Gilbert Shelton (b. 1940, Houston, Texas), a founding father of the underground comix movement, is the creator of the iconic comix characters The Fabulous Furry Freak Brothers, Fat Freddy's Cat, and Wonder Wart-Hog. He was inducted into the Will Eisner Award Hall of Fame in 2012. He has been known to sing and play piano for the Blum Brothers, a Paris-based rhythm and blues group.

He lives in Paris, France, with his wife and an ever-changing number of cats. Paul Mavrides (b. 1952), an enigmatic cartoonist, painter, and graphic artist, began collaborating with Gilbert Shelton on The Freak Brothers in 1978. He is a founding member of the Church of the SubGenius. In 1997, after a six-year legal battle, he won a landmark decision for artists' rights in California that established a legal equivalency between written-word authors and cartoonists.