Jim Lee is a legendary comic book artist and one of my artistic inspirations when I was in high school.

Icons: The DC Comics & Wildstorm Art of Jim Lee is an art book dedicated to Jim Lee’s run at DC and Wildstorm and (sadly) features none of his Marvel art.

Even though it’s a shame Jim Lee’s Marvel art isn’t included, the book’s still great because at Wildstorm as well as DC Jim Lee did what he does best, namely draw superheroes and heroines in an awesome way.

From the first page this book is heavily loaded with Jim Lee’s art. The book is pretty thick (296 pages) and chockfull of Jim Lee art, featuring finished comic art (e.g. covers, interiors) as well as sketches and design stuff.

The book is divided into different sections each focusing on a particular (publishing) period or character.

The book starts with Jim Lee’s work on high profile DC characters beginning with Batman and most prominently his work for the Hush storyline in the Batman series and All Star Batman & Robin, followed by Superman and more DC characters.

His work under the Wildstorm imprint, like his first Image title WildC.A.T.s but also Gen 13, Deathblow and much more are of course also included as well as miscellaneous DC characters.

Icons: The DC Comics & Wildstorm Art of Jim Lee gives a very good overview of Jim Lee’s work after he left Marvel. And even though you may own mentioned comics, the book is so loaded with sketches of the original comic pages or preliminary art for covers or panel sketches, and numerous B&W art of comic panels and covers that there’s so much more in this book than simply owning the original comics.

Jim Lee’s drawings often feature great detail which is even more apparent in his pencil sketches and it’s just amazing seeing his pencil work.

In recent years Jim Lee has experimented with washed ink on colored art board to make his art look like paintings and there are numerous examples of that in this book.

Also, Jim Lee’s B&W art is also prominently featured and personally I now prefer his B&W art which he inks himself better than his more stylized comic art. It somehow looks more edgy and rough.

Jim Lee is a superstar comic book artist and this book shows why. Unless you don’t like art, you simply can’t miss this book.