Джим Ли: от Marvel к DC – путь художника и издателя.

Korean American artist

Jim Lee (; born August 11, 1964) is a Korean American comic book artist, writer, editor, and publisher. He is currently the President, Publisher and Chief Creative Officer of DC Comics. In recognition of his work, Lee has received a Harvey Award, Inkpot Award and three Wizard Fan Awards. He entered the industry in 1987 as an artist for Marvel Comics, illustrating titles such as Alpha Flight and The Punisher War Journal, before gaining popularity 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 on which Lee and Claremont were the initial creative team. The debut issue, X Men #1, that Lee penciled and co wrote with Claremont, remains 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. In 1992, Lee and several other artists formed their own publishing company, Image Comics, to publish their creator owned titles, with Lee publishing titles such as WildC. A. T. s and Gen13 through his studio WildStorm Productions. Finding that the role of publisher reduced the amount of time he was able to devote to illustration, Lee sold WildStorm in 1998 to DC Comics, where he continued to run it as a DC imprint until 2010, as well as illustrating successful titles set in DC's main fictional universe, such as the year long "Batman: Hush" and "Superman: For Tomorrow" storylines, and books including Superman Unchained and the New 52 run of Justice League. On February 18, 2010, Lee was announced as the new Co Publisher of DC Comics with Dan DiDio, both replacing Paul Levitz. Upon DiDio's departure from the company in February 2020, Lee became the sole Publisher of DC Comics. Since June 2018, he has also been the Chief Creative Officer (CCO) of DC Comics, replacing Geoff Johns. Aside from illustrating comics, he has done work as a designer or creative director on other DC products, such as action figures, video games, branded automobiles and backpacks. Outside of the comics industry, Lee has also designed album covers, and one of General Mills' monster themed cereals for its 2014 Halloween edition.

Jim Lee was born on August 11, 1964, in Seoul, South Korea. 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." 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, where Lee lived a "typical middle class childhood". Lee's classmates predicted in his senior yearbook that he would found his own comic book company. 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. Lee's work on the Punisher: War Journal was inspired by artists such as Frank Miller, David Ross, Kevin Nowlan, and Whilce Portacio, as well as Japanese manga. During his run on the title, Lee co created the character Gambit with long time X Men writer Chris Claremont. 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 helped launch a second X Men series simply called X Men vol. 2, as both the artist and as co writer with Claremont. X Men vol. 2 #1 is still the best selling comic book of all time with sales of over 8.1 million copies and nearly $7 million, according to a public proclamation by Guinness World Records at the 2010 San Diego Comic Con. The sales figures were generated in part by publishing the issue with five different variant covers, four of which show different characters from the book that formed a single image when laid side by side, and a fifth, gatefold cover of that combined image, large numbers of which were purchased by retailers who anticipated fans and speculators who would buy multiple copies in order to acquire a complete collection of the covers. Lee designed new character uniforms for the series, including those worn by Cyclops, Jean Grey, Rogue, Betsy Braddock and Storm. He also created the villain Omega Red. Lee's style of rendering the X Men was later used for the designs the television program X Men: The Animated Series. Stan Lee interviewed Lee in the documentary series The Comic Book Greats.

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. and plotted and illustrated Fantastic Four issues #1–6. Halfway through the project, Lee's studio took over Liefeld's two titles, finishing all four series. According to Lee, Marvel proposed continuing the Heroes Reborn lineup indefinitely, but under the condition that Lee would draw at least one of them himself, which he refused to do. Instead, he accepted an offer to re imagine and relaunch (in the role of editor) three mainstream Marvel Universe titles: Defenders, Doctor Strange, and Nick Fury. Though scheduled to debut in December 1997, these three relaunches never appeared. 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. 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.

Due to declining sales across the U. S. comics industry, and his view that his role as publisher and growing family demands interfered with his role as an artist, Lee left Image Comics and sold WildStorm to DC Comics in late 1998, enabling him to focus once again on art. In 2003, he collaborated on a 12 issue run on Batman with writer Jeph Loeb. "Hush" became a sales success. That same year, Ubisoft released Batman: Rise of Sin Tzu, a side scrolling beat 'em up video game whose titular villain was designed by Lee, a fact that served as the main draw to the game. In 2004 Lee illustrated "For Tomorrow", a 12 issue story in Superman by writer Brian Azzarello. In 2005, Lee teamed with Frank Miller on All Star Batman & Robin, the Boy Wonder, a series plagued by delays, including a one year gap between the releases of the fourth and fifth issues. 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. All Star also drew controversy for Miller's dialogue, pacing and depiction of the characters, garnering reviews that were mixed to negative, though Lee's art was praised, A total of 10 issues were produced of that series, In September 2015 Lee indicated the possibility of returning to the book to conclude it with Miller's originally intended ending, but this series was never produced. In February 2010, Lee and Dan DiDio were named Co Publishers of DC Comics by DC Entertainment President Diane Nelson. According to Lee, this did not indicate another move away from the creative side of comics, as his Co Publishing duties granted him greater creative involvement in the entire DC line and allow him to illustrate titles. DC announced they were ending the WildStorm imprint in September 2010.

