Jim Lee may be best known these days as the President, Publisher, and Chief Creative Officer of DC Comics, but there was a time decades ago when he was the biggest name at Marvel. Lee established himself as one of the industry’s brightest young talents while working on books like Uncanny X-Men, The Punisher, and X-Men. That formative period is now on full display in a new art book called Marvel Artist Archive: Jim Lee.
A collaboration between Marvel and Pan Universal Galactic Worldwide, Marvel Artist Archive: Jim Lee is currently being crowdfunded on Kickstarter. You can get an early look at this gorgeous art book in the slideshow gallery below:
Marvel Artist Archive: Jim Lee is a 9″x12″ slipcase hardcover that reprints hundreds of Lee’s original drawings. The book itself will be offered alongside a pair of 11″17″ portfolio sets, which reprint various splash pages and cover images at their original size. Backers also have the option to add a series of miniature recreations of Lee’s comic covers, which can be stored inside a scale-model shortbox.
“Jim Lee’s Marvel work didn’t just define an era; it helped reshape what superhero comics could look and feel like,” said PUGW CEO John Nee in a statement. “With the Marvel Artist Archive: Jim Lee, we wanted to create something worthy of that legacy: a premium, collector-first line that celebrates the power, detail, energy, and enduring influence of Jim’s art.”
You can check out the Kickstarter campaign for Marvel Artist Archive: Jim Lee here. PUGW is teasing that this book is the first in a planned series of retrospective art books, with more announcements to come.
For more, see our exclusive preview and interview for Black Panther/Namor: Doomed and find out what made the cut in our Top 28 Spider-Man comics of all time list.
Jesse is a mild-mannered staff writer for IGN. Allow him to lend a machete to your intellectual thicket by following @jschedeen on BlueSky.
