Jae Lee


Jae Lee is a Korean American comics artist known for his interior illustration and cover work for various publishers, including Marvel Comics, DC Comics, Image Comics, and Dynamite Entertainment.

Career

Jae Lee's first work for Marvel Comics was a Beast serial in Marvel Comics Presents #85–92. He first rose to prominence in the industry in 1992 for his work on Marvel's Namor the Sub-Mariner, taking over the art duties from John Byrne, who continued on the series as writer. Terry Kavanagh, Lee's editor on both Marvel Comics Presents and Namor, later said he assigned Lee to Namor because he liked his style and felt that, as a new artist, he would benefit from working with an experienced writer. Lee continued when Bob Harras became the writer, drawing issues #26–38. As penciller of X-Factor, Lee was one of the artists of the "X-Cutioner's Song" storyline which ran throughout the X-Men titles in 1992. The following year, Lee drew the three issue Youngblood Strikefile for Rob Liefeld's Extreme Studios at Image Comics and the three issue WildC.A.T.s Trilogy for Jim Lee's WildStorm, another founding Image Comics studio. In 1994, Jae Lee produced a creator-owned Image Comics series, Hellshock, a story about a fallen angel that he wrote and illustrated.
In 1998, Lee and writer Paul Jenkins crafted an Inhumans limited series, for which they won the 1999 Eisner Award for Best New Series. They later reteamed on The Sentry. Lee and writer Grant Morrison produced the four-issue miniseries ', which garnered Lee a nomination for a 2002 Eisner Award as Best Cover Artist. In 2003, Lee, writer John Ney Reiber, and Lee's wife, colorist June Chung, produced a Transformers/G.I. Joe six-issue miniseries for Dreamwave Productions, which took place in an alternate World War II setting.
Beginning in 2007, Lee worked with artist Richard Isanove and writers Robin Furth and Peter David on Marvel Comics' The Dark Tower comic series, based on Stephen King's The Dark Tower novels. Lee illustrated the first three miniseries in that series, ', ' and '. He returned for the fifth book in the series, '. He also provided cover and interior illustrations for the Donald M. Grant edition of King's eighth Dark Tower novel, ', which was released February 21, 2012.
At DC Comics, Lee worked on the Before Watchmen project, drawing the mini-series Ozymandias written by Len Wein. He illustrated Batman/Superman in 2013–2014 with writer Greg Pak.
Lee has produced covers for various publishers including a range of titles for Dynamite Entertainment.

Awards and nominations

DC Comics

Jae Lee provided the artwork for the Portrait of Death in the 2019 animated short , as well as several sketch drawings seen during the end credits.