For the past 10 years, to the delight of comic book original art fans and collectors, IDW has published a collection of high quality books reprinting comic book original art in their Artist’s Edition series of books. As part of the news that would have been announced at WonderCon, IDW has announced that this October, comics legend and WildC.A.T.s creator JIM LEE, gets the Artist’s Edition treatment with the series he’s best known for, Marvel’s X-Men.
The Jim Lee X-Men Artist Edition will contain full size full color scans of Jim Lee and Scott Williams’s Uncanny X-Men and X-Men original artwork. “But how can you have a full color scan of black and white pen and ink art?” some of you may be asking. Well, Scott Dunbier and the Artist Edition team at IDW use high quality full color scans of the art so that you can see every blue line, pencil mark and white out on the page. The Artist Edition books are printed on heavy paper, closely mimicking the look and feel of art board.
IDW’s two main lines of original art reprint books are the Artist’s Edition and the Artifact Edition. The difference between the two is that Artist’s Editions reprint full or mostly full issues while Artifact Editions reprint artwork where full issues of the original art is not available. It’s exciting that IDW announced this as an Artist’s Edition. Fans will get to see full issues of Jim Lee X-Men artwork, including the entire story in 1991’s X-Men #1.
Commenting on the book, Lee said, “I still fondly look back on this work with great pride. Flipping through this book will, I have no doubt, rekindle lots of happy memories for me… and I hope for you as well.”
The book is set to debut in October, the same month as New York Comic Con. IDW is known for special events and promotions for their Artist’s Editions at SDCC and NYCC. Don’t be surprised if a NYCC exclusive variant cover to this massive hardcover is announced for that convention.
Contact your local comic book shop about pre-ordering the Jim Lee X-Men Artist Edition. The hardcover 160 page book has a cover price of $150.
