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Well?

Got a friend who I got back into comics. He liked the Jones era Batman, and the Venom: The Madness stuff. He asked me "What happened to Kelly Jones?".

Unfortunately, I had to reply "Damned if I know".

It got me curious... what happened to Kelly Jones? Bat-artists don't ust disappear overnight! Still in comics? Gone "legit"? What?!?!?

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The last thing I saw him dfoing was "The Crusades", but that was a good eighteen months ago.

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I don't know what happened to him. All I know is that I wanna see his Batman and Bolland's Joker duke it out. [humina humina] [humina humina] [humina humina]

Kelley's Batman is the BEST!!! [woooOOOOoooo!]

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The last thing I remember him doing is being the worst penciller in the history of comics. So yeah, I haven't seen his work since Batman too.

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quote:
Originally posted by woodstock:
The last thing I remember him doing is being the worst penciller in the history of comics. So yeah, I haven't seen his work since Batman too.

Ah, so you've never heard of Rob Liefeld, Scott McDaniel, or any of these fools who still think Manga is cool, eh?

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I think Kyle Hotz if fucking him up the ass right now.

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I never liked kelly jones his art is ugly IMO, i like the works of Graham Nolan and Neal Adams alot more.

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I think his work was very well suited to the horror specials he did, Red Rain and all that. I don't think he's really a super hero artist.

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I don't know what Kelley Jones is doing lately, but I got very into his BATMAN work a year ago. I bought his whole run in BATMAN 515-552 (with 4 or so fill-in issues by other artists), from 1995-1998.

( Click on images to see enlarged full-size versions: )

[


Moench/Jones' Elseworlds Batman stories...
  • BATMAN/DRACULA: RED RAIN (1991)
    BATMAN/DRACULA: BLOODSTORM (1994)
    BATMAN/DRACULA: CRIMSON MIST (1999)
    BATMAN: DARK JOKER, THE WILD (1993)
    BATMAN: HAUNTED GOTHAM 1-4 (2000)

... almost equal the page count of their regular BATMAN series run.




Some other Kelley Jones work I've discovered recently:

RAY BRADBURY'S TALES OF TERROR SPECIAL # 1 (cover, and 1-page pin-up --nice !) May/1994

ALIEN:HIVE 1-4 (Dark Horse, 1993)


And some of my favorite Kelley Jones work:

DEADMAN: LOVE AFTER DEATH 1 and 2 (1989)

DEADMAN: EXORCISM 1 and 2 (1992)


Kelley Jones' style is one I think is perfectly suited to DC's mystery books, and Batman in particular. It's a loss that he's not doing more work for DC, or similar work for another publisher.




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I remember first seeing Jones' artwork in SWAMP THING and THE SANDMAN, and I was much surprised when DC made the bold move of putting him onto one of their best-selling titles, the main title of their best-selling character, BATMAN. And I think it worked. It gave the title a much more eerie look to it, befitting the character's bat-persona as well as the bizarre assortment of villains who prance around Gotham in their gaudy costumes. Kelly Jones made 'em look... well, not cool, but freaky... in a good way. It was like Halloween every single month when Kelly Jones was drawing it.

BATMAN: RED RAIN was pretty good, too, but I didn't like his version of the Batmobile in that Elseworlds book: It looked like the car the Addams Family used.

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quote:
Originally posted by winged creature:
I never liked kelly jones his art is ugly IMO, i like the works of Graham Nolan and Neal Adams alot more.

What he said.

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Here's a NEWSARAMA topic discussing Kelley Jones' recent work, including a short interview with Kelley Jones, and some images of his art from many series displayed:
http://newsarama.com/forums/showthread.php?s=&threadid=7323

It discusses a number of Kelley Jones works that I was completely unaware of.

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Thanks for the link, Dave. I liked Jones era Batman a lot, too, and I've been searching for some of his other work.


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Hell...Whatever happened to Bob Kane?

Jones art grew on me after a little while but I don't overly miss it.


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I quite like Jones' Batman as well. He drew the Batman that many writers always described: "dresses like a villain, looks like the devil," etc. I would've loved for him and Morrison to do the book. Shame he didn't draw Gothic instead of Klaus Janson.

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My pleasure, Animalman.

I've described having Kelley Jones do a run on BATMAN as somewhat like having Berni Wrightson or Michael Golden do the series on a monthly basis.
Like Wrightson or Golden, Kelley Jones brings a very mood-intensive and stylized look to the series.

Despite Jones' clean and detailed art style, some people don't like his work because his anatomy is so clearly distorted. But I find this to be part of the attractive quality of Jones' art, because his art is detailed enough to fit anyone's definition of "realism", but beyond the detail, the distorted anatomy gives the images a more surreal, supernatural effect, as if the world has been thrown through some distorting fun-house mirror. It's reality, but horrifically warped.

