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
When I first seriously decided to become a cartoonist would have been '99/2000, right before 9/11. I've been writing and illustrating stories in the world post-9/11 since then, watching the world change around me.
I have always been drawn to young characters and seeing big tapestries through the eyes of a child. It probably comes from being a father myself and having a young son and seeing the world through his eyes. I write stories that are sort of the exaggerated version of that.
I can't really write anything without knowing the ending. I don't know how people do that. Even with my superhero stuff, I have to know at least where I want to take the characters and what the ending of my story with them will be. I just can't structure stories or character arcs and stuff without knowing the endpoint.
I never thought I would work in mainstream superhero comics or Valiant or Marvel. I just set out to make the kinds of stories I wanted to make, which at the beginning was small personal stuff like 'Essex County.'
I never - when I go into a project, I don't think too much about if there's a lot of other sci-fi books out there or horror books or whatever. I just tell the stories I want to tell, and I think that is evident on the page.
In general, I feel so much of pop culture is set in the generic big city, particularly comics. I feel like there are so many other stories to tell.
I started off doing indie comics that I wrote and drew myself. I was doing those for ten years before I started to work for DC. The first book that I wrote for DC was for another artist. I did some backups in 'Adventure Comics' years ago starring The Atom. That's the first time that I ever wrote for another artist.
I've been reading comics since I was four. I used to get them when I would go grocery shopping with my mom. I remember getting the digest versions of old DC comics. The one that I remember reading first was Paul Levitz' 'Justice Society of America' stuff that he was doing in the '70s.
There's something so arrogant about us creating robots that are more and more human-looking or acting. It's like we're playing God. Let's create something that's a reflection of us, but it's inferior.
'Bloodshot,' for me, was unlike anything I'd ever done before, which was really the draw of it. In addition to trying to reconnect with my earlier work, I also wanted to try to do something that was completely new and different.
The thing about Canada is that it's a very large country, and the population's very spread out among different regions. Each region in the country really has its own personality and its own culture, you know? From West Coast to East Coast - wherever you go, it's almost like it's its own country.
I've always been attracted to themes of isolation in my work - in my independent work and my DC work.
I've always enjoyed teen characters, and kids as well. For whatever reason, I seem to have an ability to do it sort of well, and I enjoy doing it.
I've always had a good handle on drawing children.