Jim Lee, Chief Creative Officer of DC Comics, on Finding a Work-Life Balance: ‘I Fell Asleep Twice While I Was Driving’

variety.com:

Davide Abbatescianni Jim Lee, veteran comicbook artist and now chief creative officer of DC Comics, explained during an onstage interview at Lucca Comics & Games why the likes of Wonder Woman, Batman and the Joker still tug at the heartstrings of readers, and how his drive to rise to the peak of the business sometimes came at a price.

Answering questions from radio host Andrea Rock, Lee said: “Many people can connect with a character like Batman, who is very rooted in tragedy and that is overcoming something horrific that happened to him as a child.” “Certainly, when you’re having a bad day a character like the Joker speaks very much to you.

You know you’re expressing these themes through the stories and the characters you draw, [and then] people understand you consciously and subconsciously.” Rock asked Lee whether some characters may need a “moral update” to fit the times we live in, and whether some of them have been particularly challenging to work on. “I typically don’t have that kind of mental or artistic block,” said Lee. “Maybe this is a weird example but when I lived in Italy for a year back in 2003, I was drawing Superman for the story ‘Tomorrow,’ a character that is a symbol of America.

Back then, the [Second] Gulf War was happening, and protests in the streets of Reggio Emilia were taking place.” The conflict between the tragic events unfolding and the powerful symbology the character carries made him feel “very out of place.” On his transition from pure comicbook artist to publisher, Lee says that “it didn’t happen overnight,” as he has always been interested in his craft but also in “understanding the comics business.” After leaving Marvel Comics, he tried to learn the basics of entrepreneurship,.