Chris Samnee grew up in De Soto, a nearby suburb of
St. Louis. His earliest exposure to superheroes came through the
Super Friends cartoon. He was not aware of the print source material for those cartoons until his grandmother began buying him three-packs of comics from a grocery store. His first comic book was a
Batman book that he read when he was five or six years old, and that became his favorite character. He began copying the work of 80s artists whose work he was exposed to, like
Tom Mandrake,
Jim Aparo and
Alan Davis. He would also research those who influenced these artists, such as comic strip artist
Milton Caniff, whom Samnee read in an interview in
Comics Journal was an influence on Aparo, and
Frank Robbins. Samnee's grandmother further encouraged Samnee to expand his reading to the
Dick Tracy comic strips found in a collection at a local library. By his mid-teens he was also heavily interested in Japanese
manga and
anime. Samnee was about 10 years old when he realized he wanted to produce comics for a living. He convinced his parents to drive him an hour and a half to the airport Holiday Inn, where local comics conventions were held, and where he would bombard writers and artists with questions on how to produce comics and break into the industry. One particularly helpful creator was
Conan artist Mike Doherty, who advised him on what to draw, and gave him some 11 x 14
Marvel Comics illustration board to draw on. Samnee was so in awe of holding professional board with the Marvel logo printed on it that he could not bring himself to draw on it, and in a 2013 interview, indicated that he still had it. ==Career==