Jim Lee

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. On that book, Lee worked with writer Chris Claremont, with whom he co-created the character Gambit. That led to a 1991 spinoff series for which Lee and Claremont were the initial creative team. The debut issue, X-Men #1, which Lee penciled and co-wrote with Claremont, became the best-selling comic book of all time, according to Guinness World Records. Lee's style was later used for the designs of the X-Men: The Animated Series.^[1]


In 1992, Lee and several other artists formed a publishing company, Image Comics, to enable them to publish their own work; Lee published titles such as WildC.A.T.s and Gen¹³ through his studio, WildStorm Productions.


In 1998, wanting to spend less time as a publisher and more time illustrating, Lee sold WildStorm to DC Comicsand ran WildStorm as a DC imprint until 2010. During this period, he also illustrated successful titles set in DC's main fictional universe, such as the year-long storylines "Batman: Hush" and “Superman: For Tomorrow"), books (including Superman Unchained), and the New 52 run of Justice League.


On February 18, 2010, it was announced that DC Comics had appointed Lee and Dan DiDio as its co-publishers (replacing Paul Levitz). In June 2018, Lee was also appointed the company’s chief creative officer, replacing Geoff Johns. In February 2020, when DiDio left the company, Lee became its sole publisher.


Aside from illustrating comics, Lee has worked as a designer or creative director of DC Comics’ video games and merchandise, such as branded action figures, toy cars, and backpacks.


Outside the comics industry, Lee has designed album covers, as well as the packaging for one of General Mills' monster-themed cereals (part of its 2014 Halloween collection).

Early life[edit]

Jim Lee was born on August 11, 1964, in Seoul, South Korea.^[2][3] In a December 2023 interview, he describes his nostaglic memories of life in that country, where he first began drawing at a young age, using oil pastels with an art teacher who visited his home, and developing a love of Max Fleischer's 1940s animated Superman series. His strongest memory of living in Seoul, however, was when, at the age of 4 or 5, he was hit by a small truck while crossing the street, later regaining consciousness in the hospital in the presence of his father, a doctor. Lee says that the incident increased his parents' sense of protectiveness as he grew older, and summarizes his early years by saying, "Comics. Trauma. Art. That was the be-all, end-all of my childhood."^[4]


In the aftermath of the Korean War, Lee's parents desired a better, safer life for their family, and moved to the United States when Lee was in elementary school. They lived in Warren, Ohio,^[4] and Youngstown, Ohio, before settling in St. Louis, Missouri,^[5][6] where Lee lived a "typical middle-class childhood".^[6] Lee attended River Bend Elementary School in Chesterfield and later St. Louis Country Day School, where he drew posters for school plays. Having had to learn English when he first came to the U.S. instilled in Lee with the sense of being an outsider, as did the "preppy, upper-class" atmosphere of Country Day. As a result, on the rare occasions that his parents bought him comics, Lee's favorite characters were the X-Men, because they were outsiders themselves.^[5][6] 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.^[5] Lee also connected with Superman because like Lee, Superman was "the ultimate immigrant", which helped him assimilate into American culture, and provided him a sense of "sanctuary" from the pressues he felt as an immigrant who did not fit in, and the shame he felt as a Korean. For this reason, Superman's practice of wearing eyeglasses in order to effect a disguise was something Lee sympathized with, as he felt that he exhibited an "American side" at school, and then his "Korean side" at home. He developed a desire to one day work in comics between the ages of nine and twelve.^[4] Though given a Korean name at birth, he chose the name Jim when he became a naturalized U.S. citizen at age 12.^[7]


Lee attended Princeton University. During his junior year in 1984, Lee drew editorial cartoons for the school newspaper, The Daily Princetonian.^[8] Lee's classmates predicted in his senior yearbook that he would found his own comic book company.^[5][6] Lee, however, was resigned to following his father's career in medicine, continuing at Princeton by studying psychology, with the intention of becoming a medical doctor.^[6][9] This was largely influenced by the strict expectations of his parents, whom Lee said were "really aggressive in terms of how they wanted me to find true success," owing to views about security and fear of failure that Lee describes as being typical in Korean households.^[4]


In 1986, as he was preparing to graduate, Lee took an art class that reignited his love of drawing, and led to his rediscovery of comics at a time when seminal 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.^[6] After obtaining his psychology degree,^[9] Lee, having grown to view a career in medicine to long escalator ride that he did not wish to make,^[4] decided to postpone applying to medical school for one year, in order to give himself time to break into comics.^[4][6] When he laid out this plan to his parents, it led to a heated argument that prompted Lee to flee his house. His father pursued him and reconciled with him, expressing understanding of his commitment to his dreams. Lee says that this influenced him to refrain from ever placing the same level of pressure on his own children.^[4] Earning the reluctant blessing of his parents, Lee vowed that he would attend medical school if he did not break into the comic book industry in the gap year he alotted for himself.^[6] He 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.^[4]

Technique and materials[edit]

Lee is known to use F lead for his pencil work.^[95][96] While inking his own pencils on The Punisher War Journal, Lee began using a crowquill nib for the first time.^[10] When illustrating full page commissions or sketches, 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,^[97] 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.^[98] To create white highlights, he uses a Pentel correction fluid pen.^[97]


In talking about the artist's work ethic, Lee has said, "Sometimes I wonder if we ever really improve as artists or if the nirvana derived from completing a piece blinds us enough to love what we have created and move on to the next piece. If we could see the work as it is, with years of reflection in the here and now, how many images would end up in the trash rather than on the racks?"^[99]


In a March 2024 interview with Agence France-Presse, Lee was asked if AI-generated art was a threat to the comics industry. He replied, "We have to figure out a way to live in a world where it exists, and the source material from which it derives its content is properly credited and compensated. But even if it were accepted and someone were going to pay me to use an AI engine to create work, I just wouldn't do it. I don't create art just so I can have something to get paid for. I love sitting down with a piece of paper and a pencil... I enter this fugue state, hours go by and it feels like 15 minutes, and at the end, I have this incredible sense of satisfaction because I went on this journey and I've created something. Typing something into a prompt and getting something two minutes later? I'm robbing myself of the whole point of why I got into this business."^[100]

Personal life[edit]

Lee is married to Carla Michelle Lee.^[103][104] In 2012, when Carla was pregnant, Lee included a tribute to her in Justice League #5, writing "I LOVE CARLA" on the shattered windshield of a car onto which Batman jumps.^[104] As of November 2016, they had nine children,^[4][97] ages 2 to 23.^[97]


In the 1990s, Lee bought two pages of Jack Kirby concept art, which Kirby had created for a film adaptation of Roger Zelazny's novel Lord of Light, as part of the cover story to smuggle Americans out of Iran during the 1980 hostage crisis. 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. The CIA operation that rescued the Americans remained classified for another 17 years, and thus 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 (with Kirby's permission). Both Lee and Geller learned of the true story behind the art years later with the rest of the public. In August 2013, four of Lee's children were headed for college, and he and Carla decided to auction off the art through Heritage Auctions in order to pay for their education.^[103]


Outside of fan conventions, Lee enjoys traveling and learning new languages. In addition to English and Italian, he speaks some German. He also enjoys scuba diving on occasion.^[105]