Career
Trevor Von Eeden was the first black artist that DC Comics had ever hired, one of the youngest they'd ever hired, and co-creator of their first original black superhero, Black Lightning (the black Green Lantern John Stewart) had debuted a year earlier.) His comic book career began at age 16, when DC Comics editor Jack C. Harris hired him to illustrate prototype assignments with the "Legion of Super-Heroes" and Weird War Tales.[3] Soon after, Von Eeden was officially hired to design and draw the company's first African-American superhero to have his own title, Black Lightning.[4]
About three years later, Von Eeden began to suspect he had gotten that job because of his skin color, which displeased him and resulted in his writing what he called a five-page mission statement that said "in detail exactly what I wanted to create — the kind of style I thought would express myself most effectively, while also telling a story in the most dramatic way possible. I wrote everything down that I could think of — the details, form, and purpose of the style of art that I'd wanted to create."[2]
In 1977, he began drawing the "Green Arrow" backup feature in World's Finest Comics[5] and co-created the Count Vertigo character with Gerry Conway in World's Finest Comics #251 (July 1978). Von Eeden recalled in a 2011 interview that he "worked for Neal [Adams] concurrent with my DC tenure—starting in 1978, until somewhere in the late '90s".[6] He moved to Marvel Comics in 1979 and 1980 and pencilled Power Man and Iron Fist and Spider-Woman.[7] His stint at Marvel Comics was cut short because, in his words, he was "fired by Jim Shooter, who’d told me specifically, when I’d first started there, to try and draw like Jack Kirby—and apparently wasn’t happy that I didn’t."[8]
He was asked by Frank Miller to draw the "Batman: Year One" storyline but did not accept the offer.[18]
"Venom", the fourth story arc in the Batman: Legends of the Dark Knight series, was drawn by Von Eeden, Russell Braun, and José Luis García-López.[7][19] Von Eeden drew a Black Canary limited series (Nov. 1991-Feb. 1992) as well as an ongoing series featuring the character in 1992–1993.[7] In a 2009 interview he stated that Black Canary'', on the other hand, was done in one state of mind, from beginning to end, one of semi-interest, to tell you the truth. I didn't, and still don't, find her to be a particularly interesting character."[20]
In 2001 Von Eeden returned to Batman, penciling the five-issue storyline "Grimm" in Batman: Legends of the Dark Knight #149–153.[21] He also illustrated a series of short stories, "Joe In The Future", published in Heavy Metal #v25 #6 (Jan. 2002) and #v27 #5 (Nov. 2003)[1]
In 2007 Von Eeden began writing and drawing The Original Johnson, a biography of the boxer Jack Johnson. The 242-page graphic novel was serialized in weekly online installments at ComicMix, and was completed in 2008.[14] Print rights to the book were acquired by IDW Publishing, who issued the series as a two-volume set in 2009 and 2011.[1] He has called this project "The other 'most satisfying' book of my career (aside from the Batman Annual #8) is The Original Johnson – the first book I’ve ever written and drawn."[12]
He provided illustrations for the text story "The Holo-Marketeer" for Heavy Metal #v34 #9 (Jan. 2011) and designed and illustrated superhero comics produced for the National Hockey League by Stan Lee.[1] He later drew four issues of Gateway Comics' Stalker.[22]