In September 2011, DC Comics instituted an initiative called The New 52, in which the publisher cancelled all of its superhero titles and relaunched 52 new series with No. 1 issues, wiping out most of the then current continuity. Lee and writer Geoff Johns, DC Comics' Chief Creative Officer, were the architects of the relaunch, which was initiated with a new Justice League series, written and illustrated by Johns and Lee, respectively. The series' first story arc was a new origin of the Justice League, which depicted the return of DC's primary superheroes to the team. Lee's illustration for the cover of issue No. 12 drew media attention for its depiction of Superman and Wonder Woman in a passionate embrace, a rendition that Lee said was inspired by Gustav Klimt's painting The Kiss and Alfred Eisenstaedt's 1945 photograph V J Day in Times Square. In July 2012, as part of the San Diego Comic Con, Lee and Dan DiDio participated in the production of "Heroic Proportions", an episode of the Syfy reality television competition series Face Off, in which special effects makeup artists compete to create the best makeup according to each episode's theme. Lee and DiDio presented the contestants with that episode's challenge, to create a new superhero, with six DC Comics artists on hand to help them develop their ideas. The winning entry's character, Infernal Core by Anthony Kosar, was featured in Justice League Dark #16 (March 2013), which was published January 30, 2013. The episode premiered on January 22, 2013, as the second episode of the fourth season. In October 2012, DC Entertainment and Kia Motors America entered a partnership to benefit We Can Be Heroes, a campaign dedicated to fighting hunger in the Horn of Africa. The campaign involves the creation of eight Justice League inspired vehicles, on whose designs Lee collaborated. Each vehicle is tied thematically to a member of the Justice League, the first of which was a Batman themed Kia Optima. A Superman themed version inspired by Lee's art followed in February 2013. In 2013, Lee designed a new version of the Mortal Kombat character Scorpion for use in the DC fighting video game Injustice: Gods Among Us. 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 Lee, which was published on June 12, 2013, and intended to coincide with the feature film Man of Steel, which opened two days later. In 2013, 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. In 2014, General Mills enlisted the help of DC Comics to create new designs for its monster themed cereals in time for Halloween. The designs, revealed on August 6, consisted of a Boo Berry design by Lee, a Count Chocula design by Terry Dodson and a Franken Berry design by Dave Johnson. Describing the task of designing a cartoon character, Lee explained, "Drawing simpler characters is a lot more work and harder than drawing something that's more complicated or has a lot of renderings. Every line counts and every distance between the eyes and the ears, it's all super critical." In February 2015, DC released The Multiversity: Mastermen, the seventh issue of Grant Morrison's The Multiversity project, which Lee illustrated. That same year, 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. A Superman figure designed by Lee followed in 2016. November 2015 saw the debut of the miniseries Batman: Europa, on which Lee collaborated with writers Brian Azzarello and Matteo Casali and artist Giuseppe Camuncoli. The book, which was inspired by Lee's time living in Italy, was originally announced by DC in 2004, and intended to feature Lee's painted art over Camuncoli's layouts, but after a series of delays, it was published with conventional artwork

In 2016, 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. That August, DC released the first of eight issues of Lee and writer Rob Williams' new Suicide Squad series, as part of the DC Rebirth relaunch. In July 2017, Marvel decided to capitalize on Lee's popularity by releasing 29 of its books with covers reprinting Lee's art for its 1992 Series 1 X Men trading cards. In March 2018, Lee and writer James Tynion IV launched the series The Immortal Men as part of DC's New Age of Heroes line. That June, following the departure of DC Entertainment's Diane Nelson, and Geoff Johns' stepping down from his role as Chief Creative Officer (CCO) of DC Comics, Lee was named DC's CCO, a role he would assume while continuing to act as publisher with Dan DiDio. In May and June 2019, Lee, writer Tom King, and CW series actresses Nafessa Williams, Candice Patton, and Danielle Panabaker toured five U. S. military bases in Kuwait with the United Service Organizations (USO), where they visited the approximately 12,000 U. S. military personnel stationed in that country as part of DC's 80th anniversary of Batman celebration. On June 5, 2019, Lee and the fashion accessory brand HEX launched a Kickstarter crowdfunding campaign for two Batman branded backpacks designed specifically for comics artists and collectors. The former, the HEX x Jim Lee Artist Backpack, is designed with features specifically for transporting art supplies and portfolios, such as a 11" x 17" dedicated portfolio cases, waterproof pockets for inks and paints, and organizers for brushes and pens. The latter, the HEX x Jim Lee Collectors Backpack, is designed with features for transporting art collections, such as fleece lined pockets for comics, a poster tube holder, a pocket for the Overstreet Price Guide, and an anti theft zipper lock. In addition to the Batman artwork by Lee that adorns both backpacks, the collectors version features batarang zipper pulls.

In late February 2020, following the departure of Co Publisher Dan DiDio, Lee became the sole Publisher of DC Comics. The following month, amid the global COVID 19 pandemic, Lee began a 60 day series of daily sketches, auctioning off the proceeds of each sketch to a different random brick and mortar store that had closed as a result of the pandemic. The endeavor, which was done in partnership with DC and the BINC Foundation, saw the completion of the final sketch in July 2021. That drawing, which depicted Jason Todd, sold for $25,100 on eBay, while the entire campaign raised a total of over $800,000 for beleaguered comics shops. On November 25, 2021, 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. The program was billed as a celebration of those communities, and introduced the series' first Asian American Muppet, a seven year old Korean girl named Ji Young. The special premiered on HBO Max, PBSKids, Facebook, Instagram, and YouTube, as part of the Sesame Workshop's "Coming Together" initiative, which endeavors to educate children about race, culture, and racial justice. It featured Lee showcasing his illustration of Ji Young interacting with other Muppets.

Lee is known to use F lead for his pencil work. While inking his own pencils on The Punisher War Journal, Lee began using a crowquill nib for the first time. 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. To create white highlights, he uses a Pentel correction fluid pen. 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."

WildC. A. T. s/X Men: The Silver Age (1997)