Posted in: Comics, Dynamite | Tagged: dynamite, jim lee, Juan Gedeon, variants

Dynamite Solves the Jim Lee Problem with Homage Variants by Juan Gedeon in May

Published Fri, 21 Feb 2020 08:59:57 -0600

Jim Lee is a great artist beloved by comic book fans around the world, which makes his art a coveted prize for any comic book cover. Unfortunately, Lee produces roughly 1.5 pages of art every two or three years, concentrating most of his attention on designing backpacks or doing whatever the hell it is the management over at DC Comics does with their time — thinking of reboots and ways to ruin Nightwing, we guess. So when Dynamite Entertainment wants to do a Jim Lee cover month, what do they do? Wait ten years for Lee to draw them all? Hell no!

Instead, Bleeding Cool can EX-X-XCLUSIVELY reveal that Dynamite has commissioned a series of Jim Lee homage variants by artist Juan Gedeon and colorist Carlos Cabrera, paying tribute to classic Lee covers from back when he actually drew stuff! A press release tells us:

Dynamite is proud to once again celebrate an artistic luminary with a set of special variant covers, as Juan Gedeon homages Jim Lee's iconic covers.

Artist Juan Gedeon (Venom, Ghost Racers) returns for another fun set of covers following his zombie infected pieces from March – in stores soon – that connected and told a story. This time he's paying homage to one of the most influential artist of all time, Jim Lee. Involved issues include Vampirella #11, Red Sonja #16, Vampirella/Red Sonja #9, Dejah Thoris #6, Killing Red Sonja #3 and Death to the Army of Darkness #4. All are respectively based on Superman #204, Batman #608, X-Men #1, Captain America #700 (or originally a splash page from Uncanny X-Men #268), All-Star Batman & Robin #1, and WildC.A.T.s #1. Each one is colored by Carlos Cabrera.

And in that press release, Gedeon says:

I started looking at Jim's work with Hush and then went back to his Marvel work, as I was young when that all was coming out. I think he's done the definitive versions of both Batman and Cyclops, two awesome characters. His poses are strong and beautiful, and of course his design work for both X-Men and WildC.A.T.s is cool as hell! I drew a story a while ago where I was asked to use his work as reference, and it really made me appreciate his craft.

If I could do another one or two of Jim's classics, my first picks would be X-Men #11 with Ash as Wolverine and the first X-Men Annual with the whole Dynamite roster!

Below, we've gathered all of the covers along with the originals that inspired them. Look for these in March previews and be sure to preorder!