Penciller for BATMAN STRIKES, Part 3

BAT-BLOG ~ How did you learn to draw so well? Did you go to art school?

CHRIS ~ I've had very little formal training. I took art classes in high school, but they really didn't have anything other than general art classes that were a little basic for the level I was on at the time. I did a lot of "independent study" work with my art teacher, which meant I'd just do art projects on my own with minimal supervision from him, and then get grades based on the time and effort I'd put in. I went to the School of the Art Institute of Chicago for about a semester, but couldn't afford to stay beyond that. It's a very expensive school and I'd gotten a really crappy financial aid deal. Most of what I know about drawing I picked up on my own, through books, talking to other artists, reading interviews and articles, and just working at it on my own.

Penciller for BATMAN STRIKES, Part 2

BAT-BLOG ~ When did you 1st think, "I wanna be a comic book artist"?

CHRIS ~ I've got drawings from when I was four or five years old featuring Batman and other heroes, and I would make up crude comic books with full-page crayon drawings telling stories that are pretty incomprehensible now. I think I've always wanted to grow up and draw comics. I drew a weekly comics feature for our local newspaper when I was 10 years old, and did some other amateur work through my teens. My first professional gig was providing art for Street Heroes 2005 for Eternity Comics in 1989 when I was twenty.

BAT-BLOG ~ Did you have any favorite artists from that time period who really inspired you?

CHRIS ~ I grew up loving Neal Adams, John Byrne, Gil Kane, Jack Kirby, Michael Golden and others. When David Mazzuccelli came on the scene - first on Daredevil and then Batman: Year One - he really blew me away. He was someone I actively tried to emulate for a while. Later I got into artists including Alex Toth, Steve Rude, Mike Mignola, Wally Wood, Dick Sprang, Jerry Robbinson, Alan Davis, Bruce Timm and Darwyn Cooke.