Jeff Lemire

Jeff Lemire (born March 21, 1976) is a Canadian comic book writer, artist, and television producer.

He is the author of critically acclaimed titles including the Essex County Trilogy, Sweet Tooth, and The Nobody.

His written work includes All-New Hawkeye, Extraordinary X-Men, Moon Knight and Old Man Logan for Marvel; Superboy, Animal Man, Justice League Dark, and Green Arrow for DC; Black Hammer and Mazebook for Dark Horse; Descender and Gideon Falls for Image Comics; and Bloodshot Reborn for Valiant.

In 2021, Sweet Tooth was adapted as a Netflix television series through Susan and Robert Downey Jr.'s production company Team Downey, with Lemire serving as an on-set consultant.

Lemire has also collaborated with musicians such as Eddie Vedder on his Matter of Time animated video and Gord Downie on Secret Path, a multimedia storytelling project.

Lemire was born and raised in Woodslee, Ontario in Essex County, near Lake St. Clair.

Lemire attended film school, but decided to pursue comics when he realized that filmmaking did not suit his solitary personality.

After self-publishing the Xeric Award-winning comic book Lost Dogs in 2005 via his Ashtray Press imprint, Lemire found a home at Top Shelf Productions.

Lemire serialized a science-fiction strip called Fortress in the quarterly UR Magazine.

In 2006 Lemire's work was included in an international symposium gathering artists, scholars, curators, publishers, librarians, critics, and writers at the Banff Centre.

Lemire's work was part of the "Comic Craze" exhibit, which showcased Canadian comics and narrative fiction.

Lemire wrote and illustrated the Eisner and Harvey Award-nominated Essex County Trilogy for Top Shelf in 2008–2009.

In 2009, DC Comics' Vertigo imprint published Lemire's The Nobody, a two-colour tale of identity, fear and paranoia in a small community.

Lemire wrote and illustrated the full-colour Vertigo series Sweet Tooth, published September 2009 to January 2013.

Lemire signed an exclusivity contract with DC Comics in December 2010.

He moved over to the DC Universe to write the one-shot Brightest Day: Atom, with Turkish artist Mahmud Asrar, designed to act as a springboard for an Atom story to co-feature in Adventure Comics.

He also relaunched the Superboy series featuring the character Conner Kent.

During Flashpoint he wrote Frankenstein and the Creatures of the Unknown miniseries, then, as part of The New 52, he wrote the ongoing series Animal Man and Frankenstein, Agent of S.H.A.D.E..

Further into the launch of The New 52 Lemire took over the writing duties on Justice League Dark with issue #9, while leaving Frankenstein: Agent of S.H.A.D.E. to newcomer Matt Kindt.

In June 2011 it was announced that visual effects artist John Dykstra will direct an adaptation of Essex County entitled Super Zero.

2012 saw the publication of a new graphic novel from Top Shelf called The Underwater Welder, which was released to critical acclaim.

He continued to write Animal Man into 2012, including teaming up with Swamp Thing writer Scott Snyder for a crossover between the two books called "Rotworld."

In February 2013, Lemire replaced Ann Nocenti as the writer of Green Arrow.

Lemire drew a Rip Hunter story for Time Warp #1 (May 2013) which was written by Damon Lindelof and published by Vertigo.

His work on the title, which had not been well-received under previous writers, was widely praised by critics and fans, and lasted until September 2014.

In 2014, Lemire joined a team of writers composed of Brian Azzarello, Keith Giffen, and Dan Jurgens to co-write The New 52: Futures End, a new weekly series set five years into the New 52's future.

It ran from May 2014 through April 2015.

Lemire wrote Teen Titans: Earth One, an original graphic novel with art by Terry and Rachel Dodson published by DC Comics in November 2014.

As part of DC's Earth One line, Teen Titans: Earth One takes place in an alternate continuity-free universe that re-imagines DC's characters.

After his exclusivity contract with DC came to an end, Lemire began working with other publishers.

At the 2014 New York Comic Con, it was announced that Lemire would be writing All-New Hawkeye, his first Marvel Comics title, with artist Ramón Pérez, which began in March 2015, a follow-up to Matt Fraction's and David Aja's acclaimed run.

In December 2015, it was announced that First Generation Films had optioned the rights to Essex County to develop the graphic novel as a television series from Canada's CBC.

Aaron Martin was set as writer and showrunner, as well as executive producing with Lemire.

The series ran for five issues until September 2015 before being relaunched as part of All-New All-Different Marvel.

Bleedingcool reported in April 2015 that Lemire had signed an exclusivity contract with Marvel, which excluded his creator-owned work with Image and Dark Horse Comics, as well as his work with Valiant Entertainment.

In October 2020, Lemire revealed that the show will commence filming in 2022 as a six-episode mini-series with himself serving as writer, showrunner, and producer.

The series, Essex County, premiered on March 19, 2023 on CBC Television.

In May 2020, Netflix confirmed the release of the movie adaptation of Sweet Tooth as a series of eight episodes.

Susan and Robert Downey Jr. take part in the project through their own production company Team Downey.

While on set during the filming of the pilot in New Zealand, Lemire was hit with an inspiration for how to revisit the world of Sweet Tooth in comics, which led to the 2020 six-issue miniseries Sweet Tooth: The Return.