Trevor Von Eeden

Trevor Von Eeden (born July 24, 1959) is a Guyanese-American comics artist, actor and writer known for his work on such titles as Black Lightning, Batman, Green Arrow, Power Man and Iron Fist, and the biographical series The Original Johnson.

Early life Von Eeden was born in Guyana Von Eeden's influences included Neal Adams, Jack Kirby, John Buscema, and Curt Swan. He was also studying medicine at Columbia University.

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." 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". He moved to Marvel Comics in 1979 and 1980 and pencilled Power Man and Iron Fist and Spider-Woman. 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." He then returned to DC and once again drew the "Green Arrow" feature in World's Finest Comics In collaboration with writer Mike W. Barr, he crafted Batman Annual #8 (1982) and a Green Arrow miniseries. Von Eeden has noted that the Batman Annual is "the book I’m most proud of, in my 25 year career at DC Comics. I was able to ink it myself, and also got my girlfriend at the time, Lynn Varley, to colour it – her first job in comics." He and writer Jack C. Harris proposed to DC an all-female superteam named the Power Squad, but were turned down. In 1983, Von Eeden and writer Robert Loren Fleming created the DC series Thriller, an action-adventure story that allowed him room to experiment. Von Eeden left the series as of its eighth issue due to difficulties with DC Comics' management. He stated in a 2017 interview that he was "thrilled beyond measure" that Thriller is "the one job of my entire 41-year career that the fans have fondly and consistently remembered since it first appeared."

He was asked by Frank Miller to draw the "Batman: Year One" storyline but did not accept the offer.

"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. Von Eeden drew a Black Canary limited series (Nov. 1991-Feb. 1992) as well as an ongoing series featuring the character in 1992–1993.

In 2001 Von Eeden returned to Batman, penciling the five-issue storyline "Grimm" in Batman: Legends of the Dark Knight #149–153. 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)

Awards and recognition 2010 Inkwell Awards Ambassador 2012 Inkpot Award