Pat Lee (comics)

Patrick " Pat" Lee (born 28 June 1975) is a Canadian comic book artist and publisher. Over the years he has worked for several publishers and businesses, and some of them also directed himself. Many of the stations of his career are marked by controversy.

Life and work

Pat Lee tried his hand at the age of sixteen years after his high school graduation for the first time as a cartoonist, but only in 1994 was the now nineteen- year-old Lee by Rob Liefeld, one of the founders of Image -Verlag, discovered at a comic show in Toronto and is active as a draftsman. For Liefelds Extreme Studios, he was, among other titles such as Blood Pool, Extreme Sacrifice, Black Flag, Glory, Darkchylde, Avengeblade, Extreme Prelude, and Prophet before he Wildstorm Productions moved to Image studio, where he worked for the launched by Jim Lee Series WildC.ATS recorded. There were a few issues of the series Wetworks before for appearing in Marvel Comics miniseries Wolverine / Punisher the drawings: Revelations took over.

In 1996, Pat and his brother Roger Lee, the company Dreamwave Productions, which ran initially as a studio within the Image -Verlag. Pat Lee took it in addition to his duties as a signatory of self-created titles such as Dark Minds Warlands and also the function of the publishing president. This Dreamwave also worked with various magazines and marketing company and was responsible, among other things for the music video for Janet Jackson's song "Does not Really Matter ".

The end of 2001 was Dreamwave from toymaker Hasbro the license for a new comic book series, which was based on the Transformers toy line. Parallel to this, Dreamwave separated by Image Comics, and brought from the various Transformers license 2002 series, the first several months of the sales charts of the U.S. comic sales Diamond dominated, now as an independent small publisher out. It was followed by other licensed works such as Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles, Mega Man or Duel Masters, but also its own title as Shidima or Fate of the Blade.

In addition to the Transformers themselves held no license series more than a few issues. Lee gave the previously drawn by him shows, including the Transformers, increasingly common to other signatories from and took over again reinforced contract work for other publishers, including editions of House of M Marvel or Superman / Batman for DC. On 4 January 2005 Dreamwave finally officially declared bankruptcy.

In the aftermath operated Pat Lee and his brother Roger a new studio called Dream engine, which was registered on Rogers name. Pat Lee was, among other comics such as the mini-series X-Men/Fantastic Four for Marvel or Cyber ​​Force for Top Cow. After his departure from Dream Engine Lee founded a new company, "Pat Lee Productions " whose activities focus on his own words in the fields of film, video games, photography, design concept and self-developed clothing. Since 2010, Pat Lee has been working for the comic publisher Dynamite Entertainment.

Controversies

Since the closure of Dreamwave's Pat Lee has been criticized for its business practices. In an interview with the website Newsarama the previous Transformers- authors Adam Patyk and James McDonough said they had been fired from Dreamwave still facing bankruptcy as a result of disputes over their pay and would wind up the debate action on outstanding payments. In another interview, claimed the Transformers writer Simon Furman, Lee gave him only " straight looked and said everything was fine in the eye" a month before the bankruptcy. Comic journalist Rich Johnston reported repeatedly on controversial details regarding Lee, including the allegation that the principal and staff Dreamwaves were in January 2005, has been transferred before the bankruptcy, the new company Dream Engine, the accusation that Lee had to go bankrupt, the transfer ownership of a company's Porsches to himself as a private person, the accusation that Lee had bought from bankruptcy an apartment for half a million Canadian dollars, a list of Dreamwave's debts and creditors, as well as the allegation that artist Alex Milne had as a ghost artist on Lee's site Top Cows Cyber ​​Force series drawn, without being named, said Lee had finally adjusted the payments to Milne after Top Cow have asked to confirm that Lee was the sole subscribers to the series, and Milne had refused to cooperate in the sense Lees.

In December 2010, Pat Lee Johnston gave an interview during which Johnston repeated all of the above allegations. Lee admitted that many of the Dreamwave illustrator there had been " delays in payment " before the bankruptcy, and regretted his own words, not to have been able to speak in advance with everyone, but claimed in return, most of the authors and illustrators at Dreamwave the case had therefore been aware that Dreamwave put into financial difficulties: he. " We have not announced it, but people have not been paid in full, it was very obvious," also claimed: "I 've barely paid for itself in Dreamwave, and I have not even paid for a long time, allowing the business to pay other bills. " Regarding the Porsche, claimed Lee, this was merely leased by Dreamwave, and he ( Lee) was" ultimately personally responsible for the car " have been, while the apartment only " had a small apartment in Toronto " was, to which he had to pay off a mortgage. As for Alex's Milnes work as a ghost artist for Cyber ​​Force, claimed Lee that he had " vegessen to adapt the credits at the termination of the contract ", which is clearly his own fault was, Lee says, and offered Milne to also to provide him with the necessary documentary evidence that Dream Engine still owe him money. He also claimed not to remember having Milne fired, he also told him in an e -mail in May 2007 that Milne had been paid to his knowledge in full. Other allegations that have been performed by Johnston in the course of the interview, such as the allegations that Top Cow have [ Johnston ] confirmed to him that Lee had assured the publisher to perform all the work on Cyber ​​Force itself, and Marvel had confirmed him [ Johnston ] to have been instructed to no money to pay more to Dreamwave, but rather to Dream Engine [ for outsourced projects such as X-Men/Fantastic Four ], were not commented on by Lee. Also Lee was not a formal request to put forward evidence that he was not trying to divert in the months before the collapse of money on large orders Dreamwave Dream Engine. For Lee, however, announced plans to create a "Redemption Movement for creative professionals " with the intention to call funds for former Dreamwave artists who were financially disadvantaged by the failure in life.