Frank Quitely

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Frank Quitely

Born Vincent Deighan
1968
Glasgow, Scotland[1]
Nationality Scottish
Area(s) Penciller
Notable works Flex Mentallo
The Authority
All Star Superman
New X-Men
Awards Eisner Award, 2005,[2] 2006,[3] 2007[4]

Frank Quitely (born 1968)[1][5] is a Scottish comic book artist known for his work in such books as The Authority, New X-Men, and All-Star Superman.

Contents

[edit] Career

Quitely was born Vincent Deighan in 1968.[6] He first worked upon the Scottish underground comics title Electric Soup in 1990. He wrote and drew The Greens, a parody of The Broons strip published by D.C Thompson. It was in working on this book that he adopted the pseudonym of Frank Quitely (a spoonerism of "quite frankly"), as he didn't want his family to know it was his work, worried that they may have found it upsetting.[7] He lives in Glasgow, Scotland.[6]

Initially Electric Soup was only distributed locally in Glasgow, then it was picked up by John Brown Publishing for widespread national UK distribution. This brought Quitely's work to the attention of Judge Dredd Megazine editor David Bishop. He was given work on Shimura, written by Robbie Morrison, and Missionary Man, by Gordon Rennie, quickly rising to prominence and being voted among the fans' favourite five artists in an end-of-year survey. By 1994 he had started work in various stories in Paradox Press's series of Big Book Of graphic novels, as well as work for Dark Horse Presents for Dark Horse Comics.

His big break into American comics was Flex Mentallo, a Doom Patrol spin-off written by fellow Glaswegian Grant Morrison for DC Comics' Vertigo imprint, in 1996. Quitely's work proved very popular, and this launched him onto more work for Vertigo. Initially he was put to work on strips for anthology titles such as Weird War Tales, and drew four issues of Jamie Delano's 2020 Visions, as well as various covers for DC. He later drew his first full length graphic novel, Batman: The Scottish Connection, with writer Alan Grant.

2000 saw Quitely and Morrison collaborate again, on JLA:Earth 2. Once again, the graphic novel was met with a hugely positive critical response, and later that year Quitely took over from Bryan Hitch as artist on The Authority, with Mark Millar as writer. This run proved to be highly controversial, and Quitely's art suffered censorship by DC due mainly to the violent content of Millar's stories. In addition, the title was hampered by delays, due in part to Quitely's slow drawing speed and the time he took off to draw the final issue of Morrison's The Invisibles.[8][9]

New X-Men art by Quitely.

Quitely left The Authorityto draw New X-Men. Quitely also managed to find time to illustrate a Neil Gaiman-written story for the hardcover graphic novel, Sandman: Endless Nights.

Since leaving New X-Men, Quitely has drawn the mini series We3 in 2004, again in collaboration with Morrison. More than any other series in his career to date, this book was almost unanimously acclaimed by critics for its art and storytelling,[10] and further cemented Quitely's reputation. He shared the 2005 Best Penciller/Inker or Penciller/Inker Team Eisner Award in a tie with artist John Cassaday for his work on the book. That same year, he and Morrison were also nominated for Best Limited Series for that book, and Quitely additionally was nominated for the Best Cover Artist Eisner for both We3 and Bite Club.[2]

He has wrote and drew new installments of The Greens for the Scottish underground comic Northern Lightz, and in 2005 Morrison and Quitely designed a series of tarot cards for Intensive Care, the latest album by popstar Robbie Williams.

In December 2004, Quitely signed to a two-year exclusive contract with DC Comics, where he is currently illustrating All Star Superman. The twelve issue series, yet another collaboration with Morrison, began publication in November 2005, and once again attracted near-unanimous praise.[11] Quitely and Morrison's work on the series won them the Eisner Award for Best New Series in 2006, with Quitely collecting another nomination for Best Penciller/Inker.[3] The series also won Best Continuing Series in 2007.[4] Quitely's final issue on the series was issue #12.

Quitely has continued to draw covers for Vertigo, for series including Bite Club,[12] Books of Magick: Life During Wartime and the recent American Virgin.[12]

Quitely will again be working with Morrison on the new Batman and Robin title, which will be published in June 2009 after the Battle for the Cowl event.[13]

[edit] Bibliography

 Please help improve this article or section by expanding it. Further information might be found on the talk page. (January 2009)

[edit] Covers only

[edit] Awards and nominations

  • 2005: Won Best Penciller/Inker Eisner Award for We3 (tied with John Cassaday)[2]
  • 2006: Won Best New Series for All-Star Superman with Grant Morrison[3]
  • 2007: Won Best Continuing Series for All-Star Superman with Grant Morrison[4]

Nominations

  • 2005 Best Limited Series for We3
  • 2005 Best Cover Artist Eisner for We3 and Bite Club[2]
  • 2006 Best Penciller/Inker[3]

[edit] References

  1. ^ a b DC Comics talent files. Accessed Feb. 6, 2009.
  2. ^ a b c d 2005 Eisner Awards
  3. ^ a b c d 2006 Eisner Awards
  4. ^ a b c 2007 Eisner Awards
  5. ^ Quitely bio at Lambiek.net's Comiclopedia.
  6. ^ a b "Frank Quitely to appear at Highland comic convention," Highland News (Feb. 5, 2009). Accessed Feb. 5, 2009.
  7. ^ Morgan, Brian D. "Quite Frankly, Frank Quitely..." DownTheTubes.net interview (Apr. 2008). Accessed Feb. 5, 2009.
  8. ^ The Continuity Pages: The Authority > Mark Millar The Authority Era (2000-2002)
  9. ^ Irvine, Alex (2008), "The Invisibles", in Dougall, Alastair, The Vertigo Encyclopedia, New York: Dorling Kindersley, pp. 92-97, ISBN 0-7566-4122-5, OCLC 213309015 
  10. ^ 31 October 2004
  11. ^ All Star Superman #1
  12. ^ a b Irvine, Alex (2008), "Bite Club", in Dougall, Alastair, The Vertigo Encyclopedia, New York: Dorling Kindersley, pp. 30-31, ISBN 0-7566-4122-5, OCLC 213309015 
  13. ^ Morrison discusses Batman and Robin - IGN Comics
  14. ^ Note: the final issue; the series' third and final volume was numbered in reverse order

[edit] External links

[edit] Interviews

Retrieved from "http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Frank_Quitely"
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