jim lee
Art comix creators pay tribute to 90s Image artists with Rub The Blood
The early 1990s era of the founding artists of Image and their lead-up work at Marvel brought a monumental change in the industry. Now a group of fans are banding together to pay tribute to the early 90′s comic book and the works of Rob Liefeld, Jim Lee, Todd McFarlane and others. The thing is, they’re not the type of fans you’d expect.
Rub The Blood is a unique anthology put together by Secret Prison editor Ian Harker and Yeah Dude Comics‘ Pat Aulisio, pulling together some of the most esoteric of Art Comix vets as well as more well-known creators like Jim Rugg (Afrodisiac) and Benjamin Marra (Night Business). The book’s title is a not-so-subtle homage to an early 1990s cover promotion for Rob Liefeld’s Bloodstrike #1 where the blood depicted on the cover had the feel of velvet. Rub The Blood will debut at the 2011 Brooklyn Comics & Graphics Fest in early December, and will presumably be available at subsequent conventions.
I intended to post this last week as the project was soliciting donations via Kickstarter, but by the time this post came up they’d already reached their $1,000 goal — with only 16 backers. It shows that although not everyone in comics remembers this era’s artwork fondly, those that do really do. Although they’ve reached their goal, you can still donate to increase the print run and be a part of this revival. Check out the Kickstarter site to donate and see the video, which includes a 90s era WWF background music track.
- October 26, 2011 @ 10:00 AM by Chris Arrant
NYCC | Jim Lee vs. Spy vs. Spy
Jim Lee's Spy vs. Spy custom toy
This year is the 50th anniversary of the Mad Magazine feature “Spy vs. Spy,” and to celebrate, the magazine created a blank “Spy vs. Spy” toy and asked various artists to customize it. They’ve been sharing them over on their blog since around the time of the San Diego Comic Con, and in New York this weekend they’re unveiling one by DC Comics co-publisher Jim Lee.
You can find more of them on the Mad blog The Idiotical, or in person at the New York Comic Con.
- October 15, 2011 @ 12:00 PM by JK Parkin
How many Justice Leaguers can fit in the first issue of a Justice League comic?
I found Geoff Johns, Jim Lee and Scott Williams’ Justice League #1, the inaugural effort in DC’s “New 52″ effort, to be thunderously disappointing. Listening to three months of sustained, daily hype has a way of raising expectations, I guess, and as cynical as I remained about so many aspects of DC’s relaunch, and despite the fact that I took each new tidbit of information with a grain of salt, that much exposure to positive PR still managed to raise my expectations rather high. Particularly for this book, since it was the flagship one, and the one being written by the publisher’s chief creative officer and drawn by its co-publisher.
But the quality of the comic book just didn’t really meet those high expectations.
There are a variety of reasons for this, but one of the most obvious, and one I saw cited most often in the slew of reviews and reactions I’ve since seen online, is that it fails to meet even the most basic, vague promise of its own cover: It’s not a Justice League comic, as the logo says, and it doesn’t features the characters pictured on the front. Two of them star in the book, and two more cameo, but it read more like The Brave and The Bold featuring Batman and Green Lantern…albeit a theoretical version of The Brave and The Bold, perhaps written by Brian Michael Bendis for an eventual trade collection of the first six-issue arc, as DC’s various Brave and the Bold books almost always tell a complete story with a beginning, middle and end in each and every single issue.
- September 15, 2011 @ 02:00 PM by J. Caleb Mozzocco
Comics A.M. | Kids comic store opens; the ‘I have a girlfriend in Canada’ of sales analysis
Little Island Comics
Retailers | Little Island Comics — “the first kids comic book store in North America–maybe even the world” — opens its doors today in Toronto. The store is owned and operated by The Beguiling, and is located around the corner from the flagship store. The store will hold an official grand opening in a few weeks. [The Comics Reporter]
Publishing | DC Comics co-publisher and Justice League artist Jim Lee discusses his work on DC’s flagship title, which came out in digital form last Wednesday, the same day it hit comic shops. “It’s also setting records digitally. I can’t give numbers, but on the first day it set a record for us,” Lee tells Heidi MacDonald.
