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JIM LEE
Lee was born in Seoul, South Korea, but grew up in the United States. Lee attended Princeton University and majored in psychology with the intention of becoming a medical doctor and graduated in 1986, but decided to pursue a career in comic book illustration instead.
After inking one title for a small, independent publisher, Lee found success at the largest North American comics publisher, Marvel Comics, as a penciller. His early Marvel work included Alpha Flight and Punisher War Journal.
In 1989, he filled in for regular illustrator Marc Silvestri on Uncanny X-Men #248 and did another guest stint on issues 256 through 258. Lee became the series' regular penciller when Silvestri left in 1990. During his stint on Uncanny X-Men, Lee first worked with inker Scott Williams, who would become a long-time collaborator.
Interior art from X-Men #2 by Jim Lee
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Interior art from X-Men #2 by Jim Lee
Lee’s artwork quickly gained popularity in the eyes of enthusiastic fans, which allowed him to gain greater creative control of the franchise. In 1991, Lee stayed on as co-writer of Uncanny X-Men while illustrating a second series simply called X-Men, co-written by Lee and long-time X-Men scribe Chris Claremont. Lee also designed new uniforms for characters such as Cyclops, Gambit, Jean Grey, Rogue, Psylocke and Storm, creating the images that an entire generation of X-Men readers would associate with the characters. X-Men #1 still is the best-selling comic book of all-time with sales of 8 million copies of the first issue, although multiple purchases of variant covers illustrated by Lee accounted for part of the sales frenzy.
However, Lee ran into some creative hurdles. Claremont found it harder to work with Lee as their vision of the characters and storylines diverged. There was a prolonged power struggle over the future of the X-Men and in the end, Marvel X-Men editor Bob Harras favored the widly popular Lee, causing Claremont to depart X-Men with issue 3. Despite this, Claremont and Lee later reunited on various projects and are reportedly on friendly terms. Claremont and Lee even engaged in a mutual interview for Wizard magazine in 1995.
In 1992, Lee was one of seven artists who broke away from Marvel to form Image Comics. Lee's group of titles was christened Wildstorm Productions and published books such as Gen 13, Stormwatch, and Lee's pet title WildC.A.T.s, which was adapted into a short-lived cartoon series. Like most Image properties, these series were criticized for high levels of violence (although they were no more violent than the usual Marvel or DC comic at the time), excessive sexual references, and for emphasizing flashy art over storytelling. Despite such claims, Lee's stable of titles sold incredibly well, often exceeding a million copies per month in the early going, charting new highs in sales from an independent publisher.
Lee and Rob Liefeld, another Marvel-illustator-turned-Image-founder, returned to Marvel in 1996 to participate in a reboot of several classic characters; the project was known as Heroes Reborn. While Liefeld reworked Captain America and The Avengers, Lee plotted Iron Man and wrote and illustrated The Fantastic Four. Lee managed to catapult Fantastic Four and Iron Man to the top of the sales charts, although fan reaction to this revamp of such well-known characters was mixed. Halfway through the project, Liefeld was fired from the project (poor sales - relative to Lee's output - were cited) and Lee's studio finished all four series. At the end of the one-year deal, Lee and Marvel agreed to hand the books over to other creators.
Lee then concentrated in the Wildstorm line, attempting to break away from the stereotype of Image comics as all style and no substance by publishing critically acclaimed series' The Authority and Planetary. In publishing Alan Moore's America's Best Comics line, Wildstorm brought arguably the medium's most critically acclaimed writer back into mainstream publishing after almost a decade of independent work. Lee himself illustrated an original mini-series called Divine Right, in which an internet slacker inadvertently manages to download the secrets of the universe, and is thrown into a wild fantasy world.
Promotional art by Lee for the upcoming Infinite Crisis comicbook event miniseries
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Promotional art by Lee for the upcoming Infinite Crisis comicbook event miniseries
In late 1998, however, Lee left Image Comics and sold Wildstorm to DC Comics. Lee's career as a publisher had mostly precluded art jobs and he desired to return to his roots as an illustrator. In 2003 he collaborated on a 12 issue run on Batman with writer Jeph Loeb that became a runaway sales success (See Batman: Hush). This was followed by a year's stint on Superman, with writer Brian Azzarello. In 2005, Lee teamed with Frank Miller on the new series All Star Batman and Robin, the Boy Wonder.
Lee continues to run the company he founded, working side by side with new artists. Notable former WildStorm artists include J. Scott Campbell and Travis Charest. In July 2006, Jim Lee will return to WildC.A.T.s with Grant Morrison as the writer. Lee plans to pencil both WildC.A.T.s and All Star Batman and Robin, completed an issue of each every 6 weeks, as Lee claims he will not leave the Batman title until Frank Miller has finished his story.
Intense fan speculation surrounds the announcement in 2004 that Lee might team up with legendary comic writer Alan Moore for a project titled "Comet Rangers," although it appears current commitments may have postponed or cancelled this project.
Jim Lee is not related to Stan Lee or Jae Lee, two other prominent names in the comic book industry.
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