And I think, of all characters to illustrate, this works especially well with Batman. Illustrated by Jones, Batman is immersed in a world of shadows and monsters. And Batman himself takes on the appearance of a monster. And it suits him well.

Jones did about two years of covers on BATMAN before he began drawing the series with issue 515.

[



Although he was doing BATMAN/DRACULA:RED RAIN(1991), BATMAN:BLOODSTORM (1993), and DARK JOKER:THE WILD(1995) during this time, before he took over art on the regular BATMAN series in 1995.






Needless to say, I like these covers and art by Jones a lot. I think they capture the essence of what Batman is about. And it was fun seeing Moench and Jones bring out the occult element in Batman's world.

I'd also like to see Jones do more with Batman, the Demon, Deadman, Cain, Abel, Eve, and DC's other mystery characters. We got to see a little of this in the BATMAN, DEADMAN, and SANDMAN issues he did.



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Here are the ALIENS:HIVE covers I mentioned:



These issues were out in 1992-1993, and preceded Jones' BATMAN series run.




And here's a link to the RAY BRADBURY TERROR SPECIAL that I mentioned earlier.


Like I said, Kelley Jones did the cover and one interior pin-up page, but I think it's pretty nice. I didn't want to post the oversize image here.



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Quote:

Grimm said:
I quite like Jones' Batman as well. He drew the Batman that many writers always described: "dresses like a villain, looks like the devil," etc. I would've loved for him and Morrison to do the book. Shame he didn't draw Gothic instead of Klaus Janson.




I agree totally. His vision of Batman really seemed to coincide with mine. Someone that, while clearly heroic, looked and at times acted like a villain, becuase that's what it took to beat the kind of villains he faced.


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My first reaction to Jones depiction of Batman was that this was one ugly super-hero. He looked more like he would spend the weekend getting his rocks off in a back alley with the likes of the Penguin instead of in a nice cozy bed back at Wayne Manor with the Boy Wonder. Know what I mean?


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Absolutely. Batman is supposed to be a frightening individual, someone who makes villains shit themselves. Not just another guy in spandex.

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Can't say I like the art. A bit messy.


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Do you like what he did for Sandman?


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I loved the SANDMAN issues he did.

Issues 17, 18, and 22-24, if I recall correctly (collected in the DREAM COUNTRY and SEASON OF MISTS trade collections of the series).

The part I enjoyed most about SANDMAN was its attempt to bring all the DC mystery books, and characters who hosted the books, all together into one unified continuity. Alan Moore started to do this in SWAMP THING 21-50, and Neil Gaiman expanded on this in SANDMAN.

And Kelley Jones' art, being very detailed and a bit Wrightson-esque at the time, created a nice visual continuity with the style of the 70's mystery books, that helped to pull it off.

While also simultaneously expanding into a modern style of horror.


--------------------


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Didn't he ink the first few issues too?


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I dug out my trade for you, Mxy.

Issues 1-4 were Sam Keith pencils, Mike Dringenberg inks.

Issue 5 is Sam Keith pencils, Malcolm Jones inks

Issues 6-8 are Mike Dringenberg pencils/Malcolm Jones inks.

The Sam Keith art, like Kelley Jones' art, is similarly Wrightsonesque

Especially nice and Wrightsoneque is Sam Keith's double-page spread of Hell and its crawling-dead minions in issue 4, pages 12 and 13.
Especially inked in a way that doesn't look like most of Sam Keith's other work, I can see them being mistaken for Kelley Jones.

But to answer your question, no, these early issues are not Kelley Jones.



--------------------


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Oh. I thought it was Jones for a sec because the styles are similar. Then I looked it and saw "Jones" was inking and thought "that explains it".


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Quote:

I'm Not Mister Mxypltk said:
Do you like what he did for Sandman?




While I liked the issues, I hated the art. I thought his impression of Dream was decent enough, but otherwise thought ithe art was very weak and watery.


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Kelley Jones' DEADMAN: LOVE AFTER DEATH two-issue series with Mike Baron, in 1989-1990, is where I first noticed him having a pleasant and distinctive style.



The interview I linked sheds some light on this series. I didn't know that Kelley Jones had previously illustrated Deadman in ACTION COMICS WEEKLY, prior to this two-issue series.

And before that, I'd seen Kelley Jones ink stuff for Marvel, and maybe pencils too. (inking Guice in the later issues of the first MICRONAUTS series. I think the second MICRONAUTS series was where I'd first seen his pencils, around 1984-1985 )
And from what he said in the interview, his work wasn't liked at Marvel, and they actually changed his art to keep his style from being visible.

But regardless, when he got to DC, he was ready to do some of his best work.



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Jones followed up this series nicely, with the DEADMAN: EXORCISM two-issue series in 1992:




~


I don't have the trade, since I already have all the issues, but I believe both are collected in the 1995 trade DEADMAN: LOST SOULS.





