Jae Lee: Artist
Pure and Simple.....I love Jae Lee's work and I own quite a bit of it. Jae, as many of you know, worked for Marvel Comics and was chosen as the artist a number of years back when Stephen King decided to do the Dark Tower story in comic book form, starting with Gunslinger Born.
A little back story.....before the first issue of Gunslinger Born even saw the light of day, I became interested in the project. I was working in New York City at the time and did an internet search of Jae and actually found an email address for him. I emailed Jae, telling him who I was, a HUGE Dark Tower junkie and learned that Jae lived in New York City close to Central Park. We "conversed" by email several times and he agreed to meet me in the lobby of his apartment complex, so I went over one day on my lunch hour. The following picture was taken that day:
One thing led to another and Jae offered to sell me the entire artwork set for the first ARC of the Gunslinger Born story....for a mere $20,000. That was WAY WAY more than anything I could afford at the time but I told Jae (who had privately shared many of the pencils he had already done) I was interested in purchasing several items. He told me he had a solid dealer (Albert Moy) but that given my passion, he would deal with me directly, and so he sold me several art pieces BEFORE they were even released by Marvel....(I will hunt up any images I have in my collection folder and post below)....I ended up buying (from the Sketch Book), the character study he did of Roland, Cuthbert and Alain (the ka-tet) and I also bought Eldred Jonas character sketch....also I bought the cover piece to the Dark Tower Guide Book (Gilead) and I bought an interior piece of Roland standing over Cort after Roland bested Cort in battle.
That was the beginning of my relationship with Jae....as the Gunslinger Born issues were released...each issue has 2 Variant covers, one black and white by Jae and a color on by another artist, Jae happily agreed to sign EVERY copy that came out for me.
Soon thereafter, Jae moved to Las Vegas (remaining with Marvel), but I lost my close proximity to him. Then members here organized a Las Vegas weekend get-together and I was able to invite Jae to Jerome's room (I think it was Jerome's room) and Jae signed people's stuff and posed for pictures (see below).
After Vegas though, I made a HUGE mistake.....I asked Jae by email (after returning East) if he would sign the rest of my DT comics and a few of the hardcover books. He agreed but STUPID ME was greedy and I sent him 2 big boxes of stuff....he then politely told me he had contracts with Marvel that limited the number of items he could sign and he shipped both boxes back to me unsigned....I think I pissed him off and I will NEVER make such a mistake again.
Jae was chose (to the surprise of many) to be the artist for Wind Through the Key Hole....Donald Grant Publishing has a good relationship with Jae and has gotten him to do many remarques in WTTKH books....I will organize my Jae collection and post those pics later.
In the meantime, here are some other Jae Lee special things I own, pencil sketches and inscribed HC Gunslinger books:
Alain Johns:
Cuthbert Allgood:
Roland Deschain:
Eldred Jonas:
Cover of Dark Tower Guidebook - Gilead:
Roland Bests Cort:
Perhaps my favorite inscription of all my books in my collection:
Another DT book:
Same book with added Robin Furth inscription:
That's it to start this Jae Lee thread. I will gather my remarqued WTTKH books, take pics and post those images later.
Long Days and Pleasant Nights Gunslingers!
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Originally Posted by wizardsrainbow
