Posted in: Comics, DC Comics, san diego comic con | Tagged: Batman, dc comics, jim lee, sailor moon, san diego comic con, sdcc, sdcc 2018, tanya lehoux

Batman by Way of Sailor Moon by Way of Jim Lee at SDCC

Published Fri, 20 Jul 2018 19:00:06 -0500

by Joshua Davison

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Words and Photos courtesy of Bleeding Cool's Janel Smith:

I had never been to a Jim Lee spotlight before, and I was excited to see if it would be as entertaining as they seemed on the internet. Thankfully I was not disappointed.

This year's event was slightly different from ones past by Lee's own admission due to the fact that was nursing an injury that made drawing a lot difficult. In order to maintain the expected yield of art Lee invited three members of the crowd onto the dais to assist him.

He invited Tanya Lehoux and two fans up to assist, and each were given a different task. Lehoux was to draw Batman in any style she desired (she chose Sailor Moon), and the young man, Justin, was instructed to draw the caped crusader in Lee's style (he was able to do this to a high level of success).

The other young woman invited up, Jenny, was to follow Lee's directions to draw the bat with no visual reference (she also did very well). This experiment went hilariously wrong.

The admittedly sleep-deprived Lee forgot his supplies at his hotel, so had to rely on the donations from the audience. This instructions given to his impromptu student were complicated and vague all at once though she did a great job following them.

Lee gave a little background on himself and his family before answering fan questions. Here are the highlights:

When asked about his favorite projects to date he mentioned DC Universe Online, DC Universe service which is available for $7.99 a month, and his Twitch stream that he does on Sundays at 10 a.m.
He gave advice about meeting deadlines early in your career and that as you become established and maintain a dialogue with your publisher you may earn leeway.
Lee revealed that he plans to draw One Punch Man after asked if he will be drawing any more anime characters.
A young woman asked about the effect of comic book movies on publishing for a paper. Lee responded that they are an overall good, but that the challenge is leveraging movie fans into fans of the print product.

Overall the panel was fun, and the fans were of course engaged and enthusiastic. We were all invited to Lee's later panel which he promised would be better, but I don't see what could be changed to make it so. I appreciate that he still takes the time to do panels like this because it shows clearly how important his fans are to him.