Frank Quitely

Frank Quitely’s original name was Vincent Deighan. He was born in Glasgow, Scotland, in 1968. His first work was in the Scottish underground comic, ELECTRIC SOUP, in 1990. He wrote and drew a strip called THE GREENS, which was a parody of THE BROONS (the “Browns” as they are pronounced in Glaswegian). For those who are not familiar with ELECTRIC SOUP, the type of humor that it showcased was akin to Benny Hill on steroids. It was while working on this book that he adopted his pseudonym, a spoonerism of “quite frankly”, as he didn't want his family to know it was he was working on, worried that they would been appalled.

In the beginning, ELECTRIC SOUP was only available in Glasgow, but when it was picked up by John Brown Publishing for national UK distribution, Quitely's work got the attention of David Bishop, the editor of JUDGE DREDD MEGAZINE. He quickly rose to prominence with his new mentor and was voted among the fans' favorite five artists in an end-of-year survey. By 1994, he had started work on various stories included in the BIG BOOK series of DC’s Paradox Press. He also illustrated stories for DARK HORSE PRESENTS and NEGATIVE BURN.

In 1996, he got his big break with FLEX MENTALLO, a DOOM PATROL spin-off written by fellow Glaswegian, Grant Morrison, for Vertigo. Quitely's work was very popular, and launched him onto more Vertigo work. Later, he drew his first full length graphic novel, BATMAN: THE SCOTTISH CONNECTION, written by Alan Grant.

In 2000, a Quitely and Morrison collaboration again garnered rave reviews with JLA: EARTH 2. Later that year, Quitely took over as artist on Mark Millar’s THE AUTHORITY from Bryan Hitch. Quitely's art suffered censorship by DC on this run due to violent content and was hampered by delays, due in part to Quitely being a slow illustrator. He also took time off to draw the final issue of THE INVISIBLES, which didn’t help.

His next project was drawing Morrison’s run on the NEW X-MEN, which led to the highly acclaimed Morrison/Quitely masterpiece, WE3, in 2004.

In 2005, Frank shared the Eisner Award for Best Penciller/Inker or Penciller/Inker Team for his work on WE3 in a tie with John Cassaday. The same year, WE3 was also nominated for Best Limited Series and Quitely was nominated for the Best Cover Artist Eisner for both WE3 and BITE CLUB.

The twelve issue series, ALL STAR SUPERMAN, yet another triumphant collaboration with Morrison, began publication in November 2005. The series won the Eisner Award for Best New Series in 2006, with Quitely getting another nomination for Best Penciller/Inker. ALL STAR SUPERMAN also won Best Continuing Series in 2007 and 2009.

The Morrison/Quitely brand will again be tested later this year on the new BATMAN AND ROBIN series. This title will begin publication in June 2009 after BATMAN: BATTLE FOR THE COWL.