Ken Hooper

KEN HOOPER is an American comic book artist whose work has appeared in books as diverse as Aquaman and Indiana Jones.

Back in 1986, artist Ken Hooper started working for local publishers in the San Francisco Bay area, finally settling down to produce comic books for Blackthorne. Two years later he replaced Mike Mignola at First Comics and began adapting The Chronicles of Corum, as well as illustrating covers for Malibu Graphics such as Planet of the Apes.

He assisted fellow artist Tom Yeates on DC Comics' Swamp Thing in 1989, and the following year began taking a solo pencilling credit on issues of Star Trek and Mr Miracle before committing himself to what became a popular run on Aquaman for the next two years.

During 1993 he worked for various publishers, contributing material to the fan favourite Elfquest series and two Indiana Jones books for Dark Horse. The following year he was back at DC as co-creator and regular artist on the Primal Force series while also drawing an adult story in the Elaine Lee written Skin Tight Orbit graphic album published by NBM.

He subsequently turned his talents towards creating illustrative material for the gaming book industry, briefly returning to comics with his own short story, Breakfast, in the Flying Colors Special. Concurrent with this Hooper has had had a prolific musical career, playing various instruments for a number of bands, and recording his own solo album, From The Edge, in 2004, followed by the limited edition Hoop Loops series.

He took care of cover duty and produced several standout pages for Wildcard Ink's Feed America's Children charity comic, and has also appropriated a Calvin & Hobbes cartoon style for work on their award-winning Gumby titles.

In recent years Hooper has been working with Tom Yeates and Ron Randall, producing graphic novels for the mainstream American book market.

He is currently delving further into the educational market and will be producing a series of six 20 page comic books consisting of double page spreads focusing on helping people make career choices. "It should be an interesting experience," the artist noted, explaining that they will delve into areas such as forensic science.

Concurrent with these he will be inking a Deathrace 2000 mini-series for Blue Water, alongside developing his own strips and books.

These latter projects combine Ken Hooper's penchant for adventure with a fantastical flavour, and promise to possess cool moody dynamics filtered with a modern edge, some may well feature the exquisite inking lines of Rick Bryant, a previous early collaboration between the pair being featured above.