working regularly for Marvel Comics and DC Comics and sporadically for independent companies. While he is best known as an inker, Janson has frequently worked as a penciller and colorist. Janson has taught sequential storytelling at the School of Visual Arts in New York City since the 1990s and has written both The DC Comics Guide to Pencilling Comics and The DC Comics Guide to Inking Comics.
Philip Haxo
BOARD MEMBER
Phil Haxo is a graphic designer and former comic book artist, serving as a penciler, inker, and colorist. He has worked in print advertising now for over 35 years and is currently the Studio Manager at Anderson Direct Marketing.
Sarah Thaller
BOARD MEMBER
With her only awareness of comics throughout her childhood being the funny pages, Sarah took a course in comics and sequential art while earning her doctorate in literature Washington State University to better understand the medium. Immediately, she was enthralled and became a passionate advocate for the use of comics for narratives of “Otherness.” Comics were a critical aspect of her dissertation, and she continues to research, publish, use in classroom instruction, and present in academic conferences about comics and mental illness, disability, trauma, and access.
Aaron Trites
BOARD MEMBER
Aaron has over 15 years of comic retail experience, currently as the owner of Now Or Never Comics in San Diego, and previously at Comicazi in Boston, the 2017 recipient of the Will Eisner Spirit of Comics Retailer Award. He has a background in community management and event coordination, building social spaces online and in person at venues ranging from Abbey Road Studios to SDCC to PAX Australia. Aaron is a strong believer in the power of community, DIY culture, and root beer.