That leads Tom Spurgeon to throw a flag on the play: “… it looks like DC won’t be releasing its New 52 digital numbers but will feel confident in making claims on their behalf. It also looks like comics sites will then repeat this claim as news, perhaps qualified by source or as a claim but still putting that information out there. This should stop. I think DC has a really dubious history with using the hidden portions of their numbers to PR advantage — call it the ‘I have a girlfriend in Canada’ of sales analysis. My take is that this practice has intensified slightly ever since the numbers have become smaller and therefore more crucial. When in the 1990s sales on mainstream comics dipped to the point where people questioned the profitability of certain issues of certain titles, perhaps leading to a line of analysis about mainstream publishers making books at a loss for market share advantages or to knock other comics from the limited stand space, we were sometimes assured that there were sales elsewhere we didn’t know about that pushed certain comics over this projected threshold.” [Salon, The Comics Reporter]
- September 6, 2011 @ 06:55 AM by Brigid Alverson and JK Parkin
Grumpy Old Fan | New 52, Prologue: This is the way the world begins
The Flash #139, the beginning of the end
I’m pretty sure every other DC-Comics blogger in the known universe will be doing this, but for me it is an imperative: from now through the end of the month, this space will give short, probably reactionary, and likely ill-considered reviews of all 52 new titles. Not surprisingly, then, this week is all Flashpoint #5 and Justice League #1.
* * *
I liked Flashpoint #1 pretty well. I thought it was a promising start to a story that — in a daring departure for a big event — could stand on its own without universe-altering ramifications.
Of course, that was in early May, a lifetime ago.
While Flashpoint #5 finishes that story, it does so in a way that feels maddeningly hollow. Not the epilogue, mind you — that sequence just manages to avoid mawkishness, and is a well-done counterpoint to the end of issue #1. No, my problem with issue #5 (and to a lesser extent with the miniseries generally) is the way in which writer Geoff Johns apparently just decides he needs to wrap things up.
SPOILERS FOLLOW for Flashpoint #5, and later for Justice League #1 …
- September 1, 2011 @ 02:00 PM by Tom Bondurant
DC reveals cover for Justice League #1 second printing
Justice League #1 second printing cover
As we learned hours before its official debut, Justice League #1 has sold out – at the distributor level, at least — leading DC Comics this afternoon to unveil a familiar image for the second printing. It’s the Jim Lee-drawn promotional image that leaked out in June (before Wonder Woman was put back in her traditional shorts), sparking widespread speculation about the identity of the team’s 15th member. The image has since appeared in the banner for DC’s official blog, and in marketing materials for the September relaunch.
It’s understandable that the publisher would want to repurpose the image; it’s Lee artwork ready and waiting to be placed in a digital file and sent to the printer. But shoe-horning the horizontal illustration into the vertical space leads Firestorm and Green Arrow to be obscured by the UPC symbol and DC logo, respectively, and poor Mera to have her head chopped in half. Granted, she’s endured harsher treatments over the years …
- August 31, 2011 @ 01:45 PM by Kevin Melrose
Jim Lee unveils double-page spread from Justice League #2
DC Comics executives have lined up this week at the company’s blog to commemorate the midnight debut of Justice League #1 and, thus, the official kickoff of the much-discussed line-wide relaunch, writing about all the work that’s gone into the initiative, their hopes for the titles, and so on. But when it came Jim Lee’s turn this afternoon, the DC Comics co-publisher and Justice League penciler let his artwork do the talking as he debuted a double-page spread from the second issue.
“Sometimes a picture says a thousand words,” he wrote. “What will YOU say about DC Comics-The New 52 come tomorrow?”
- August 30, 2011 @ 01:45 PM by Kevin Melrose
Dan DiDio and Jim Lee talk numbers — specifically, 52
DC Comics Co-Publishers Dan DiDio and Jim Lee sat down with the folks at ICv2 recently for a wide-ranging interview about the state of DC. With DC’s New 52 launching Wednesday, the interview comes at a particularly auspicious time. Here are some highlights:
Comics sales: DiDio says overall sales in the direct market are flat, but periodicals are softening, because people are shifting to trades, converting to digital or falling out of the market entirely because of the lack of interest or money. Lee brings up piracy as a possible factor as well. On the other hand, despite the problems at Borders, mass-market graphic novel sales are up.