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It was a nice treat after Kelley Jones' great work on DEADMAN, to have a Deadman crossover in three issues of his BATMAN run, in issues 530-532.

And while I'm generally very negative on the idea of multiple covers, die-cuts, chromium cuts, trading card inserts and whatever, which generally are really trashy gimmicks, there was one regular cover and one glow-in-the-dark-cover for each issue of this three-issue story, and they were cool !
The glow-in-the-dark art really worked with two creepy characters like Deadman and Batman, and the phantoms they were fighting.

I already showed a few of these covers. Here are the
(1)regular
and
(2) glow-in-the-dark covers, respectively, for issue 530 again:



Clicking on each for larger/clearer image of the latter cover, you can better make out the glow-in-the-dark parts of the image.


And here are the regular and glow-in-the-dark-enhanced covers for 531:



Again, the larger/clearer image of this glow-in the dark cover makes the glow-in-the dark portion more visible.
It's harder to see on this one, but it's mostly the mummies with the glow-stuff, and you can definitely appreciate it with the lights out !


And the two variant covers for 532:



I like this last one the best of the three, both with and without the glow-in-the-dark features.


I've seen color overlays that have a similar effect, such as in the early Levitz/Giffen LEGION ( issues 287-306, and 1982 annual), and in the Roger Stern/Marshall Rogers DOCTOR STRANGE (issues 48-53, also out in 1981-1982).

But this is the first and only time I've seen glow-in-the-dark overlays. And again, it really works well with ghost characters.
I don't know if Kelley Jones is the one who came up with the glow-in-the-dark color overlays, but it demonstrates imagination and is visually striking, whoever came up with it.



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Quote:

First National Bastard said:
</font><blockquote><font size="1" face="Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif">quote:</font><hr /><font size="2" face="Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif">Originally posted by woodstock:
<strong> The last thing I remember him doing is being the worst penciller in the history of comics. So yeah, I haven't seen his work since Batman too. </strong></font><hr /></blockquote><font size="2" face="Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif">Ah, so you've never heard of Rob Liefeld, Scott McDaniel, or any of these fools who still think Manga is cool, eh?




SCOTT MCDANIEL IS NOT BAD!!! In fact I'd put his Batman as one of the best alongside Kane's, Robinson's, Adam's, and Breyfogle! His run with Ed Brubaker produced some of the best comics in Bat-history!

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Quote:

Anonymous One said:

SCOTT MCDANIEL IS NOT BAD!!! In fact I'd put his Batman as one of the best alongside Kane's, Robinson's, Adam's, and Breyfogle! His run with Ed Brubaker produced some of the best comics in Bat-history!




You're right. Scott McDaniel isn't bad. He's even worse. He makes Liefeld look like Da Vinci!

Besides, his art meant nothing to that great run of stories you mentioned. Hell, I'd venture to guess the run would've been even better if there had been a decent artist, like Rags Morales, Stephen Sadowski, Darrick Robertson, or even a 6 year old with fingerpaints doing the art instead of McDaniel.


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I wish Jones made his civilian models better.

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One I recently read by Kelley Jones is his HAMMER series, for Dark Horse.

Jones did both script and art on these issues, and I think it shows his talent as a comics scripter, when he chooses to be a writer/artist.

A nice mixture of horror and humor, in the H.P. Lovecraft vein, with a touch of Virgil Finlay, especially on the covers.
And some of Jones' best art in the first four issues.

In order, there's the first THE HAMMER four-issue series.


click on images to enlarge



Plus one issue of DARK HORSE PRESENTS, issue 129, (which I don't have) that was released sequentially after the first four-issue series.

Then a single-issue THE HAMMER:UNCLE ALEX.

Then a three-issue HAMMER:THE OUTSIDER.




Links to the other covers, and larger images:




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I don't know about Kelly Jones, but I do know that I ran FNB's fat ass from this site...


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I'll look for Hammer next time I go to the comic shop. Maybe I'll get lucky and at least find the first issue,

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Looks like porn to me.

Huzzah!


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 Originally Posted By: Lothar of The Hill People
I'll look for Hammer next time I go to the comic shop. Maybe I'll get lucky and at least find the first issue,


Does he collect comics?



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Kelley Jones has been drawing the "Gotham after Midnite" 12-issue series.
The series sucks balls.
That is all.


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 Originally Posted By: Joe Mama
 Originally Posted By: Lothar of The Hill People
I'll look for Hammer next time I go to the comic shop. Maybe I'll get lucky and at least find the first issue,


Does he collect comics?

Dang it,Joe! Put down the cheeseburgers,french fries,onion rings,sodas,milkshakes,malts,candy bars,licorice,potatato chips... and whatever else you're stuffing in your mouth and pay attention to the topic here!

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