Jim Lee

The way you challenge Superman is by having things happen very, very quickly in different places and then asking, 'Who does he save first? What powers must he use to save each person or stop each disaster?' That's one of the ways you make him interesting beyond the thematic and moral issues that make Superman.

Back in the '30s, '40s and '50s, you had clear-cut heroes, clear-cut supervillains. Today, you have more of a blend, more of a gray area between the two. You have the rise of the sympathetic villain and the rise of the antihero.

It's interesting - a lot of what you accomplish in your lifetime either as an individual or as a company is determined by other people. I mean, you can do interview after interview and defend a point of view, but more often than not, the collective kind of opinion will be the one viewed historically and taken as gospel.

More often than not, the fans really gravitate towards who's on the cover as opposed to how it's drawn or how it's composed, and so, a lot of the time, what an artist likes will be very different from what a fan likes.

I've been trying to make this argument that digital comics and print comics are both art, but there are subtle differences.

I always figured Metropolis was north of New York, actually. Between New York and Boston, in my mind.

There's an obvious marketing component to doing something digitally where you're reaching out to new readers that you can't do in the existing print marketplace, or that it's difficult to do in the existing print marketplace.

I think sometimes with new characters, you can kind of hit a creative valley, and it's important to recognize when you're in that valley so you can get back out and get back to that peak.

As lifelong fans of comic books, Dan Didio and myself, we definitely have our own takes on what make for successful comics and the kind of comics that we want to publish.

Part of running DC Comics is that it's much larger than Image Comics is, or was. There's a challenge to being one of the industry leaders in that everything you do is scrutinized and watched.

Costumes are all about identifying which force in a conflict you're on. That's where banners and flags came from - so people rushing into battle knew who to follow and who was on their side.

In the '50s, a lot of stories were built around radiation and the proliferation of new technology. In the '70s, there were a lot of stories that dealt with the Vietnam War. So comic books have always been a reflection of the times we live in.

I think the very simplest way to show Superman's power is to have him punch someone that's powerful.

I don't buy comics anymore, for the most part. I eat my lunch off of them.

I paint in acrylic and sometimes in oil. Sometimes I'll paint my kids. And I'll occasionally do some photography.

Even today, a lot of the CGI you see in movies is so clean and crisp that it just looks fake. It's weird: the more advanced they get, the faker it looks.

Wonder Woman is a lot of fun to draw.

I want all my stuff to be converted into digital format so I can have my reference library to carry with me wherever I go.

I have to say, self-servingly, I downloaded my own comics. I downloaded 'Batman: Hush.'

I don't think you can measure your love or your passion for whatever you're working on.

If you look at the great superheroes in any universe, you will always find that they have the very best super villains opposing them. It's because they are foils; they are people that the heroes play off of.

So much of comics are dictated by characters talking to one another - or in focused spaces where 'the camera' has to stay in pretty close on what's going on.

I rarely draw myself, in general, and if I do, I tend to do little cute manga-esque, almost bite-sized drawings of myself.

As a gamer, I like to go up and look at people's faces and see how good of a job they did.

I played a little bit of 'City of Heroes' - they have a really great character generation system. I was pretty impressed with that. I played 'World of Warcraft' with my kids. That's a lot of fun.

There is the intent of the writer and the interpretation by the artist. What the writer intended and what the artist interprets is not a 1-to-1 translation. It's a crossing of ideas that generates the stories that you see in print.

Creating and producing creative work, to me, those are all happy accidents.

I think there's a responsibility of the publisher, of the company, to make sure the staple books that have been around for decades come out in a timely manner.

There are a lot of global decisions that you can make as a co-publisher, and only publishers can make those kind of decisions. At the same time, there are some things you can do only as a penciler or creator. I want to keep my hands in both pots, so to speak.

I think when you're knee-deep in coming up with editorial plans, the desire to sit down and pencil something is pretty strong.

Once I started down the path of co-founding Image Comics, and even co-publisher, it just seems a lot more like a career path that isn't that atypical for someone with a college degree. Whereas, someone who draws comic books as a freelancer and lives from job to job is a more unusual story.

Any time you change something classic or iconic, you're going to have some part of the fan base up in arms.

When you try to do something bigger and more grandiose, a lot of times it's more apt to fall apart. It's a lot easier to lay down a bunch of singles than it is to get a home run.

The first time I drew a Superman story was 'For Tomorrow' with Brian Azzarello in 2004. It didn't really hit me how important it was until I drew a scene early-on in the book that featured Superman crossing paths with a giant, intergalactic space armada.

Superman tends to stand very upright, and he's very symmetrical, and those are actually the most difficult poses for me to draw.

Superman is the hardest character to draw. There are a couple of things that make him difficult. He's got a very simple costume and doesn't have the long cape like Batman. He's not a character that is necessarily always in shadow, and he doesn't have a mask.

I tend not to look at my work after I've done it. In fact, the only time I typically get to review it is when the fans bring up comics at shows, and I kind of flip through it and be like, 'Oh, I remember doing this!'

I try to do a lot of asymmetrical, triangular compositions - I find those work really well for comic book covers in that portrait mode, and I don't always see that in other artists.

One of the reasons I never had a problem handing over my characters to other creators is that I knew that they would add their own influences and takes on the characters and make them better for it.

'The Authority,' by Warren Ellis and Bryan Hitch, really pioneered the widescreen, action-packed style of storytelling.

The thing that weighs the most on how your final artwork turns out is the amount of time you have and the speed at which you can move.

I like a lot of modern art. I like Chuck Close a lot. It doesn't necessarily directly influence the work I draw on the page.

Nick Cardy's work helped define some of the things we see in comics today and take for granted. He broke out of the mold in terms of covers and layout and created a truly interactive experience for the reader that directly points back to his time with the Eisner studio.

One of DC's strengths is our archive of storylines ranging from 'Watchmen' to 'Arkham Asylum' to 'Sandman.'

At DC Comics, it has been a top priority that DC forges a meaningful, forward-looking digital strategy.

I certainly wouldn't buy a DVD series of a hit show and start at Season 7. I would want to go back and start from the beginning.

One of the strengths of the DC Universe has been the strength of the rogues' gallery. Often times they're as famous - if not more infamous - than our heroes.

When a character has as wide an audience and as rich a history as Batman, it's truly exciting to see him introduced into an all-new storytelling medium. BATMAN LIVE will bring a completely new experience to fans of the character - it's great to be able to give them something they haven't seen before.

What I love about WonderCon is that, while the focus is on the comics, it's also a celebration of games and movies and all the ancillary media.

You can see how he changed on the surface. But at the core of it all, I think Superman has remained the same - a character with incredible powers but almost superhuman humility and restraint.