Chris Roberson grew up in Texas and he earned a in English literature and a minor in history from the University of Texas. He worked as a product support engineer for Dell computers for seven years before launching MonkeyBrain Books. He also began writing science fiction novels, having been heavily influenced by science fiction cartoons, comic books, movies and novels.

From 1998 to 2002, Roberson was part of writer's collective Clockwork Storybook, alongside author Bill Willingham, Matthew Sturges and Mark Finn.

Roberson's first comics work was the Cinderella: From Fabletown With Love miniseries, a spinoff of Bill Willingham's Fables series. Roberson followed that with the Vertigo series iZombie, a short run on Superman/Batman, a sequel to his Cinderella miniseries, Starborn, Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep?: Dust to Dust, and various single issue and short stories. Roberson also took over and completed the controversial Superman story "Grounded" from writer J. Michael Straczynski, largely reworking the concept and tone. Roberson's latest works are Elric: The Balance Lost and Star Trek/Legion of Superheroes.

In his DC work Roberson has shown a deep and expansive knowledge of some of their more rare characters and concepts, especially concerning both the Superman and Legion of Superheroes mythos.

Recently Roberson has decided to stop working for DC Comics due to ethical concerns. He felt that the unjust treatment DC had for their creators was too much.