Prices: DiDio’s take on rolling back the cover price to $2.99:
While we didn’t show increased sales because of it, I believe that we didn’t have the level of erosion that would have occurred if we had decided to push our books to the higher price point.
So, it didn’t make things better, but they would have gotten worse without it. Lee chimes in that $2.99 is a better price for bringing in new readers, and he adds an interesting point:
… the history of comics has been one of price inelasticity, where fans could not be induced to buying something at any price, and yet were willing to pay a very hefty price for books that they absolutely love. It’s not necessarily the best or healthy approach for the industry. We should really have a situation where being able to hold the price points down should show benefits in sales.
I think what he’s saying is that they can’t force people to buy something they don’t want, even if they price it cheap.
The New 52: Really, this topic has been beaten to death at this point, but if you’re just back from a vacation at the North Pole, DiDio provides a nice, quick summary of why they are bothering: The characters were dated.
Event fatigue: Are readers sick of complicated multi-series crossovers? DiDio sticks his fingers in his ears and says, “I can’t hear you!” Well, not exactly:
- August 30, 2011 @ 08:00 AM by Brigid Alverson
DC’s mainstream push for New 52: ‘Even the haters are curious’
DC Comics: The New 52
Ahead of the release on Wednesday of Flashpoint #5 and Justice League #1, signaling the beginning of its line-wide relaunch, DC Comics has kicked off a promotional assault in the mainstream press to sell “The New 52″ to a broader audience. While USA Today, with a circulation of 1.8 million the second-largest newspaper in the United States, looks to be the hub for coverage, DC has also reached out to publications like the New York Daily News, the New York Post and the Boston Herald. Here are the highlights so far from the 11th-hour push:
• A spoiler-heavy preview of Flashpoint #5 in USA Today lays out how the dystopic, casualty-strewn world depicted in the crossover got that way.
• USA Today takes a broad overview of the relaunch, talking with DC Co-Publishers Dan DiDio and Jim Lee, Chief Creative Officer Geoff Johns, and a couple of retailers. “There are plenty of angry customers over this,” says John Robinson, co-owner of Graham Crackers Comics chain in Illinois. “I’ve heard the usual ‘I can’t believe they’re doing this,’ ‘They’ve betrayed us,’ etc. I’d say about 60% to 70% of those protesting the loudest will still end up buying the stuff. There’s just too much hype and interest — even the haters are curious.”
• The newspaper also hones in on the publisher’s new same-day digital strategy, which debuts Wednesday at 2 p.m. ET when Justice League #1 will be available for purchase digitally. Hank Kanalz, senior vice president for digital at DC Entertainment, acknowledges the challenges of getting the initiative off the ground: “Some books are working really far ahead of schedule, some are down to the wire, and it’s just a matter of coordinating and about overcommunicating. We have to make sure it goes off without a hitch, which is why we’re not sleeping right now. We’re going much wider to a mass audience than ever before, so it’s a matter of making sure we have everything ready to go.”
- August 29, 2011 @ 08:00 AM by Kevin Melrose
Comics A.M. | CCS’s Schulz Library damaged in flood; when Marvel almost licensed Superman
Schulz Library
Education | The Center For Cartoon Studies’ Schulz Library in White River Junction, Vermont, was damaged over the weekend in flooding caused by torrential rains from Hurricane Irene. According to CCS Director James Sturm, volunteers called in Sunday night were able to remove about 70 percent of the library’s collection and move the remaining materials to higher shelves. However, he indicated to Tom Spurgeon that the building itself may be a loss. [The Comics Reporter]
Publishing | Jim Shooter, former editor-in-chief for Marvel Comics, shares the story of how DC Comics almost licensed the publishing rights to their characters to Marvel in the mid-1980s. Obviously the deal never happened, which Shooter said was due to a lawsuit by First Comics alleging anti-trust violations. [Jim Shooter]
Creators | Gail Simone discusses her upcoming work on Batgirl and Fury of Firestorm. [TFAW]
- August 29, 2011 @ 06:55 AM by Brigid Alverson and JK Parkin
Arizona’s Atomic Comics chain shuts down [Updated]
Atomic Comics' Chandler, Arizona, location
Atomic Comics, the nationally known Arizona retail chain, abruptly closed all four locations on Sunday, shocking staff, customers and industry figures alike. Although the closing of the stores in Mesa, Phoenix, Chandler and Paradise Valley was initially announced last night by multiple employees and creators, owner Michael Malve confirmed the news this morning in an installment of his weekly newsletter titled “My Final Report.”
