About Rick Ross
Rick Ross is an artist, filmmaker, and New York Times Best Selling graphic novelist.
In 2012, he began a collaboration with Oscar-winning filmmaker Kevin Costner and acclaimed novelist Jon Baird to create a part novel, part graphic novel series entitled The Explorers Guild. For the first volume, Rick produced over 600 pages of comics and illustrations, including six full color oil paintings. The Explorers Guild: Volume One: A Passage to Shambhala was released in October 2015 by Atria Books/Simon & Schuster to glowing notices from Kirkus Reviews, Entertainment Weekly, USA Today, and more. In November 2015, The Explorers Guild: Volume One: A Passage to Shambhala made the New York Times Best Seller list for Print Hardcover Fiction and has since been translated into Czech, Hungarian, and Chinese, with others countries forthcoming. The paperback edition was released in October 2016.
Since 2005, Rick has illustrated for comics and graphic novels. His first widely recognized work was for the Image Comics series Urban Monsters, after which he was the lead artist for the graphic novelization of Spike TV’s 1000 Ways to Die. He also created artwork for a number of animated motion comics, including for the Cinemax television show Femme Fatales. Other comics clients include IDW, BOOM! Studios, and Zenescope Entertainment. Since 2008, he has published the online graphic fiction anthology Agitainment Comics.
Also since 2008, Rick has worked in Hollywood producing storyboards and visual development for films, commercials, music videos, animation, gaming, comics, and interactive. Select clients include Tig Productions, Treehouse Films, Fintu Films, O2A Media, Wildworx, IAG, Warner Bros. Interactive, Vigil Games, UFC, Turtle Beach Corp, and IDW Publishing.
Rick is also an accomplished filmmaker and MFA graduate of the University of Southern California School of Cinematic Arts. Among his more than 20 films is the award winning short, Backslide, starring Felicia Day. Backslide screened at more than twenty film festivals around the world—winning five awards—including being named by the prestigious American Cinematheque as one of the ten best comedy shorts of the year. It was also broadcast by the Independent Film Channel.
Rick serves on the advisory board to the School of Visual Studies at the University of Missouri.