John Woo (born May 1, 1946) is a Chinese film director and producer. Woo is widely known for his stylised movies which are renowned for their balletic action sequences, Mexican stand-offs, and use of slow-motion. He directed the notable Hong Kong action films, "A Better Tomorrow", "Hard Boiled", and "The Killer". His English-language movies include "Hard Target", "Broken Arrow", "Face/Off", and "Mission: Impossible 2".

Frank Miller (born January 27, 1957, is an American writer, artist and film director best known for his film noir-style comic book stories. He is one of the most widely-recognized and popular creators in comics, and is one of the most influential comics creators of his generation.

Geof "Geofrey" Darrow (October 21, 1955) is a comic artist and designer born in Cedar Rapids, Iowa, USA. He was a student at Hanna-Barbera cartoon studios after studying at the American Academy of Arts in Chicago. In the early 80s he worked in character design for the "Super Friends", "Richie Rich", and "Pac-Man" television series. In 1982, he met French comic book writer and artist Moebius during the making of the film "Tron".

Anthony Wong Chau-Sang (born September 2, 1961 under the name Anthony Perry) is a Hong Kong actor. Anthony Wong Chau-Sang was born to an English father and a Chinese mother. His father left his family when he was only four years old, prompting Wong to use his mother's surname. He began his acting career when he joined ATV's training programme and enrolled into the Hong Kong Academy for Performing Arts. Wong has been a veteran of Hong Kong films for nearly 20 years.

I intensely dislike having to fill in "about me sections" on websites; how the Hell do you sum up the complexity of human existence in a few lines of rubbish that invariably end up including the *likes* "hanging out with friends" or "chilling out with friends" in a vain effort by the writer to sound popular and likeable. God, I have had way too much coffee this morning.

Hillary Baldwin Waugh, a pioneering American mystery novelist, was born in 1920 in New Haven, Connecticut. In 1989, Waugh was named a Grand Master by the Mystery Writers of America. Waugh graduated in 1942 from Yale, majoring in art with a music minor. During his senior year at Yale, Waugh enlisted in the United States Navy Air Corps and, after graduation, received his aviator's wings. He served in Panama for two years, flying various types of aircraft.

Walter Mosley (born January 12, 1952) is a prominent American novelist, most widely recognized for his crime fiction. Mosley has written a series of best-selling historical mysteries featuring the hard-boiled detective Easy Rawlins, a black private investigator and World War II veteran living in the Watts neighborhood of Los Angeles; it is perhaps his most popular work. Mosley has written over 20 books in a variety of categories, including non-mystery fiction, …

Raymond Thornton Chandler (July 23, 1888 - March 26, 1959) was an author of crime stories and novels. His influence on modern crime fiction has been immense, particularly in the writing style and attitudes that much of the field has adopted over the last 60 years. Chandler's protagonist, Philip Marlowe, has become synonymous with the tradition of the hard-boiled private detective, along with Dashiell Hammett's Sam Spade.

Thomas A. Dorgan (April 29, 1877 - May 2, 1929)("Thomas Aloysius Dorgan," "Tad Dorgan", "TAD") was an American cartoonist who signed his drawings as TAD. He is credited with coining more popular words and expressions than anyone else. He was born in San Francisco. When he was thirteen years old, he lost the last three fingers of his right hand in an accident with a factory machine. He took up drawing for therapy.

Peter Cheyney was a British mystery writer who flourished between 1936 and 1951. Cheyney is considered by many to be the premier British author of hard-boiled fiction. He wrote a considerable number of short stories and novels, some of which were adapted to film; his character Lemmy Caution was famously appropriated by French filmmaker Jean-Luc Godard for the science fiction movie "Alphaville, une étrange aventure de Lemmy Caution".

Carroll John Daly was a writer of crime fiction. He has been credited with creating the first hard-boiled detective story in 1923, predating the debut of Dashiell Hammett's Continental Op character by several months. During that era, he was considered the leader of the naturalistic school of crime writers. Daly's private detective Race Williams was a rough and ready character with a sharp tongue, and established the model for many later acerbic private eyes.