After a contribution to Heavy Metal in 1979,
Jan Duursema received her first steady job drawing issues of Sgt. Rock.
She went on to create Arion, Lord of Atlantis with Paul Kupperberg in an issue of Warlord (#55) which led to his own ongoing series of which Jan drew most of the 35 issue run.
She worked on the Advanced Dungeons and Dragons comic for 3 years straight, while continuing to do work here and there for DC and Marvel.
She worked with John Ostrander on Hawkman and Hawkworld and again with Ostrander on the Nightwing chapters of DC Tangent Universe.
She pencilled a few issues of the
Hulk and had work on various X-Projects, including a few arcs on
X-Factor.
Her most notable work however, was over at Dark Horse.
Jan Duursema became the go-to
Star Wars artist for Dark Horse after drawing issue #2 of Chewbacca.
She re-teamed with past collaborator John Ostrander,
drawing close to 100 issues of Star Wars comics for the company, including two very popular Darth Maul mini series with Ron Marz.
As she was working on Episode I prequels before the movie came out, aspects of her work were used in the film, especially the wildly popular Aayla Secura and her sometimes partner Quinlan Vos.
Lucasfilm entrusted both Ostrander and Duursema to create the expanded Legacy timeline of the Star Wars Universe, taking place 130 years after Episode IV.
She also inspired a Star Wars character based on her appearance and personality, a Jedi named Ur-Sema Du.
Duursema is a graduate of the Kubert School, where she met her husband and fellow comic artist Tom Mandrake.