Chris Schweizer

Chris Schweizer makes cartooning look effortless—until you watch his process videos and see the obsessive precision behind every single panel, balloon placement, and historically accurate buckle. A three-time Eisner Award nominee, Schweizer has proven himself one of the most versatile and dynamic forces in independent comics, moving from all-ages historical epics to licensed franchise chaos to middle-grade monster mysteries with a deceptively breezy confidence.

Born in Tucson, Arizona in 1980 and raised in Louisiana and Kentucky by classical musician parents, Schweizer chose the pen over the baton early. He earned his BFA in Graphic Design from Murray State University in 2004 before pursuing an MFA in Sequential Art from the Savannah College of Art and Design. His graduate thesis—the swashbuckling pirate saga Crogan’s Vengeance—netted his first Eisner nomination and launched him into a faculty position at SCAD, where he spent five years shaping the next generation of storytellers.

Schweizer’s breakout series, The Crogan Adventures, is an audacious multi-generational historical fiction saga tracking the fictional Crogan family across three centuries of world history. The series spans Caribbean pirates in Catfoot’s Vengeance, the French Foreign Legion in Last of the Legion, the American Revolution in Crogan’s Loyalty—another Eisner nominee—and beyond. Each volume is a self-contained adventure steeped in meticulous period research and propelled by Schweizer’s trademark cartoonish energy. Booklist awarded Crogan’s Loyalty a starred review, praising how “Schweizer’s limber figures and quick jabs of slapstick goofing give this graphic novel a deceptively light veneer, even as life-and-death matters are unfolding.”

His middle-grade horror series The Creeps, from Abrams/Amulet, throws four misfit kids into monster-filled mysteries in the gloriously weird Pumpkins County. Across three volumes—Night of the Frankenfrogs, The Trolls Will Feast!, and Curse of the Attack-o-Lanterns—Schweizer channels Goosebumps and Scooby-Doo energy into a sharp, character-driven series that Kirkus hailed as “silly fun with a smattering of science.”

In 2018, Schweizer joined forces with writer Kyle Starks for Dynamite’s Mars Attacks, a howlingly funny tale of a man protecting his elderly father during an alien onslaught. The creative chemistry was undeniable, and the duo reunited for Six Sidekicks of Trigger Keaton at Image/Skybound in 2021. The series—following six former TV sidekicks hunting down the killer of their monstrous ex-co-star—earned a spot on Polygon’s Best Comics of 2022 list, with Chip Zdarsky praising Schweizer’s “mastering of both perfect expressions and wild action scenes in jam-packed, eye-popping pages.” Snag the collected edition at Image Comics.

Schweizer’s range extends further with educational titles like Maker Comics: Fix a Car! and History Comics: The Roanoke Colony for First Second, the Disney’s Pirates of the Caribbean comic series (as writer, with artist Joe Flood), and his current passion project, Outlaw’s Apprentice—an Appalachian-infused swashbuckling fantasy serialized on Webtoon and Patreon, with a Kickstarter for the first graphic novel launching June 30, 2026. He also released A Dream of Swords, a stunning collection of 100 watercolor sword drawings inspired by museum visits across Europe and New York.

Beyond the page, Schweizer creates art for board games (including Trogdor: Burninate the Countryside and Monty Python and the Holy Grail), runs a thriving Patreon community where he shares paper figure sets, historical art, and deep dives into comics craft, and holds the title of Kentucky Colonel. He lives in rural Kentucky with his wife, teenager, and three cats—a working artist who has been everything from a college professor and hotel manager to a speakeasy proprietor and a pancake mix factory worker, all before finding his true home in comics.

Perfect for fans of Kyle Starks’ irreverent action-comedy, Matt Kindt’s historical adventures, or middle-grade horror in the vein of Goosebumps with a modern edge.