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Jim Lee says DC has special "safeguards" because he’s effectively his own boss, even when he's drawing for an editor who reports to him
As both an executive and a comics artist, DC publisher Jim Lee has enacted precautions to prevent a conflict of interest
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It's rare for comic book editors and executives to also work directly on creating comics, but that's the position DC president, publisher, and chief creative officer Jim Lee finds himself in as the artist of the recently wrapped Batman: Hush 2 - meaning he's technically his own boss. Fortunately, Lee has enough self-awareness to understand the potential conflict of interest that can arise when working for a DC line editor, explaining that there are guidelines in place to ensure an ethical creative process.
"It's a little different for me now in that I'm drawing the book for an editor, and I'm also the editor's editor's boss's boss," Lee tells the Masterplan podcast. "So that is not a normal situation, and so I recognized that and we created safeguards to protect everyone in that, so that people can do their respective jobs."
Traditionally, there's a line between the back-end jobs of the comic industry and the front facing creative positions, though there are other examples where that general rule has been ignored. Way back in the early days of Marvel Comics, then editor-in-chief Stan Lee was also the credited writer on nearly all the publisher's comics for several years. Later, in the early '00s, influential Marvel VIce President Bill Jemas authored a notoriously bizarre comic title Marville as part of a contest titled U-Decide, in which Marville, Captain Marvel, and Ultimate Adventures in which only one would continue on as decided by fans. Captain Marvel, which then starred Mar-Vell's son Genis-Vell in the title role, won out, continuing on for another 25 issues,
Lee recently opened up about some struggles he faced in drawing Hush 2 stemming from health problems that have since been brought under control, along with some self-imposed rules to help him maintain his health.
"The biggest adjustment has been losing the '5th gear' I used to rely on—the 10 PM to 4 AM grind that powered books like Justice League and Suicide Squad," Lee said back in April. "Now I cap drawing at 1 AM and force myself to work during the day on weekends, but those hours are only 25-40% as productive as my old late-night form. And then beating yourself up because you're not [delivering] the speed and results you expect from yourself made drawing particularly frustrating and at my lowest moments — profoundly depressing."
Lee is scheduled to draw Batman Hush 2 ², though this third entry in Lee and writer Jeph Loeb's epic has yet to be scheduled for release.
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