Biographies
- “It's a long road to overnight success.” -- Janet Hetherington
Janet Hetherington
Janet Hetherington is a comics writer/artist, screenwriter and animator who lives in Ottawa, Canada. Her work appears in the best-selling comics anthology The Secret Loves of Geek Girls, Gothic Tales of Haunted Love, Love in Tights, her creator-owned Eternal Romance comic series, and many other places. Janet scripted the Elvira, Mistress of the Dark comic book from Claypool Comics for six years. Janet also writes movies, including the retro sci-fi script Galaxy Warriors and the award-winning film noir script Murder in High Heels, both produced by Gray Chance Films.
Janet also creates short animations, published on her YouTube channel under her Hetheringtoons banner. Janet often collaborates with award-winning comic book artist Ronn Sutton.
Janet also served as a speechwriter and senior communications advisor for the Canadian federal government. Janet retired from that role in 2023. She has secret clearaqnce and is available for contract speechwriting work through Ottawa's TAG HR.
JANET'S Career
Early work
Janet graduated with a Bachelor of Journalism with Honours from Caleton University. Her honours thesis was a radio documentary on preparing children for hospitalization. Even while studying journalism at Carleton, Janet began freelance writing for genre publications such as LeisureWays, Amazing Heroes, and Wizard (pre-Internet). She also helped to organize Ottawa’s Maplecon science fiction and comic book conventions. Following graduation, Janet worked at Canadian Consumer magazine and Canada Post, working in editing and production management roles.
Breakthrough
After leaving Canada Post to freelance full-time, Janet wrote the Jannie Weezie newspaper comic strip, illustrated by Ronn Sutton, published in the Ottawa Citizen,, She then wrote and drew her creator-owned Eternal Romance comic series, self-published under her Best Destiny imprint, This led to scripting Elvira: Mistress of the Dark for Claypool Comics, Following more comics work as well as editing such publications as Ageing International and the Canadian Toy Testing Council's annual Toy Report, Janet wrote articles for Animation World Network. VFXWorld.com and Animation Magazine. She served as Managing Editor of the WizardWorld.com online site in 2002. Janet began screenwritng in earnest in 2008, and her horror thriller short script The House on Arch Lane was produced by Germany's Stonehope Entertainment. Janet has since worked with Ottawa director Brett Kelly on several feature films, such as Galaxy Warriors and Murder in High Heels. Janet continues to write origninal screenplays available for production, including the award-winning horror thriller feature Black Goose of Baldoon, as well as two new comedies in development.
Ronn Sutton
Ronn Sutton has drawn hundreds of full-length and short-story comics since the early 1970s. He has drawn horror, adventure, detective, sci-fi, humor, and romance comics as well as having worked in magazine illustration, newspaper strips and animation. Best known for having penciled nearly 50 issues of Elvira, Mistress of the Dark, as well as drawing graphic novel Lucifers Sword MC: Life and Death in an Outlaw Motorcycle Club, written by Hells Angel Phil Cross.
Since 2017, Ronn has drawn weekly online comic strips for Edgar Rice Burroughs Inc., beginning with 150 episodes of The Man-Eater, followed by over 200 episodes (so far...) of Carson of Venus, and now a third weekly strip He often collaborates with his partner, writer/artist Janet Hetherington. On April 2, 2022, Ronn was inducted into the Joe Shuster Awards Hall of Fame..
Ronn Sutton with Cassandra (Elvira) Peterson.