Bryan Hitch

This article needs additional citations for verification. Please help improve this article by adding reliable references. Unsourced material may be challenged and removed. (June 2009)

Bryan Hitch (born 1970) is a British comic book artist. He is the co-creator and artist of The Authority and The Ultimates. He currently works on Marvel's Fantastic Four.

His long list of credits include The Sensational She-Hulk, X-Men, Superman and Stormwatch and, for Marvel UK, Action Force, Doctor Who, Mys-Tech Wars and Death's Head.

Biography

Comics

Hitch started work at Marvel UK where he started off working on Transformers before working with Furman again on Death's Head. He did some work at Marvel Comics and DC Comics during the late 1980s and early 1990s, in particular his run on She-Hulk, but also carried on at Marvel UK. After that company closed, he provided the art for an issue of Teen Titans and a couple of series at Valiant Comics before returning to Marvel where he would work with inker Paul Neary. It was in the late nineties that he got a series of high-profile assignments, which would mainly include Neary on inks. At Wildstorm, working with Warren Ellis in rebooting Stormwatch and launching The Authority. This led to a year on JLA with Mark Waid and then another return to Marvel. There the art team of Hitch and Neary would join Mark Millar on The Ultimates, The Ultimates 2 and Fantastic Four.

Character design

Hitch was a character design artist for Ultimate Avengers and Ultimate Avengers 2 animated films. He also was a character design artist for the video game Incredible Hulk: Ultimate Destruction. He was brought aboard the project due to his definitive rendition of the Hulk in The Ultimates. He was also hired by the BBC as the concept artist for the 2005 relaunch of the Doctor Who television series, having particular input into the design of the TARDIS interior set.^[1] He has also provided artwork that served as the cover of Empire, a British movie magazine doing a featured article on comic book movies.

Style

Hitch's art, which closely resembled that of Alan Davis early in his career, is characterized by high level of detail, use of "widescreen" panels on projects like The Authority, and emotive facial close-ups. Hitch's career has also been marked by lateness of books, such as his run JLA, which was broken up by fill-in artists, a situation which he blamed on bad scheduling on DC Comics' part, and long delays in between issues of The Ultimates, whose lateness was due to the birth of his child, two house moves, and an office move. Hitch stresses, however that Marvel was more supportive of him during his tardiness than DC.^[1] The page count of certain issues of The Ultimates, exceeding the usual 22 pages of an American-style comic book, also lends credence to this claim.

Bibliography

Comics work includes:

• Transformers #151, 171-172 (with Simon Furman, Marvel UK, 1988)
• "Culture Shock" (with Grant Morrison, in Doctor Who Magazine #139, 1988)

• Death's Head (with Simon Furman):
  • Death's Head Volume 1 (paperback, 204 pages, Panini Comics, February 2007, ISBN 1-905239-34-3) collects:
    • "High Noon Tex" (in Dragon's Claws #3, Marvel UK, 1988)
    • Death's Head #1-5, 7 (pencils, with inks by Mark Farmer, Marvel UK, 1988-1989)
    • "The Deadliest Game" (pencils, with inks by Mark Farmer, in Marvel Comics Presents#76, Marvel Comics 1991)
  • Death's Head Volume 2 (paperback, 224 pages, Panini Comics, October 2007, ISBN 1-905239-69-6) collects:
    • Death's Head #10 (pencils, with inks by Mark Farmer, Marvel UK, 1988-1989)
  • Death's Head II #1 (with writer Dan Abnett, sharing art duties with Liam Sharp, and inks by Andy Lanning/Cam Smith, Marvel UK, 1992)
  • The Incomplete Death's Head #8-9, 11-12 (with Simon Furman, and inks by Jeff Anderson (8), Mark Farmer (9) and John Beatty (12), Marvel UK, 1993)

• The Sensational She-Hulk #9-11, 13-20, 24-26 (with Richard Starkings/Gregory Wright (9), Steve Gerber (10-11, 13-20) and Simon Furman (24-26), Marvel Comics, 1989-1991)
• The Adventures of Superman: Annual #3 (with Louise Simonson, DC Comics, 1991)
• Captain Planet and the Planeteers #11-12 (with Simon Furman, Marvel Comics, 1992)
• Hell's Angel #1, 3-5 (with Bernie Jaye, sharing art duties with Geoff Senior, Marvel UK, 1992)
• Mys-Tech Wars (with Dan Abnett, and inks by Jeff Anderson, 4-issue mini-series, Marvel UK, 1993)
• Teen Titans #21 (with Jeff Jensen/Phil Jimenez, DC Comics, 1994)
• Ninjak: Yearbook #1 (pencils, with writer Mike Baron and inks by Andy Lanning, Valiant Comics, 1994)
• The Visitor vs. the Valiant Universe (pencils, with writer Kevin VanHook and inks by Dick Giordano, 2-issue mini-series, Valiant Comics, 1995)
• The Uncanny X-Men #323, 331 (with writer Scott Lobdell, and inks by Cam Smith (323) and Paul Neary (331), Marvel Comics, 1995, 1996)
• X-Men vs. Brood: Day of Wrath (pencils, with John Ostrander and inks by Paul Neary, 2-issue mini-series, Marvel Comics, 1997)
• Exciting X-Patrol (with Barbara Kesel, Amalgam Comics, 1997)
• Excalibur: #104-105 (pencils, with writers John Arcudi/Keith Giffen, and inks by Paul Neary, Marvel, 1997)
• Stormwatch #4-11 (pencils, with Warren Ellis, inks by Paul Neary, Wildstorm, 1998)
• The Authority #1-12 (pencils, with Warren Ellis, inks by Paul Neary, Wildstorm, 1999-2000)
• JLA #47-50, 52-55 (pencils, with writer Mark Waid, and inks by Paul Neary, DC Comics, 2000-2001)
• The Ultimates #1-13 (with Mark Millar, and inks by Andrew Currie (1-7) and Paul Neary (8-12), Marvel Comics, 2002-2004)
• Thing/She-Hulk: The Long Night (pencils, with writer Todd Dezago, sharing art duties with Ivan Reis and inks by Randy Emberlin/Paul Neary one-shot, Marvel Comics, 2002, collected in The Thing: Freakshow, 144 pages, August 2005, ISBN 0785119116)
• The Ultimates 2 #1-13 (with Mark Millar, and inks Paul Neary, Marvel Comics, 2004-2007)
• Fantastic Four #554-present (with Mark Millar, and inks Paul Neary, Marvel Comics, 2008-present)
• Captain America: Reborn (with Ed Brubaker, 5-issue limited series, Marvel Comics, 2009, forthcoming)

Notes

References

External links

• Bryan Hitch and Paul Neary's website
• Bryan Hitch at the Internet Movie Database
• Interview with Bryan Hitch on Fictional Frontiers with Sohaib, Fictional Frontiers with Sohaib