by Joshua H. Stulman

Jim lee is one of the most influential and leading creators of comics today. Starting as penciller, Jim lee rose to superstar artist and founding member of Image comics. Entrepreneur and ultimately publisher of D.C. Comics, he is truly a self-made millionaire who still finds time to create new artwork.

Like many artists Jim lee began drawing at an early age. As a comic fan he was a child of the 70s and early 80’s and experienced many of the exciting changes to modern comics. Future artists like Jim lee were busy at work churning out sketches and comic pages of their favorite heroes in the latest art styles. Everyone learned to mimic Frank Miller, George Perez and John Byrne. The release of Miller’s Ronin as well as his push to publish English editions of Lone Wolf and Cub helped popularize manga in American comics along with Katsuhiro Otomo’s Akira.

As a young artist in his teens. Jim lee was persistent in submitting work to publishers and began to receive assignments. However it always comes down to who you know. And Jim Lee’s work found its way to editor/artist Carl Potts. Potts was a Continuity guy who broke into comics in the mid 1970’s   By the late 1980s he was editor of Alpha Flight and later on Marvel’s anti-hero books like Punisher and Cloak & Dagger. Potts shared similar influences with Lee and Potts’s cover to Punisher: War Journal #1 really shows how close their artwork was.

Potts first assigned Lee to Alpha Flight where his first work on Wolverine appears. Lee’s work was the Byrne-Perez style that was the adopted Marvel house style of the time. Under Potts, his work quickly developed taking in a more detailed approach. He allowed for more manga influence to show through. Lee recounted to me in 2010 that he was unhappy with his work on Alpha Flight due to the more traditional inks that erased much of his embellished details. Jim Lee’s next assignment, Punisher: War Journal, would bring him into the limelight.

At this time the comic industry was booming with fans of all ages picking up multiple titles a month. The time was right for Marvel to expand their titles and awarded Punisher a second ongoing series, Punisher: War Journal. Potts served as editor and writer and brought on Jim lee for interiors and later the covers. The book was so hot that Marvel decided to use it as a marketing tool to introduce new readers to their other titles. This meant that there were plenty of guest stars. Here Jim Lee drew Marvel mainstays like Daredevil and Spider-Man for the first time, as well as a two part Wolverine story.

Fan reaction was uncanny and as Marvel shifted to a bi monthly rotation on X-Men they chose Jim Lee to alternate with artist Marc Silverstri -who by chance shared a similar drawing style. Silvestri had recently introduced new characters like Mr. Sinister, the Goblin Queen, the Ravegers, and Jubilee.  For several months Silvestri and Lee traded artistic punches creating some of the greatest covers and art the X-Men had seen in years. Jim lee eventually won the artistic battle being awarded full time penciller on the book. Here he redesigned Psylocke, created the quintessential 90’s character, Gambit, and began his fan favorite work on Wolverine. As the 1980’s closed Jim Lee had gone from fan to top rated artist. But his more important work was yet to come.

Check out our selection of Jim Lee comics including rare autographed collectibles CLICK HERE