An Artist We Love, Peacemaker, and Cheetos

from Art Department Weekly | Issue 112 Vol. 14

Flashback

ARTISTS WE LOVE: LEE WEEKS

From Daredevil to Superman to a Tom King title, Luis has no shortage of opportunities to say nice things about this artist you should know

The latest artist we love is Lee Weeks, a comic veteran who broke into the industry in 1986. His first published work was in Tales of Terror for Eclipse Comics. Marvel quickly took notice and he produced consistent work through the rest of the ’80s. In 1992 Lee finally got the breakout hit of his career, pencilling the Daredevil Last Rites storyline from 1990-1992. The defacto sequel to Frank Miller’s Born Again storyline featured the brilliant fall of the Kingpin.

With his star turn on Daredevil, Lee’s brilliance was finally in full effect. His amazing linework, great facial expressions and masterful visual story-telling made the comics landscape take notice. After a decade-long run at Marvel, Lee made his way over to DC for a short stint in the late ’90s before taking a comic book sabbatical to work as a storyboard artist for Superman: The Animated Series.

Weeks’ disappeared for more than a decade where he worked on a series of crime novels, before bursting back into the comics landscape in 2015 with the Superman: Lois and Clark series where he paired with Dan Jurgens to tell the story of how the original Superman was still on the New 52 Earth and secretly had a child with Lois. For a veteran who had been around for 30 years he enjoyed the greatest success of his career teaming with Tom King on the Batman/Elmer Fudd one shot (for which he was awarded the Inkwell Award) which led to the “Cold Days” run on the Batman series. Lee has had a long and brilliant career, which, like a fine wine, seems to get better with age.

MAKE PEACE

“I cherish peace with all my heart. I don’t care how many men, women, and children I have to kill to get it.”

The character of Peacemaker originally hit the spinner racks in November of 1966. Created by artist Pay Boyette and writer Joe Gill for Charlton Comics. DC acquired Charlton in 1983 and that is when the modern incarnation of Peacemaker really took off. DC changed his origin from a devout political pacifist turned vigilante to that of a son of Nazi with a twisted past and a violent way of achieving peace. When Alan Moore was writing the Watchmen he intended to use the original Charlton Comics characters (Blue Beetle, The Question, Captain Atom, Peacemaker, etc.). When DC acquired Charlton, Moore shifted to original creations based strongly on the Charlton characters with Peacemaker becoming the Comedian.

The HBO Max version of Peacemaker is the best take ever on the character. Cena gives a remarkably nuanced performance for a relative newcomer in Hollywood. Over-the-top and funny, extremely violent, but mixed with tons of emotion and heart—doesn’t seem like a recipe that would work, but it does. James Gunn’s masterful take pulls the best inspirations from past stories while mixing in a lot of Comedian to create the biggest original hit in the short life of HBO Max.