Friday, November 18, 2011

Artist Showcase :: Jim Lee


Jim Lee is a Korean-American comic book artist, writer, editor and publisher. He first broke into the industry in 1987 as an artist for Marvel Comics, illustrating titles such as Alpha Flight and Punisher War Journal, before gaining a great deal of popularity on The Uncanny X-Men. X-Men #1, the 1991 spin-off series premiere that Lee penciled and co-wrote with Chris Claremont, remains the best-selling comic book of all time, according to the Guinness Book of World Records.

    
Pencils and finished art for Uncanny X-Men Omnibus

Enticed by the idea of being able to exert more control over his own work, in 1992, Lee accepted the invitation to join six other artists who broke away from Marvel to form Image Comics, which would publish their creator-owned titles.  Lee's group of titles was initially called Aegis Entertainment before being christened Wildstorm Productions, and published Lee's initial title WildC.A.T.s, which Lee pencilled and co-wrote, and other series created by Lee in the same shared universe.

The new Justice League by Geoff Johns and Jim Lee

Because he felt his role as publisher interfered with his role as an artist, Lee left Image Comics and sold Wildstorm to DC Comics in late 1998, enabling to focus once again on art.  In 2003 he collaborated on a 12-issue run on Batman with writer Jeph Loeb. "Hush" became a runaway sales success. He followed this up in 2004 by illustrating "For Tomorrow", a 12-issue story in Superman by writer Brian Azzarello.

    

In February 2010 Lee was named alongside Dan DiDio as Co-Publisher of DC Comics.  In May 2011, DC announced a massive revamp and relaunch of its entire superhero line, at the forefront of the revamp is a new Justice League title, illustrated by Lee, and written by DC Comics' Chief Creative Officer Geoff Johns. The book will spend the first six months updating the origin of the Justice League, and will feature the return of DC's primary superheroes to the team.

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