Pat Lee

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Patrick "Pat" C.K. Lee (born June 28, 1975) is a Canadian-born comic book artist, publisher, and co-founder of Dreamwave Productions. Pat is best known for his anime-influenced hybrid style of art to the North American comic book market.

[edit] Biography

At an early age of 16, Lee began his career in the comic book industry right after graduating in high school by sending over 150 pages of sample artworks to disinterested Marvel and DC editors. It took nearly a year before he finally caught the attention of then-Image creator Rob Liefeld at a Toronto convention in 1994. Four months later, he was hired by Image Comics and went off to train at Extreme Studios. There, he learned an invaluable skill: speed. In an interview with Wizard he states:

“

When I was working there, I'd have work slapped down at me. It's gotta be done today. I'd hear, and I figured, okay, this is something I've gotta get used to.^[1]

”

Pat then started his career through Liefeld's studio, working on various titles such as Bloodpool, Extreme Sacrifice, Black Flag, Glory, Darkchylde, Avengeblade, Extreme Prelude, and Prophet. Soon after, he was hired in Wildstorm Productions to work on Jim Lee's WildC.A.T.S., Allegra and Whilce Portacio's Wetworks. His booming career in comic books led him to work in Marvel Comics with a Wolverine/Punisher mini-series entitled Revelations , and then followed by other titles like Iron Man, X-men, Spider-Man and Fantastic Four.

A year later, he and his brother Roger Lee founded Dreamwave Productions. They began to publish their first mini-series Darkminds followed by other titles like Transformers, Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles, Warlands, Garden of Blades, NecroWar, Sandscape and other graphic novels.

Controversially, Lee is the subject of much criticism over his financial practices, especially surrounding the closure of Dreamwave and the failure to pay its staff whilst items such as sports cars were exempt from debt collection agencies.^[2] Also, his art-style, usually in regards to Transformers, came under fire from fans. After the studio closed its doors, it became the butt of many art-based jokes or cynical takes on the Dreamwave closure episode, especially in light of the revelation that many of his art pages were being drawn by sub-contractors. ^[3] ^[4]

Pat has also worked in multiple toy companies such as Hasbro, Mattel, Spin Master Pro, and Cookie Jar, assisting them in conceptualizing and developing their brands. To date, he is currently working on Batman/Superman, Metal Men, and a crossover between X-Men/Cyberforce. With his Pat Lee Productions, Inc., which is based in Ontario, Canada, Lee is now focusing on film, game production, photography, concept designing, and his very own clothing label.