Jeff Lemire
Jeff Lemire
Jeff Lemireis a Canadian cartoonist. He is the author of titles including the Essex County Trilogy, Sweet Tooth, The Nobody, and Animal Man. Lemire is known for his moody, humanistic stories and sketchy, cinematic, black-and-white art. As of early 2016, Lemire writes All-New Hawkeye, Extraordinary X-Men, Moon Knight and Old Man Logan for Marvel, Descender and Plutona for Image, and Bloodshot Reborn for Valiant...
NationalityCanadian
ProfessionArtist
Date of Birth21 March 1976
CountryCanada
inherent runs throughout
There's a lot of mystery just inherent in the story of 'Descender.' There's sort of a central mystery that runs throughout it.
alan hard history moore revere run swamp
Sometimes, if you have a lot of history with a character and a lot of affection, it's hard for you to do anything with that character. Like with Swamp Thing, for instance, I revere the Alan Moore run so much that it would be hard for me to do my own Swamp Thing. I care too much about the way it was done before.
build central either letting revealing run sails soon taking whenever
You run the risk, whenever you build your story around a central mystery, of either letting it go too long, or revealing it too soon and then taking the wind out of the sails of the narrative.
completed dozen editors piece print publishers run shows tiny work worked
Self-publishing worked for me. Being able to put your work in print, even if it's a tiny print-on-demand print run of a dozen or so copies, shows publishers and editors a completed piece of work and that you can follow through on a project.
imitate offered version worst
When I was offered 'Hawkeye,' it was very intimidating at first because that book is so loved and so successful, commercially and critically. The worst thing you could do is try to imitate what they did because, in the end, you're just going to get a watered-down version of what they did.
carefully role time unfold worked worlds
We want to take our time with 'Descender' and let the story unfold at its own pace. But we have carefully planned each world and worked to give each its own look and feel. And each of the 9 core worlds will play a role in the series.
certain direct parallel tooth
There are certain things in 'Descender' that I've dealt with in the past. I think you can see a direct parallel with Sweet Tooth in TIM-21.
characters sort
When I do 'Sweet Tooth,' really, whatever I want to do with the characters kind of goes. I'm sort of in charge.
best tend work
When I do my best work, the stories tend to be pretty emotionally-charged.
coming dad league life people point relate stuff view
When I'm doing the Justice League stuff, my point of view is always coming through Buddy. And he's a dad, and there's stuff about his life that I relate to with my life, and I can also take the abilities of animals, which a lot of people don't know about me.
cartoonist tend
I tend to write my beginnings and endings first - as a cartoonist and storyteller, I couldn't sit down every day if I didn't know where the story was headed.
animal feels flash knows limited man open people
People like Superman, The Flash - they just feel limited in who they are and what you can do with them because everyone knows who they are and what they do. Someone like Animal Man feels very open to interpretation.
busy comics drawing love maybe ten thousand
I would love to learn archery. Unfortunately I'm too busy writing and drawing ten thousand comics a month. Maybe one day!
exploring fiction flying guns ray science shooting worlds
I think when science fiction is at its worst, it's just spaceships flying around shooting at each other. There has to be a lot more going on than that... science fiction is about exploring new worlds and new ideas, not about ray guns and action, necessarily.