Words matter. These are the best Jim Lee Quotes, and they’re great for sharing with your friends.
Part of running DC Comics is that it’s much larger than Image Comics is, or was. There’s a challenge to being one of the industry leaders in that everything you do is scrutinized and watched.
Not everyone reads comics, although most people know the major superheroes, but the majority of people play video games.
As a kid, I loved the whimsical Superman and Batman stuff, and as a teenager, Marvel was more angsty, and that appealed to me. Marvel dealt with more stuff I could relate to as a teenager.
In the ’50s, a lot of stories were built around radiation and the proliferation of new technology. In the ’70s, there were a lot of stories that dealt with the Vietnam War. So comic books have always been a reflection of the times we live in.
Many in the creative professions were nerds in their pasts because they spent so long reading comics and using their imaginations when they were growing up.
Costumes are all about identifying which force in a conflict you’re on. That’s where banners and flags came from – so people rushing into battle knew who to follow and who was on their side.
I think sometimes with new characters, you can kind of hit a creative valley, and it’s important to recognize when you’re in that valley so you can get back out and get back to that peak.
The first time I drew a Superman story was ‘For Tomorrow’ with Brian Azzarello in 2004. It didn’t really hit me how important it was until I drew a scene early-on in the book that featured Superman crossing paths with a giant, intergalactic space armada.
The thing that weighs the most on how your final artwork turns out is the amount of time you have and the speed at which you can move.
When you have a Green Lantern mixing with a foil like Batman, you get scenes that are comic-book history. There’s the epicness of it all.
I always figured Metropolis was north of New York, actually. Between New York and Boston, in my mind.
There’s an obvious marketing component to doing something digitally where you’re reaching out to new readers that you can’t do in the existing print marketplace, or that it’s difficult to do in the existing print marketplace.
Superheroes are modern mythological characters, so you’re going to make them look impossible. Even my Krypto The Superdog is the idealisation of the canine form.
‘The Authority,’ by Warren Ellis and Bryan Hitch, really pioneered the widescreen, action-packed style of storytelling.
A-list stars go to Comic-Con to woo the nerd demographic.
One of the most difficult things for any artist to do is create a world that looks both completely alien yet real and possible.
From an artist’s point of view, I always want to work with the writers I admire.
The video game market is huge, and the ability to tell stories, and tell different kinds of stories in the gaming space is quickly evolving and changing for the better.
There is the intent of the writer and the interpretation by the artist. What the writer intended and what the artist interprets is not a 1-to-1 translation. It’s a crossing of ideas that generates the stories that you see in print.
Al Plastino helped redefine Superman in the 1950s. His work on ‘Superman’s Girlfriend,’ ‘Lois Lane,’ ‘Adventure Comics’ and pretty much any title in the Superman family will be fondly remembered for years to come. He will be missed.
I like a lot of modern art. I like Chuck Close a lot. It doesn’t necessarily directly influence the work I draw on the page.
Gene Colan was like no other artist of his generation. His ability to create dramatic, multi-valued tonal illustrations using straight India ink and board was unparalleled.
There are a lot of global decisions that you can make as a co-publisher, and only publishers can make those kind of decisions. At the same time, there are some things you can do only as a penciler or creator. I want to keep my hands in both pots, so to speak.
What I love about WonderCon is that, while the focus is on the comics, it’s also a celebration of games and movies and all the ancillary media.
Jerry Robinson illustrated some of the defining images of pop culture’s greatest icons. As an artist myself, it’s impossible not to feel humbled by his body of work. Everyone who loves comics owes Jerry a debt of gratitude for the rich legacy that he leaves behind.
I want all my stuff to be converted into digital format so I can have my reference library to carry with me wherever I go.
I don’t think you can be a comic book fan and not hate change.
The great thing about having digital comics is that it is like having a comic-book shop on your digital device. It has turned comics from a destination buy to an impulse buy.
At DC Comics, it has been a top priority that DC forges a meaningful, forward-looking digital strategy.
There was something special and unique about the love triangle that existed between Clark Kent, Superman and Lois Lane.
Most video games, you build up toward the big, bad boss. And it’s just a bigger, more powerful version of what you’ve been fighting all along in the game.
I paint in acrylic and sometimes in oil. Sometimes I’ll paint my kids. And I’ll occasionally do some photography.
If you look at the great superheroes in any universe, you will always find that they have the very best super villains opposing them. It’s because they are foils; they are people that the heroes play off of.
Superman tends to stand very upright, and he’s very symmetrical, and those are actually the most difficult poses for me to draw.
People who liked the ‘Arkham Asylum’ video game can Google comics to download.
I think the very simplest way to show Superman’s power is to have him punch someone that’s powerful.
The way you challenge Superman is by having things happen very, very quickly in different places and then asking, ‘Who does he save first? What powers must he use to save each person or stop each disaster?’ That’s one of the ways you make him interesting beyond the thematic and moral issues that make Superman.
Even today, a lot of the CGI you see in movies is so clean and crisp that it just looks fake. It’s weird: the more advanced they get, the faker it looks.
I like having pairs of characters to play off each other. I love drawing Batman, but he’s more fun with Robin. Batman charges ahead, Robin jumps off the walls. It’s fun showing that contrast.
From ‘The Sandman’ and ‘Black Orchid’ to ‘Whatever Happened to the Caped Crusader?,’ Neil Gaiman has provided some of the most memorable stories of the comic book industry.
One of the key characteristics of the comic book medium is that it is not brought to life by just one voice.
I’ve been trying to make this argument that digital comics and print comics are both art, but there are subtle differences.
‘The Dark Knight,’ ‘The Rocketeer’ and definitely the first ‘Superman’ movie by Richard Donner are the best. I tend to be softer in my judgment about what’s a bad movie – I don’t think anyone intends to make a bad movie, and sometimes it just doesn’t click for some reason.
Wonder Woman isn’t even American; she’s an Amazon princess.
