1. Jim Lee is a Korean-born American comic book artist, writer, editor, and publisher.
60 Facts About Jim Lee
1. 2.
In recognition of his work, Lee has received a Harvey Award, Inkpot Award and three Wizard Fan Awards.
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Jim Lee got his start in the industry in 1987 as an artist for Marvel Comics, illustrating titles such as Alpha Flight and The Punisher War Journal before becoming widely popular through his work on The Uncanny X-Men.
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On that book, Jim Lee worked with writer Chris Claremont, with whom he co-created the character Gambit.
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Jim Lee's style was later used for the designs of the X-Men: The Animated Series.
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In 1998, wanting to spend less time as a publisher and more time illustrating, Jim Lee sold WildStorm to DC Comics, and ran WildStorm as a DC imprint until 2010.
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In June 2018, Jim Lee was appointed the company's chief creative officer, replacing Geoff Johns.
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In February 2020, when DiDio left the company, Jim Lee became its sole publisher.
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Outside the comics industry, Jim Lee has designed album covers, as well as the packaging of one of General Mills' monster-themed cereal boxes for its 2014 Halloween collection.
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Jim Lee was born on August 11,1964, in Seoul, South Korea.
11.
Jim Lee attended River Bend Elementary School in Chesterfield and later St Louis Country Day School, where he drew posters for school plays.
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Jim Lee says that he benefited as an artist by connecting with characters that were themselves disenfranchised, like Spider-Man, or who were born of such backgrounds, such as Superman, who was created by two Jewish men from Cleveland to lift their spirits during the Depression.
13.
Jim Lee connected with Superman because like Jim Lee, Superman was "the ultimate immigrant", which helped him assimilate into American culture, and provided him a sense of "sanctuary" from the pressures he felt as an immigrant who did not fit in, and the shame he felt as a Korean.
14.
Jim Lee developed a desire to one day work in comics between the ages of nine and twelve.
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Jim Lee's classmates predicted in his senior yearbook that he would found his own comic book company.
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Jim Lee was resigned to following his father's career in medicine, continuing at Princeton by studying psychology, with the intention of becoming a medical doctor.
17.
In 1986, as he was preparing to graduate, Jim Lee took an art class that reignited his love of drawing, and led to his rediscovery of comics at a time when works such as Frank Miller's The Dark Knight Returns and Alan Moore and Dave Gibbons' Watchmen spurred a renaissance within the American comics industry.
18.
When he laid out this plan to his parents, it led to a heated argument that prompted Jim Lee to flee his house.
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Jim Lee's father pursued him and reconciled with him, expressing understanding of his commitment to his dreams.
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Jim Lee says that this influenced him to refrain from ever placing the same level of pressure on his own children.
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Jim Lee set up a small drafting table next to his bed, and would spend 8 to 10 hours each day drawing, to the point that he suffered from sore knuckles and a pinched nerve that required his father to give him a shoulder brace.
22.
The samples that Jim Lee initially submitted to various publishers did not find success.
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When he befriended St Louis-area comics artists Don Secrease and Rick Burchett, they convinced him he needed to show his portfolio to editors in person, prompting Jim Lee to attend a New York comics convention, where he met editor Archie Goodwin.
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In 1991, Jim Lee helped launch a second X-Men series simply called X-Men vol.
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Jim Lee designed new character uniforms for the series, including those worn by Cyclops, Jean Grey, Rogue, Betsy Braddock and Storm.
26.
Stan Jim Lee interviewed Jim Lee in the documentary series The Comic Book Greats.
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The other major series of the initial years of Wildstorm, for which Jim Lee either created characters, co-plotted or provided art for, included Stormwatch, Deathblow and Gen.
28.
Wildstorm produced Deathmate Black, with Jim Lee himself contributing to the writing.
29.
Jim Lee illustrated the covers for that book, the Deathmate Tourbook and the prologue book, as well as contributing to the prologue's interior inks.
30.
Halfway through the project, Jim Lee's studio took over Liefeld's two titles, finishing all four series.
31.
Jim Lee returned to WildStorm, where he would publish series such as The Authority and Planetary, as well as Alan Moore's imprint, America's Best Comics.
32.
Jim Lee himself wrote and illustrated a 12-issue series called Divine Right: The Adventures of Max Faraday, in which an internet slacker inadvertently manages to download the secrets of the universe, and is thrown into a wild fantasy world.
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Jim Lee drew a "Batman Black and White" backup story for the first issue of Batman: Gotham Knights.
