From the poorly kept secret department: Jeff Lemire, the writer of the upcoming new Superboy title and writer/artist of Vertigo’s Sweet Tooth, is now exclusive with DC Comics, as announced on the publisher’s blog, The Source.
Rich Johnston reported this news two weeks ago, as he was excited to point out today. Despite working for Vertigo for a while and imminently taking over Superboy, Lemire is still a somewhat surprising (and exciting) choice for a DC exclusive, given his history with fairly esoteric material like Top Shelf’s Essex County trilogy. It’s not so weird for Lemire, though; as he explained on The Source, he’s a “life long DC Comics fan.” Maybe the most intriguing part of this news is seeing, when his Sweet Tooth schedule permits, Lemire’ll use his distinct art style rendering the DC icons; Rich posted a striking image of Lemire’s take on Hawkman and Atom (the latter of which Lemire is writing in the Adventure Comics Atom co-feature and this week’s Brightest Day: The Atom Special).
This news follows the announcement of Paul Cornell’s DC exclusivity two weeks ago. With only two weeks left until Comic-Con International: San Diego, who knows if this is the last exclusive announcement until then, and what we might be able to expect to hear from there.
Ready for more DC work from Lemire? Feel like speculating which exclusives might be next? Feel free!
July 6th, 2010 at 9:04 pm
AWESOME!
July 7th, 2010 at 2:29 am
Wow thats super great news for Dc that Jeff Lemire is now a Dc exclusive wow i mean wow …. uhh just one question who the hell is Jeff Lemire?
July 7th, 2010 at 5:35 am
Mallfunction Says:
July 7th, 2010 at 2:29 am
Wow thats super great news for Dc that Jeff Lemire is now a Dc exclusive wow i mean wow …. uhh just one question who the hell is Jeff Lemire?
Well the funny thing is , there’s this thing called the Internet…I hear they have it on computers thses days . Now I also hear you can access large amounts of information like answering your own question?
Thats great for DC , Jeff tells an incredible tale in his stories.
July 7th, 2010 at 5:57 am
Lightfailure Says:
July 7th, 2010 at 5:35 am
Mallfunction Says:
July 7th, 2010 at 2:29 am
Wow thats super great news for Dc that Jeff Lemire is now a Dc exclusive wow i mean wow …. uhh just one question who the hell is Jeff Lemire?
Well the funny thing is , there’s this thing called the Internet…I hear they have it on computers thses days . Now I also hear you can access large amounts of information like answering your own question?
Why waste my time, its not like this is such a wanted writer by other company’s. Big hopda this guy got a steady gig at DC so what its freaking Jeff Lemire not Geoff Johns or Brian Michael Bendis, who actually gives a sh!t?
July 7th, 2010 at 6:03 am
Mallfunction: Geoff Johns and Brian Michael Bendis were once nobodies too. Every writer has to start somewhere and they don’t become big hits overnight. Johns’ first major series with DC got cancelled after just over a year, and Bendis was an unknown to mainstream comics audiences until he was hired to write Ultimate Spider-Man back in 2000.
I guess the point is, Jeff Lemire could turn into the next Johns or Bendis, and if DC thinks he’s worth taking a risk on with an exclusive, then they see something in him as well.
July 7th, 2010 at 7:45 am
Interesting. The “who gives a crap” comments above seem obvious, but there’s two reasons they don’t hold water:
1.) Lemire’s indy stuff is solid.
2.) DC is ahead of us on reading his stuff, so offering an exclusive before it goes to print is probably good news for Superboy.
I like the Bendis comparisons above and hope they’re right. Marvel knew before Ultimate Spider-man came out that they needed to put Bendis on more titles. I hope this is a similar situation and that they know something we don’t to justify this exclusive.
July 7th, 2010 at 8:59 am
Lightfailure Says:
July 7th, 2010 at 5:35 am
Mallfunction Says:
July 7th, 2010 at 2:29 am
Wow thats super great news for Dc that Jeff Lemire is now a Dc exclusive wow i mean wow …. uhh just one question who the hell is Jeff Lemire?
Well the funny thing is , there’s this thing called the Internet…I hear they have it on computers thses days . Now I also hear you can access large amounts of information like answering your own question?
Why waste my time, its not like this is such a wanted writer by other company’s. Big hopda this guy got a steady gig at DC so what its freaking Jeff Lemire not Geoff Johns or Brian Michael Bendis, who actually gives a sh!t?
Why waste your time? You posted on the thread! Possibly , just maybe mind you , DC (who I realize must not be as qualified to rate writing talent as you , as eloquent as your “who gives a shit” is ) might be recognizing a hot young writer and want to use his talent to try telling a great story with Superboy and the Atom, all while he writes a successful and well recieved Vertigo project..
again I understand that DC is nothing to you and your publishing empire and the huge staff of top notch writers you have working for you (who were they again?)but try to let the little guys get some news buzz , just to be fair?
July 7th, 2010 at 9:28 am
Yeah, just who the hell is this Jeff Lemire nobody?!
It’s not like he produced a trilogy of extremely well-reviewed and widely-read graphic novels that were published over the course of just two years or anything!
And it’s not like his work has been covered by mainstream, non-comics-specific media outlets like the New York Times!
Why I bet he hasn’t even been nominated for any major comics industry awards, like Eisners or a Harvey or Ignatz. Certainly he never won any awards like a Doug Wright, Joe Shuster or Xeric award. And I highly doubt he created a graphic novel and ongoing series for one of DC’s major imprints before landing a gig working on a DCU comic.
July 7th, 2010 at 12:09 pm
Yeah but what superhero stuff has he done?
July 8th, 2010 at 1:48 pm
Just because he hasn’t written superhero stuff doesn’t mean he cant. Bendis, Rucka, Brubaker, and Diggle never wrote superheroes before they landed such gigs. They all wrote comics just like your favorite superhero comics. The only thing that was different was that there weren’t any costumes.
July 9th, 2010 at 1:20 pm
Why I bet he hasn’t even been nominated for any major comics industry awards, like Eisners or a Harvey or Ignatz. Certainly he never won any awards like a Doug Wright, Joe Shuster or Xeric award. And I highly doubt he created a graphic novel and ongoing series for one of DC’s major imprints before landing a gig working on a DCU comic.
Big deal.
The movies Titanic and Avatar both won the best movie award yet they both sucked. Awards mean sh!t.
July 10th, 2010 at 6:05 am
I hope Jeff Lemire DOESN’T turn into the next Johns or Bendis.
January 3rd, 2011 at 6:21 am
Cool article. It’s about time to find interesting content for a change.