“As some of you may have already heard, after 25 years of running a successful business, sadly and much to my dismay, I have shut the doors of Atomic Comics,” Malve wrote. “The villain in this tragedy is the economy. I had hoped to be the superhero and triumph over the recession, but sadly the economic downturn of the past 5 years has proven to be unsustainable.”
In the newsletter, which can be read below, Malve revealed he’s filed for bankruptcy, and that he and his family are losing their home, ” as we had secured it against our leases which we obviously have to break.”
“I know there are many people out there facing very similar situations in these difficult times and now I can definitely empathize with them,” he continued. “I have always been and will forever be an extremely optimistic person and will look at this situation as an adventure. I have very high hopes for the next chapter of my life.”
- August 22, 2011 @ 06:37 AM by Kevin Melrose
First look at the cover of Justice League #3
Justice League #3
DC Comics has unveiled the cover by Jim Lee and Scott Williams for Justice League #3, which puts Wonder Woman front and center as Lee and writer Geoff Johns “unleash the amazing Amazon [...] who joins the battle against a bizarre threat! And the not-yet World’s Greatest Heroes need all the help they can get!”
The 40-page comic, which goes on sale Nov. 16, features variant covers by Greg Capullo and Lee.
- August 15, 2011 @ 06:40 AM by Kevin Melrose
What can we learn from Icons: The DC Comics and WildStorm Art of Jim Lee (aside from the fact that Jim Lee draws really well)?
If you’re a habitual reader of superhero comic books, or, worse still, a writer whose primary focus is the comic book medium and industry, chances are you’ve been thinking about DC Comics pretty much constantly this summer. It’s been hard not to, given the ambitious, controversial scope of the publisher’s upcoming relaunch, and the way they’ve managed to keep the conversation going by carefully doling out information about it at their own pace.
And, when you think about DC Comics these days, chances are you’re thinking of Jim Lee’s versions of the characters.
Beyond his current role as the company’s co-publisher, Lee’s become the company’s defining artist (ironically, perhaps, without actually working on a regular comic book series for quite some time). He’s the guy who draws the public face of the company’s stars.
Click on dccomics.com, and you’ll see Lee’s Justice League as the banner. Click to the company’s The Source blog, and you’ll see a Lee-drawn Trinity as the banner. Lee designed all of the characters for the publisher’s DC Universe Online video game. Lee redesigned much of the DC Universe for their upcoming relaunch (and quite radically so compared to the more modest DCUO designs). It was Lee who drew the company’s Google doodle a while back, and a great deal of DC-branded merchandise, from tennis shoes and to action figures, features Lee versions of the characters.
The pervasiveness of his visual influence extends to many of the artists chosen to work on the characters’ comic books, and the style in which they’re depicted—DC is too big a publisher to really have a house style, but there’s a loose majority style in which Lee’s influence is rather apparent.
So with visions of a high-collared Justice League dancing in my head as they usually do (Confession: I think about the Justice League the way some people you might encounter on a big-city street think about the CIA and mind control), I was at my local library the other day and noticed a big, huge, atlas-sized tome sitting on a cart, awaiting to be filed back where it belonged.
The cover featured a dramatically-lit Trinity, an outcropping of rock hiding their feet, standing above giant gold letters reading “ICONS” and “Jim Lee.” Picking it up—with an “Oof!” and the thought, I really need to start working out again—I saw that it was actually Icons: The DC Comics and Wildstorm art of Jim Lee.
