Christian Hill

About

Back in France, a kind-hearted middle grade literature teacher named Monsieur Laurent, who worked as a part-time journalist, saw promise in the drawings of his student, Christian Hill, so he invited the youngster to publish his early comics in a regional newspaper. Loving this experience, Hill launched a comics magazine with school friends, which at its height was published throughout Switzerland. When he moved to the USA to attend college in the Midwest, Hill published comic strip funnies in university newspapers under pen names. He also embraced digital art and Photoshop (learning it at version 3.0). In 1995, he joined a Smithsonian and National Geographic team as project manager to complete the interactive art for an educational CD-ROM, "Earth 2U: Exploring Geography." When Hill and his wife moved to an old, hilly town in Southern California, he freelanced for Disney, ABC, Universal Studios, and many dot coms, producing art for their websites, shows, and theme parks. After his children were born, Hill focused on teaching. While he helped his kids with reading, math, history, and biology, at Cal State Fullerton, he taught college students the art of visual storytelling. After nearly 20 years, many of his students have become children's book illustrators, comic book artists, and storyboard artists. Hill was an early champion of graphic novels for children, invited to make presentations and to teach workshops across the country (UCLA, Univ. of Central Florida, San Diego Comic Con, CAA). At the 2007 Society of Children's Book Writers and Illustrators Conference in New York, Hill spoke to illustrators with a keynote address on designing graphic novels for children. He has published in the International Journal of Comic Art, Entertainment Weekly, Parables, Children's Writers and Illustrators Market, and has had his art in museums (Society of Illustrators in New York, Krannert Art Museum in Illinois, Laguna Art Museum in California). Now that Hill's children are grown, he volunteers a little less at their former high school and devotes more time to his passions: kids comics, graphic novels, and teaching visual storytelling.

Hill received a B.A. in Art History and a B.S. in Business (Finance) from the University of Missouri, Columbia, and a M.F.A. in Illustration from California State University, Fullerton.