Bryan Hitch - Career

Career

Hitch broke into the comics industry after submitting "Teeth Like Flint", an Action Force sample story he wrote and drew to Marvel UK, using a style that was fashionable at the time. Marvel UK gave him his first professional commission in May or June 1987, approximately a month and a half after his 17th birthday.

Hitch worked with Simon Furman on Transformers, and later worked 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 imprint 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.

Hitch's career has also been marked by lateness of books, perhaps due to his high detailing. Examples include his run JLA, which was broken up by fill-in artists, a situation which he blamed on bad scheduling on DC Comics' part. There were also long delays in between issues of The Ultimates, which was due to the birth of his child, two house moves, and an office move. His final issue of Fantastic Four with Mark Millar was also done by fill-in artist Stuart Immonen. Hitch stresses that Marvel was more supportive of him during his tardiness than DC.

Hitch provided cover artwork for the November 2004 issue of the British film magazine Empire, for a cover feature on comic book movies.

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.

Hitch contributed designs to the starship piloted by Spock in the 2009 feature film Star Trek, for which director J. J. Abrams has praised him.

Hitch's cover to Fantastic Four #554 (April 2008) is featured in the opening title sequence of the 2010 History Channel television series, Stan Lee's Superhumans. That same year, Impact Books published Bryan Hitch's Ultimate Comics Studio, examination of Hitch's approach and techniques toward his craft, as well as practical tips provided by Hitch on various aspects of the visual storytelling process, and how to develop a career in the comics field. Studio, which features a foreword by Joss Whedon, contains both past artworks of Hitch's, as well as original artwork produced specifically for the book.

In 2012, Hitch was one of several artists to illustrate a variant cover for Robert Kirkman's The Walking Dead #100, which was released July 11 at the San Diego Comic-Con.