iFanboy Upstarts: Chase Conley

Sometimes you see a comic artist evolve and improve over time into a superstar, while others with just one simple glance you know there’s something special there. This week’s iFanboy Upstart is someone who I discovered when my local comic shop pulled the wrong comic for me, but it turned out to be just the one I needed. Artist Chase Conley just finished the Dynamite series Jim Butcher’s The Dresden Files: Fool Moon, and shows off some immense skill at not just drawing nice things to look at, but composing those shots and those panels into a cohesive page design that tells a better story. After I found his DeviantArt page showing off a diversity of styles, I was sold.

Conley got his start doing superheroes in a short for BOOM!’s Planetary Brigade miniseries in 2006,  then took a two year break from comics before coming back and being snapped up for Dynamite’s line of comics adapted from prose novels. His first series was the Dragonmount miniseries in the Robert Jordan’s The Wheel Of Time franchise, and he followed that up with another volume titled The Eye of the World. As I said earlier, he just finished work in a new franchise, comics based on Jim Butcher’s The Dresden Files novels. He’s sent in submissions for Marvel and other publishers over the years, but for one reason or another never made it to that level. He hasn’t come out with anything since the end of 2011, but over on his DA page he announced he was working at the animation studio Titmouse as the Supervising Character Designer for Black Dynamite: The Animated Series. That might put comics on the backburner for him temporarily, but not dead: the artist has been slowly working on a graphic novel of his own called The Kinetic Kartel.

Here’s a sample of his work. It leans heavily on his sketches and pin-ups rather than his published comics work. Although the latter is good, I think once he’s able to do a project that melds that storytelling with the more dynamic and nuanced work seen in his sketches, he’ll really hit it out of the park.

Comments

  1. That is one killer Ninja Turtles piece.

  2. I didn’t know they made Dresden Files comics.

  3. While the TMNT may be a bit chunky for my liking, it’s still an incredibly dynamic shot. Some of his stuff reminds me of Francis Manapul, which is a high praise. Certainly hope we get some high profile work from this artist soon.

  4. He’s got some some pretty good stuff, but nothing that makes me sit up and go WOW.

  5. Wow I never thought I’d actually comment on good ‘lighting’ in comic book art, but this is the best for it I’ve seen possibly ever

  6. This is some really nice art! I’ve never heard the name before, but I’ll be on the lookout for more of his work.
    The Hulk and Namor sketches are nice and I LOVE the worm’s eye view of Moon Knight dropping the thug to the pavement.

  7. Why dident Marvel or DC pick this guy up?