"[2] He began reading comics at an early age, likening them to his "underage drug habit" and the newsagent in northern England where he would buy his books from his "dealer".
After that imprint closed, he provided the art for an issue of Teen Titans and a couple of series at Valiant Comics before returning to Marvel where he would work with inker Paul Neary.
[7] Hitch had resolved to leave comics in order to pursue film and commercial work, and when he accepted the assignment of drawing Stormwatch (Vol 2) for Wildstorm, he initially did so specifically to bankroll his transition to a different industry.
[7] The run was marred by fill-in artists, and in Hitch's view, by the fact that he and writer Mark Waid did not enjoy the same compatibility as he and Ellis did.
[5] Amid his disappointment with his Justice League work, Hitch was offered work by CrossGen Comics, but a phone call by Marvel Comics editor in chief Joe Quesada paved the way for his next high-profile assignment,[5] returning to Marvel with Neary, and joining Mark Millar on The Ultimates, a 13-issue maxiseries that debuted in early 2002.
So burnt out did Hitch feel after the "hard slog" of The Ultimates that it took a considerable effort on Millar's part to convince him to return for the sequel.
[5] In the case of Heaven's Ladder, however, DC Comics, which was less supportive of his tardiness than Marvel, scheduled the book according to the day he signed the contract for it, and began advertising it when he still had four or five more issues of The Authority to do.
He made a point of drawing on illustration board roughly twice the size of the Marvel standard, which allowed him to complete the artwork faster.
He was hired by the BBC as the concept artist for the 2005 relaunch of the Doctor Who television series, providing input into the design of the TARDIS interior set.
[15] Hitch contributed designs to the starship piloted by Spock in the 2009 feature film Star Trek, for which director J. J. Abrams has praised him.
[18] Hitch's cover to Fantastic Four #554 (April 2008) is featured in the opening title sequence of the 2010 History Channel television series, Stan Lee's Superhumans.
[20] In 2012, Hitch was one of several artists to illustrate a variant cover for Robert Kirkman's The Walking Dead #100, which was released July 11 at San Diego Comic-Con.
[30] Hitch commented, "I've wanted to do a proper Batman book since childhood so all the tropes from Batmobile, Batcave, to Wayne Manor have been developing in my mind for decades.
[34][35] In April 2023, it was announced that Hitch would be teaming up with Mark Waid for a three issue miniseries for DC Black Label called Superman: The Last Days of Lex Luthor.
"[39] Hitch's inaugural art for Ghost Machine was on Redcoat, a series written by Johns that centers upon a soldier named Simon Pure who, during the American Revolution,[40][41] is forced to fight for Britain, and who inadvertently gains the power of immortality after stumbling upon the Founding Fathers' secret mystical organization.
[40] Described by Hitch as "a bit of a tool",[42] Simon grows jaded over the decades, and becomes an irreverent mercenary who makes a living while fleeing from a litany of deadly enemies, ex-lovers, and bill collectors.
In addition to a large drawing board and extra desk space for his computer equipment and lightbox, he keeps copious book shelves.
The "best tool of all", according to him, is a traditional pencil cut with a craft knife, which he says can produce a variety of marks, and be used for detail, shading and general sketching.
For more free-hand hatching, Hitch uses a Gillott 1960 dip pen, though he prefers to use more solid areas of black to large amounts of rendering.