Guests of Honor
Thom Zahler
M.A. Larson
M.A. Larson was raised in Minneapolis, went to college in Miami, tended bar in New York, and now writes things in Los Angeles. He’s been writing for animation since Cartoon Network existed and Netflix didn’t. He wrote many episodes of MyLittle Pony: Friendship is Magic over the first few seasons, including The CutieMark Chronicles, Return of Harmony, Amending Fences, Sonic Rainboom, LunaEclipsed, and many more, including the series’ 100th episode, Slice of Life. In addition to My Little Pony, he has also written for a variety of other animated series, such as Foster’s Home for Imaginary Friends, Littlest Pet Shop, Sym-Bionic Titan, DC Super Hero Girls, and Gravity Falls. Most recently, he was the head writer on the upcoming Adult Swim series Invincible Fight Girl and is currently writing for another animated DC property. His first book series, Pennyroyal Academy, is very fun to buy, and he recently sold another untitled middle grade novel, set to be released in 2025.
Giles Panton
Giles Panton is an award-winning film and voice actor with a career spanning close to 2 decades. During that time he has collected over 100 credits and played many characters adored by fans, including his stand out performance as the delightfully wicked Kalmaar in the popular animated series Ninjago. Giles’ unique charm and skill continue to win him lead roles in film, video games, and voice including shows for Netflix and Lego; as well as pivotal roles on television series including Amazon’s The Man in the High Castle. Notably, it’s given him the opportunity to take on the mantle of Tony Stark himself, as voice of Iron Man for Marvel’s Funko: Battlewords and the Lego Avengers animated series. Giles also has quite a large resume of romantic comedies and has had the unique honor of being in 5 Christmas movie in 1 year.
He’s currently working on several projects, including a horror movie and some exciting new animated series and has a major role in a new live action series premiering next year. Giles is really looking forward to TrotCon as Flash Magnus and the MLP fandom hold a very special place in his heart. He can’t wait to meet you all.
Vincent Tong
Vincent has played lead roles on Sonic Prime, Lego Ninjago, Jurassic World, Dreamworks Dragons: The Nine Realms, Ice Age Adventures of Buck Wild, Mega Man Fully Charged, Death Note, Ratchet and Clank, My Little Pony, Bob The Builder, Super Monsters, Polly Pocket, Iron Man Armoured Adventures.
Vincent’s TV appearances included Arrow, Fringe, Flashpoint, Transporter, A Fairly Odd Summer. He has also voice directed award winning video games for Klei Entertainment.
Vincent is a four time Leo Award nominee, and a seven time UBCP/ACTRA Award nominee.
Nick Confalone
Nick Confalone is an Emmy-nominated children’s TV showrunner, writer, and producer whose work can be seen in the new hit Disney series, SuperKitties. Previous credits include running Hasbro's My Little Pony: Equestria Girls and Apple TV’s Helpsters, and over ten years of television writing for Disney, Cartoon Network, Nickelodeon, Netflix, Paramount, Sony, and PBS. He's been called "hilarious" by Buzzfeed, "a visionary storyteller" by Mashable, and "the coolest Dad ever" by the Tribeca Film Festival.
Nick has been making entertaining content for kids ever since he was a kid himself, winning HBO's KidFlix Film Festival at 18 years old with a short starring his family's border collie, Brandy. His feature screenplays (with co-writer Neal Dusedau) have twice been featured on The Blacklist. His writing can be found in McSweeney's Internet Tendancy, Slate, Vulture, the LA Times, and he's written two non-fiction children's books.
He was nominated for a 2020 Daytime Emmy award for Outstanding Writing in a Children's Program for his writing and story editing on Apple's Helpsters.
Thom Zahler is a comic book creator and animation writer. He’s written and drawn for IDW’s My Little Pony series in which he’s brought back Flutterbat, turned the Mane Six evil, and chronicled the Pinkie and Cheese love story. He created the Line Webtoons hit series Cupid's Arrows and Warning Label as well as the Harvey and Ringo-nominated Love and Capes (recently with new volumes “Home for the Holidays" and "In the Time of Covid"), Long Distance and the time-traveling wine comic Time and Vine. And has written for Disney Tsum Tsum Kingdom, Star Trek Waypoint and more. He has written for Disney XD's Ultimate Spider-Man and Knights of the Zodiac.