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In 2004 Jim Lee illustrated "For Tomorrow", a 12-issue story in Superman by writer Brian Azzarello.
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Jim Lee himself took full responsibility for the delays, explaining that his involvement with the DC Universe Online video game were the cause, and not Miller's scripts, which had been completed for some time.
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All-Star drew controversy for Miller's dialogue, pacing and depiction of the characters, garnering reviews that were mixed to negative, though Jim Lee's art was praised, and the book enjoyed excellent sales.
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In September 2015 Jim Lee indicated the possibility of returning to the book to conclude it with Miller's originally intended ending, but this series was never produced.
38.
Jim Lee continued to run WildStorm as editorial director, sometimes working on both DC and WildStorm properties simultaneously.
39.
Jim Lee provided artwork for the album booklet for Daughtry's 2009 album Leave This Town.
40.
In February 2006, it was announced that Jim Lee would be involved with the concept art for the DC Comics online game DC Universe Online.
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In 2008, Jim Lee was named the Executive Creative Director of the forthcoming game, which at that time was expected to be released in 2009.
42.
In 2013, Jim Lee designed a new version of the Mortal Kombat character Scorpion for use in the DC fighting video game Injustice: Gods Among Us.
43.
On May 4,2013, DC published a Free Comic Book Day sneak preview of Superman Unchained, an ongoing series written by Scott Snyder and illustrated by Jim Lee, which was published on June 12,2013, and intended to coincide with the feature film Man of Steel, which opened two days later.
44.
In 2013, Jim Lee was announced as a member of a newly formed advisory board of the Comic Book Legal Defense Fund, a non-profit organization founded in 1986 chartered to protect the First Amendment rights of the comics community.
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That same year, Jim Lee provided designs for a Batman action figure as part of the company's BlueLine Edition series, to be released at that year's San Diego Comic-Con.
46.
November 2015 saw the debut of the miniseries Batman: Europa, on which Jim Lee collaborated with writers Brian Azzarello and Matteo Casali and artist Giuseppe Camuncoli.
47.
The book, which was inspired by Jim Lee's time living in Italy, was originally announced by DC in 2004, and intended to feature Jim Lee's painted art over Camuncoli's layouts, but after a series of delays, it was published with conventional artwork as a four-issue miniseries to positive reviews.
48.
In 2016, Jim Lee was the main artist on the one-shot Harley Quinn and the Suicide Squad April Fool's Special sharing art duties on that book with Sean Galloway.
49.
In late February 2020, following the departure of Co-Publisher Dan DiDio, Jim Lee became the sole Publisher of DC Comics.
50.
On November 25,2021, Jim Lee appeared alongside several other Asian and Pacific Islander celebrities, including actor Simu Liu, tennis player Naomi Osaka, and Top Chef host Padma Lakshmi, in the Thanksgiving Day television program See Us Coming Together: A Sesame Street Special.
51.
Jim Lee was promoted to President of DC Comics in May 2023.
52.
When illustrating full page commissions or sketches, Jim Lee uses the drybrush technique in order to achieve greytone areas with an uneven texture, applying india ink to the paper and then rubbing it with a tissue, or by using a brush to fill in areas of black, and then using the brush to effect drybrush effects after it is nearly depleted of ink.
53.
Five years later after having come to regret working on the "Wildstorm Rising" crossover story arc that ran the previous year in the books of Jim Lee's creator-owned studio, WildStorm Productions, Windsor-Smith expressed a different assessment of Jim Lee in an interview with The Comics Journal.
54.
In 2024, following the announcement that Jim Lee would accept commissions to be delivered to customers at conventions, a small subset of fans expressed annoyance for the high prices given by Jim Lee' agent, Albert Moy.
55.
On Twitter, comic book writer, Gail Simone shared a story of how Jim Lee drew free charity sketches in order to cover John Ostrander's eye surgery.
56.
Cronin pointed out that Jim Lee's art was often re-sold on the secondary market for similar prices, making that pricing on the part of Jim Lee and his agent reasonable.
57.
Jim Lee purchased the art at a Sotheby's auction via Barry Geller, the producer of the faux film, who was selling it to help pay for his child's college tuition.
58.
The CIA operation that rescued the Americans remained classified for another 17 years, and thus Jim Lee had no idea of the pages' historical significance, nor did Geller know their true monetary value when he sold them to help pay his son's college tuition.
59.
Outside of fan conventions, Jim Lee enjoys traveling and learning new languages.
60.
That result was derived from 33 first place votes for Jim Lee, placing him behind only George Perez, Jack Kirby, and John Byrne.