ChrisCross: The Return!

God, it's really good to see ChrisCross doing comic work again. He took some time off from doing American comics after abruptly leaving "Firestorm, but is back with this week's Midnighter #11 (with Keith Giffen!).


How good an artist is ChrisCross? He is so good an artist that I would pick up Midnighter #11 this week even though I haven't followed the book at all. THAT'S how good an artist he is -- the type of artist you follow from book-to-book.

Anyway, he's got a great interview on Newsarama where he talks about his current gigs, his overseas work, and how he almost quit mainstream comics altogether:

"Yeah, it just got to the point where I was just…tired. I just wanted to pick up and be a chef somewhere or something. The fiancee and a couple of other friends convinced me to stick with it. They told me, “There’s things you need to do, you can’t cut it out yet."

My two cents? I think the "Firestorm" experience probably burned him out for a number of different reasons. "Firestorm" was an experience, a heavily-hyped event that faced a lot of scrutiny both by the fans (many of whom were rabidly disappointed that Ronnie Raymond was out) and internally.


Frankly -- and this is just an opinion -- I think the company had cold feet about the reboot of Firestorm at the very same time that they pushed the book. That sort of ambivalent energy makes such projects a weird experience for everybody.

Also, as ChrisCross mentions in the interview, he had "Outsiders" and "JLA" work going on pretty much simultaneously. He had a tremendous about of work on his plate, and he's not the type of artist who just hacks things out like an assembly line.

I was real happy how things turned out with Jamal Igle on "Firestorm," but I did miss ChrisCross's work. He would have made any book he was on a winner. One of the virtuoso under appreciated talents out there. So it's good that he's back and hopefully he's here to stay.