Deighan worked up the Scottish underground comics title Electric Soup in 1990, writing and drawing The Greens, a parody of The Broons strip published by D. C. Thomson. It was in working on this book that he adopted the pseudonym of Frank Quitely (aspoonerism of "quite frankly"), as he did not want his family to know it was his work, worried that they may have found it upsetting.[8]
2000 saw Quitely and Morrison collaborate again, on JLA: Earth 2.[11] The graphic novel was met with positive critical response, and later that year Quitely took over from Bryan Hitch as artist on The Authority, with Mark Millar as writer.[9]
New X-Men promo art by Quitely, displaying his ornate line work and expressive faces
Quitely left The Authority to draw New X-Men.[12] Quitely illustrated a Destiny story for Neil Gaiman's The Sandman: Endless Nights hardcover graphic novel in 2003.[13] After leaving New X-Men, Quitely drew the mini-series We3 in 2004, again in collaboration with Morrison.[14] He shared the 2005 Best Penciller/Inker or Penciller/Inker Team Eisner Award in a tie with artist John Cassaday for his work on the book. That same year, he and Morrison were nominated for Best Limited Series for that book, and Quitely additionally was nominated for the Best Cover Artist Eisner for both We3 and Bite Club.[15] He wrote and drew new instalments of The Greens for the Scottish underground comic Northern Lightz,[16] and in 2005 Morrison and Quitely designed a series of tarot cards for Intensive Care, an album by popstar Robbie Williams.
In December 2004, Quitely signed to a two-year exclusive contract with DC Comics, where he illustrated All-Star Superman.[17] The twelve issue series, yet another collaboration with Morrison, began publication in November 2005. Quitely and Morrison's work on the series won them the Eisner Award for Best New Series in 2006, with Quitely collecting another nomination for Best Penciller/Inker.[18] The series won Best Continuing Series in 2007 and 2009.[19] In 2008 Quitely illustrated the cover for the debut issue of Scottish underground comic Wasted.
In early 2009, Frank Quitely collaborated with the Scottish rock band The Phantom Band in designing artwork for a limited edition 7" single for their song "The Howling", which plays on Quitely's interest in occultism and esoterica. This was released as a limited run collector's pressing by Glasgow's Chemikal Underground Records.[20] That same year, Quitely again teamed with Morrison, illustrated the first three issues of Batman and Robin title,[21] which debuted in June 2009 after the "Battle for the Cowl" storyline.[22] He provided covers through issue No. 16. Quitely was one of the artists of Batman No. 700 (Aug. 2010).[23]
On 9 April 2011, Quitely was one of 62 comics creators who appeared at the IGN stage at the Kapow! convention in London to set two Guinness World Records, the "Fastest Production of a Comic Book" and "Most Contributors to a Comic Book". With Guinness officials on hand to monitor their progress, writer Mark Millar began work at 9 AM scripting a 20-page black and white Superior comic book, with Quitely and the other artists appearing on stage throughout the day to work on the pencils, inks, and lettering, including Dave Gibbons, John Romita Jr., Jock, Adi Granov,[24]Doug Braithwaite, Ian Churchill, Olivier Coipel, Duncan Fegredo, Simon Furman, David Lafuente, John McCrea, Sean Phillips and Liam Sharp,[25] who all drew a panel each, with regular Superior artist Leinil Yu creating the book's front cover. The book was completed in 11 hours, 19 minutes, and 38 seconds, and was published through Icon on 23 November 2011, with all royalties being donated to Yorkhill Children's Foundation.[24]
That same month, he mentioned during a panel at WonderCon that although he had split his time equally between illustrating covers and interiors, he had recently been devoting more of his time to covers, due to back problems, and the difficulty that presented in meeting his deadlines.[26]
Quitely was the artist on Jupiter's Legacy, a ten-issue, creator-owned miniseries published by Image Comics that premiered in September 2012. It is written by Mark Millar, who described the project as "his Star Wars", and a cross between The Lord of the Rings and a large-scale superhero crossover, albeit one that did not require the in-depth knowledge normally required of such stories, as it features entirely new characters.[28] On July 17, 2018, it was announced that Netflix had given a series order for a television adaptationofJupiter's Legacy.[29]
Quitely drew the fourth issue of Grant Morrison's The Multiversity limited series which was published in November 2014.[30][31]
Quitely married his high school sweetheart, Ann Jane Docherty, in 1994.[1][32][33] They live in Rutherglen[33] with their sons Vincent and Joseph,[32][33] and their daughter, Orla.[33] Quitely's son Vincent is also an artist who created art for local St Columbkille's RC Church [de] in 2011 while a pupil at Trinity High School.[34]
Quitely used to design his own hats and clothing.[33] For a long time, he eschewed social media, noting that the Twitter account @Frank_Quitely is unconnected with him.[35] In 2021, Quitely established official accounts on both Twitter and Instagram.[36][37]
In a 2014 BBC News interview, Deighan, having developed a reputation for difficulty in meeting deadlines, stated while he did his drawing digitally, it did not reduce the time it took to complete his art, saying, "I have never been on a project where I've thought 'ach, this is rubbish', and not tried hard," he says, "It's not in my nature. The downside of that is that things take a while."[7]
^Cowsill, Alan (2010). "2000s". DC Comics Year By Year A Visual Chronicle. London, United Kingdom: Dorling Kindersley. p. 295. ISBN978-0-7566-6742-9. Writer Grant Morrison and artist Frank Quitely brought the Crime Syndicate of America back to DC continuity in JLA: Earth 2.
^Manning, Matthew K. (2008). "2000s". Marvel Chronicle A Year by Year History. London, United Kingdom: Dorling Kindersley. p. 306. ISBN978-0756641238. X-Men comics...seemed to lack the innovation and creative direction that had given the team such staying power. That all changed when respected writer Grant Morrison and talented artist Frank Quitely took center stage.
^Cowsill "2000s" in Dolan, p. 314: "Writer Grant Morrison and longtime artistic collaborator Frank Quitely presented one of the year's most touching and original stories in WE3."
^Cowsill "2000s" in Dolan, p. 324: "Grant Morrison and artist Frank Quitely unveiled one of the most original and well-received Superman series for years as they combined high-concept science-fiction elements with classic Silver Age concepts in their All Star Superman series."
^Cowsill "2000s" in Dolan, p. 342: "Written by Grant Morrison with art by Tony S. Daniel, Andy Kubert, Frank Quitely, [David] Finch, and Richard Friend, this milestone issue of Batman featured an all-star roster of talent."
^Sutherland, Kev F. "NATIONAL COMICS AWARDS 2002: THE 5TH NATIONAL COMICS AWARDS RESULTS," 2000ADonline.org. Archived at the Wayback Machine. Retrieved Nov. 30, 2020.
