Brent Anderson

Brent Anderson was born in San Jose, California. A child of the 50s, his favorite comics --on the rare occasions he was allowed to read them --were Archie, Stumbo the Giant, Hot Stuff, and Dennis the Menace. His mother favored classical children's literature.

In junior high school Brent discovered the wonderful pantheon of characters in Marvel Comics. The Fantastic Four were his favorite. "They were a family who had super-powers and helped each other out. I wanted to be part of a family like that," he says. Brent began writing and drawing his own comics on school binder paper, creating a pantheon of his own that included Radium the Robot and the Chameleon.

His professional career took off in 1979. Ka-zar the Savage, written by Bruce Jones, was his first regular series. The X-Men graphic novel "God Loves, Man Kills" followed. Since then he has created an impressive list of notable series, including the innovative cinematic comic, Somerset Holmes, the heroic space-opera, Strikeforce Morituri, the award-winning Astro City, and Spinworld.

He is currently working on Astro City: The Dark Age Book One, a four-issue story arc for DC/Wildstorm and J. Michael Straczynski's Rising Stars: Untouchable spin-off series covering the life story of Laurel Darkhaven, Special assassin, written by Fiona Avery. Work continues on a 200-plus page graphic novel, Jar of Ashes, written by Shirley Johnston. Sample pages will be posted on this site as work progresses.

In the meantime, Brent has posted a much shorter story called "The Hero" on the site. Brent originally created "The Hero" in San Diego, California in the late 80s for T.A.G. Rag, a never-published collection of stories written and drawn by a collective of great people who called themselves the "Tuesday Art Group" (T.A.G.). T.A.G. would get together every Tuesday to talk about comics, discuss movies, play a version of Hacky Sack they had dubbed "Squoob" (don't ask), and to suffer rehearsals of Brent's comics art seminar presentations.

The incident related in "The Hero" truly happened (insofar as Brent's admittedly imperfect memory can recall it) and was printed in Streetwise published by TwoMorrows Publications in 2000. He's allowed it to be reprinted it here on his official web site for those of you who never saw Streetwise. Check it out.

Brent's work is well known for its focus on character. "My greatest joy in drawing comics comes when I've added nuance to a character with just the right expression and illustrated a scene that captures the perfect moment of mood. When the characters come to life I feel alive. That's why I've dedicated my professional life to creating comics."

Brent currently lives in northern California with one cat, his wife, Shirley and his ten-year old son, who is already creating a pantheon of comic characters of his own.