Pat Lee Returns To Comics With Widow Warriors

Pat Lee, the creator who revitalized The Transformers, makes his return to comic books with Widow Warriors!  Written by Lloyd Chao and drawn by Pat Lee, Widow Warriors is a full color series that will be released by Dynamite Entertainment!  Based on the popular Chinese legend Women Warriors of the Yang Family, Widow Warriors takes place during the reign of Emperor Song Ren Zhong  (AD 1022-1064), a powerful barbarian tribe invaded the western territories of the Chinese Empire.  A brave clan of generals, the Yang, and their men fought bravely, but were massacred by the invaders.  Unable to convince the Emperor to send reinforcements, the widows of the family, also trained warriors, took it upon themselves, journeying west on a perilous mission to avenge the deaths of their loved ones and save a nation.

“I was pretty thrilled to be able to collaborate with a Chinese and international team on Widow Warriors, my first comic series after several years,” says Pat Lee.  “The original story is so rich with historical characters that it was a real challenge to filter it down into an American comic format.   I wanted to blend my comic style with the richness we find in historic Asian art and culture, and we are pretty happy with the end result.  We are going to turn Widow Warriors into a film next, and I think a lot of the panels already have a cinematic feel to them.”

“Pat has grown as an artist, and we’re proud to be working with him on this project.  Looking at the art, you can see the depth he’s added since the beginning of his career.  We’re proud to be working with Pat on this project, and hope that this is the first of many projects together.” states Dynamite President Nick Barrucci.

At an early age of 16, Pat Lee began his career in the comic book industry right after graduating in high school by sending over 150 pages of sample artworks to Marvel and DC editors with no success. It took nearly a year before he finally caught the attention of Image co-founder Rob Liefeld at a Toronto convention in 1994. Four months later, he was hired by Image Comics and went off to train at Extreme Studios. There, he learned an invaluable skill: speed.  Lee worked on various titles such as Bloodpool, Extreme Sacrifice, Black Flag, Glory, Darkchylde, Avengeblade, Extreme Prelude, and Prophet.  Soon after, he was hired in Wildstorm Productions to work on Jim Lee’s WildC.A.T.S., Allegra and Whilce Portacio’s Wetworks. His career in comic books led him to work in Marvel Comics with a Wolverine/Punisher mini-series entitled Revelation.  Pat and his brother Roger Lee founded Dreamwave Productions. The two secured comic licenses for the popular toy line Transformers, which Lee would illustrate.  His work on Transformers brought newfound attention on the Transformers property, making way for the incredible success it would eventually achieve on film.