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Just when Frank Quitely thought he was done making comics based on other people's characters, they pulled him back in. Quitely, 58, might be considered by some to be an unlikely superstar superhero comic artist — but that just means you haven't read his superhero work from Flex Mentallo to JLA, All-Star Superman, Jupiter's Legacy, New X-Men, The Ambassadors, and Batman & Robin. But one thing all of those have in common (besides him being great on it) is that they're all owned by giant megalithic corporations like DC, Marvel, and Netflix. And as much as Quitely likes those characters and appreciates being paid handsomely to draw them, he's been trying to get onto his own creations for going on 20 years now.

In fact, it was arguably his most popular work ever that he first turned down in an effort to leave doing work-for-hire comics for others. He's glad he changed his mind, though.

"All-Star Superman, in a way, is the book I'm most glad that I did because it's the book that's connected with most people," Quitely tells The Comics Journal's Jake Zawlacki. "I've had loads of people at cons tell me how much they love me, and how it was the first book they got their wife to read or whatever. But All-Star Superman's connected with people in a way that none of the other pieces of work that I've done have and I really didn't want to draw it."

Quitely says that following the completion of his and Grant Morrison's creator-owned series, We3, in 2005, and it being optioned as a film that they would be involved in, he was done doing comics based on characters he didn't own.

"We'd just done We3, and it got optioned by New Line Cinema and still nothing's happened with it 20 years later but I said to Grant, 'Creator-owned from now on,' and he was like, 'Yeah, yeah, I want you to do Superman for me.' I’m like, 'Anybody else can do Superman for you,' but I'm really glad I did because from seeing the first script and then every script after that being brilliant and then twenty years of people either just imposing about how much they loved it and how much it summed up Superman and how much it summed up what it is to be human."

After All-Star Superman, he was pulled into several DC projects and then a series for Netflix. Besides that, he did a story for Mike Allred's Madman, and his creator-owned series Jupiter's Legacy with Mark Millar, which the duo ultimately sold completely to Netflix. Quitely says that finishing his Lobo: A Man's World one-shot from the '90s is "on the back burner," and that he's writing and drawing "a couple things" for "an artist friend's" creator-owned projects, and plans to write his own comics as well. He is also pitching an animated project as well.

"I started out writing my own stories, and it’s always been my plan to get back to writing again," says Quitely. "I’ve loved getting the chance to work on well-known properties for the Big Two, but I’m aiming to concentrate on creator-owned projects from here on in.

Get ready for what's next with our list to upcoming comics and how to buy comics at a comic shop, and our guide to all the free comics you can get with this year's Free Comic Book Day 2026 and Comics Giveaway Day 2026.