Naturally I brought it home to pore over, thinking it might be some sort of Rosetta Stone to how Lee went from the guy who made Jeph Loeb’s totally random “Hush” story arc into something readable to becoming the guy who will define DC Comics for a generation (if the relaunch works out as they seem to hope it will, otherwise he might become known as the guy who made DC’s superheroes look silly for a few years in the 20-teens).
If nothing else, the book was about the size and weight of the Rosetta Stone.
- August 11, 2011 @ 12:00 PM by J. Caleb Mozzocco
Lee, DiDio on female creators, characters: “We hear you”
DC Comics took a few on the chin at Comic-Con International and in the week that followed as attendees at their multiple “New 52″ panels asked them over and over again, “What happened to all the women?” Sean posted about one panel in particular earlier this week; you can see more color on it over at The Beat, as Heidi was there, and on ComicsAlliance, where Laura Hudson lays out a thoughtful post on the subject.
Yesterday DC Comics responded with a post on The Source by co-publishers Dan DiDio and Jim Lee:
Over the past week we’ve heard from fans about a need for more women writers, artists and characters. We want you to know, first and foremost, that we hear you and take your concerns very seriously.
We’ve been very fortunate in recent years to have fan favorite creators like Gail Simone, Amy Reeder, Felicia Henderson, Fiona Staples, Amanda Connor, G. Willow Wilson and Nicola Scott write and draw the adventures of the World’s Greatest Super Heroes.
DC Comics is the home of a pantheon of remarkable, iconic women characters like Wonder Woman, Lois Lane, Batgirl, Batwoman, Catwoman and Supergirl as well as fan favorite characters like Black Canary, Katana, Mera and Starfire. We’re committed to telling diverse stories with a diverse point of view. We want these adventures to resonate in the real world, reflecting the experiences of our diverse readership. Can we improve on that? We always can—and aim to.
We’ll have exciting news about new projects with women creators in the coming months and will be making those announcements closer to publication. Many of the above creators will be working on new projects, as we continue to tell the ongoing adventures of our characters. We know there are dozens of other women creators and we welcome the opportunity to work with them.
Our recent announcements have generated much attention and discussion and we welcome that dialogue.
Best-
Jim Lee & Dan DiDio
DC Entertainment Co-Publishers
DC has a reputation of having a “duck and cover” approach to controversy, so I have to say I’m a bit surprised and pleased that they would put out an official statement. Good on them — now how about opening up the comments on The Source so you can start a dialogue again with fans?
- July 30, 2011 @ 08:54 AM by JK Parkin
SDCC ’11 | Griepp: Digital is small but growing
At the ComicsPRO meeting last February, DC co-publisher Jim Lee held up a sheet of paper and a piece of dental floss. The paper, he said, represented revenues from print comics, while the dental floss was revenues from digital comics.
Milton Greipp, publisher of the retail news site ICv2, did more or less the same thing with numbers at the ICv2 Comics, Media, and Digital Conference that kicked off this year’s Comic-Con. In his White Paper on the industry, Griepp estimated that the market for digital comics grew from about $1 million in sales in 2009 to $6 to $8 million in 2010, but the fact that he still had a $2 million error bar shows just how much uncertainty remains. One thing is for certain, though: Griepp expects the market will double this year. He credited the growth in sales of mobile devices such as the iPad and Android tablets (the Sony PSP, one of the early digital comics platforms, seems to be dead in the water; Griepp attributed this to the hacking of Sony).
Looked at in isolation, that number seems impressive, but Griepp also estimated total sales of print comics and graphic novels in 2010 at $635 million, which means that digital sales are about 1% of the print market, a tiny slice indeed.
These numbers are dynamic, however, and print and digital sales are changing in different ways. Digital may be burgeoning, but print is in a slump, with total sales down in 2010 from $680 million the year before. Things have picked up this year, but the picture remains grim for monthly comics: Sales of comics were down 8%, graphic novels were up 3%. Put those together, and the market as a whole is down 2%.
- July 25, 2011 @ 08:00 AM by Brigid Alverson