Looking back on the interview I posted above, I'm surprised no one had any comment on it. It's incredible, that an artist of Kelley Jones' talent and popularity once he began drawing comics professionally, prior to that had no confidence tht he was a good artist, and never even submitted his art to try and get work professionally.
And that a friend of Kelley Jones went to a convention with Jones, and basically tricked Jones into showing his art to Marshall Rogers. And based on that small bit of praise for his art from Rogers, gave Jones the confidence to work professionally in comics.
And here we are 30-plus years later, with a lot of nice Kelley Jones work to look back on.
Jones' early work at Marvel was, if not awful, certainly unrecognizable compared to the decades of work he's done after. He's said in interviews that the editors he worked for didn't like his art, and basically tried to mask or "correct" his art by pairing him with inkers who dominated and eclipsed his linestyle, such as inkers Dan Bulanadi and Bruce Patterson on
MICRONAUTS, and
MICRONAUTS: THE NEW VOYAGES.
It wasn't until he broke away from Marvel and began doing the
DEADMAN:LOVE AFTER DEATH and subsequent work for DC when Kelley Jones' true style became visible, that he fully established himself.
