James Jean is an illustrator who is widely recognized in the comic book community for his distinctive and beautifully done covers for DC Comics.

Born in Taiwan, educated at the School of Visual Arts and currently living in LA, Jean has an impressive list of illustration clients including Time, Playboy, Wired, SPIN, The New York Times and Rolling Stone. In addition to his work for DC comics, his clients in the comic book industry include Marvel, Dark Horse and Fantagraphics.

His main site has galleries of his work arranged either by client and by project. You’ll find comic covers in the section called “Coverwork”. There are also sections for sketchbooks, paintings and “Recess”, a project about “childhood and ghosts”.

His work can be in turns elegant and beautiful or startling and disturbing. There is always a firm underpinning of solid draftsmanship and strong design.

Jean has a well regarded blog called Process Recess, that includes examples of his work, sometimes presented in several stages as in his cover for the special 5Oth issue of DC Comics’ Fables, shown above. You will also find sketches and figure drawings.

There is a book of his work, Process Recess: The Art of James Jean.

Link via Cat Morley’s Designers who blog. There is an interview with Jean in this column of Morley’s Cat’s fancy, on the same page as interviews with yours truly and John Martz of Drawn!, who has also posted about James Jean here and here.

Drawn! also points out that there is an interview with Jean on The Hundreds. Unfortunately, it’s hidden in abysmally poor navigation and is in an awkward horizontally scrolling interface. Go here and look for the James Jean link – I think it’s about the fifth or sixth thumbnail down on the left.