Jae Lee is a Korean American comic book artist born in South Korea in 1972. He immigrated to the United States with his parents in 1977. He worked for various publishers, illustrating only small story arcs at first (X-Factor and Spider-Man primarily). He is mostly known for his 13 issue story arc on Namor, the Submariner, which was his first major project with Marvel Comics and Inhumans in association with writer Paul Jenkins. From 1993 to 1994 Lee worked as an artist for Image Comics and got to publish his creator-owned book Hellshock on which he worked as both writer and artist. After returning to Marvel, Lee won an Eisner Award for Best New Series in 1999 for Paul Jenkins and his work on Inhumans. Jae later got to illustrate several The Dark Tower titles for Marvel, which were comic book adaptions of novels of the same name by Stephen King. Afterwards he worked on titles like Before Watchmen: Ozymandias and Batman/Superman for DC Comics.

Career

Jae Lee started his career illustrating a Beast story arc for Marvel in Marvel Comics Presents #85-92 in 1991. His first major project was a 13 issue story arc on Namor, The Sub-Mariner in 1992 taking over the art duties from John Byrne who continued on the book as writer. Lee remained the artist on this title from issue #26-38. He also worked on X-Factor as penciller, being one of the artists of the "X-Cutioner's Song" story arc which ran through the X-Men titles in 1992.

In 1993, the Image Comics company was formed by several major comic talents who wanted a better deal for characters they create themselves. Jae Lee illustrated some of their first series, including Youngblood Strikefile. In the same year he drew WildC.A.T.s Trilogy for WildStorm, another founding Image studio. In the following year Lee created and published his own book: Hellshock, a story about a fallen angel that he both illustrated and wrote.

The next and maybe most important milestone in Lees career was his Inhumans project in 1998 on which he worked with writer Paul Jenkins. In 1999 they won an Eisner Award for this project. Lee and Jenkins reteamed in 2000 for their Sentry project.

In 2007 Lee started working on Marvel Comics The Dark Tower comic book series with artist Richard Isanove and writers Robin Furth and Peter David. The Dark Tower comics are based on Stephen Kings novels with the same name. Lee illustrated the first three miniseries: Gunslinger Born, The Long Road Home and Treachery. He also worked on the fifth book, Battle of Jericho Hill and the one-shot in 2013, Sheemie's Tale.

Later in 2012 Lee worked on the Before Watchmen project, illustrating the miniseries Ozymandias written by Len Wein. He also started to illustrate Batman/Superman in 2013, working on the title with writer Greg Pak until issue #15 in 2014. He is focusing mostly on cover art since, illustrating the covers of titles like Turok: Dinosaur Hunter, Catwoman, Batman Eternal and Action Comics.

Bibliography

DC Comics

• 2005: Batman: Jekyll & Hyde #1-3
• 2012-2013: Before Watchmen: Ozymandias #1-6
• 2013-2014: Batman/Superman #1-4, #8-9, #11-15

Image

• 1993: WildC.A.T.s Trilogy #1-3
• 1993: Youngblood Strikefile #1-3
• 1994: Hellshock v1 #1-4
• 1997-1998: Hellshock v2 #1-3
• 2003: Witchblade: Demon

Marvel

• 1991: Marvel Comics Presents #85-92
• 1992: Uncanny X-Men Annual #16
• 1992-1993: Namor, the Sub-Mariner #26-38
• 1992-1993: X-Factor #84-86
• 1993-1994: Spider-Man #41-43
• 1998-1999: Inhumans v2 #1-12
• 2000-2001: Sentry #1-5
• 2001: Sentry/The Void #1
• 2001-2002: Fantastic Four 1 2 3 4 #1-4
• 2003: Captain America v4 #10-16
• 2004: Daredevil v2 #65
• 2004-2005: Hulk & Thing: Hard Knocks #1-4
• 2005: Ultimate Fantastic Four #19-20, Annual #1
• 2005: Incredible Hulk v3 #82
• 2006: Young Avengers Special #1
• 2007: Dark Tower: Gunslinger Born #1-7
• 2008: Dark Tower: The Long Road Home #1-5
• 2008-2009: Dark Tower: Treachery #1-6
• 2010: Dark Tower: The Battle of Jericho Hill #1-5