Born: January 18, 1968 Glasgow, Scotland

Died: still living

Frank Quitely is an artist who often works with Grant Morrison.  Some of his works include: All-Star Superman, Batman & Robin, and the New X-Men.

Biography

Frank Quitely was born Vincent Deighan, but started using the pen-name Frank Quitely after mispronouncing the phrase quite frankly and he didn’t want his family to know he had been working on a Scottish underground comic titled: “Electric Soup”.  He began working in the comics industry in 1988.  He currently lives in Glasgow with his wife and children.

Career

Mr. Quitely began his career in 1988 in the Scottish underground comic scene.  Most of these comics were only circulated around Glasgow, but his work soon reached the desk of Dredd Magazine Editor, David Bishop, this lead to his work on Shimura and Missionary Man.  Fans were very pleased with his work and he was often voted fan favorite in annual voting held by Dredd.  By 1994 he was starting to be given work by larger publishers, such as Dark Horse.  IN 1996 his big American break came when he worked on Flex Mentallo for DC with Grant Morrision.  Their collaboration would be a very fruitful one as they would often pair up over the next fifteen years and continue to work together today.  From 1996 to 2000 Quitely drew several of the Mentallos, but also completed the artistry on a graphic novel and a few other more independent comics.  In 2000 he and Morrison worked on the graphic novel JLA: Earth 2, which was a huge success and he started work on the Authority with writer Mark Miller, but this was a bit of a setback as Miller’s stories were violent and DC censored Quitely’s artwork.  This controversy caused Quitely to leave DC and begin working with Morrison on Marvel’s the New X-Men.  He changed the costumes of the X-Men to more contemporary looks, which fans at first were hesitant, but the series sold well anyways.  He was often the cause of problems with production because he was slow to turn out the artwork and Marvel used many fill-in artists to meet deadlines.  He left work on the New X-Men after three years and began work on We3 again with Grant Morrison.  We3 has been the series Quitely has received the most acclaim for his artistry.  In late 2004 Quitely signed an exclusive contract with DC, in which he created All-Star Superman with Grant Morrison.  In 2009 he worked on several of the issues of Batman & Robin, while working on Vertigo.  Currently he is working on DC Legacies and Star Wars comics published by Dark Horse.

Work 

Quitely’s work is describe as unique, lucid, and with a distinct flow by critics.  His work has extreme attention to detail and more realistic that some comics, but at times has a soft simple aspect, depending on the scene.  He often uses different types of forced perspective in unique ways as well as utilizing shadow and light.  He also does not use a lot of movement lines, but indicated movement by how the following panel looks in comparison to the previous one.

Bibliography

•  Electric Soup
•  Shimura
•  Missionary Man
•  Dark Horse Presents: Blackheart
•  Flex Mentallo
• Batman: The Scottish Connection
• JLA: Earth 2
•  The Authority
• New X-Men
• We3
• All-Star Superman
• Batman & Robin

References 

1. http://comicbookdb.com/creator.php?ID=544  
2. http://www.comics.org/credit/name/Frank%20Quitely/sort/chrono/  
3. http://www.comicbooked.com/studio-sessions-frank-quitely/  
4. All-Star Superman
5. http://www.comicartfans.com/comic-artists/frank_quitely.asp  

Further Reading

• http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Frank_Quitely
• http://lambiek.net/artists/q/quitely_frank.htm