RKMBs Forums .::Robegories::. Comic Books Whatever happened to Kelly Jones?

Jeez, relax. I didn't realize I was mocking your hero, Snarf!

Wow. Another Batman tie-in that sucks balls. Now there's a surprise.

Jones' Batman --and really, any of the series listed here, are quite Halloween-festive.

This double page spread by Jones, from a 2-part story with Swamp Thing, in BATMAN 521-522;

Jones is a competent artist but, Really, he's just an inferior clone of Bernie Wrightson.

Well, while Jones clearly borrows techniques from Wrightson, I think Jones has gone in a direction away from his Wrightson roots.

Jones' DEADMAN and BATMAN work, among other series, are more loosely drawn, giving these series a surreal warping-mirror quality, that for my money adds to the supernatural atmosphere of the series he draws. Which I especially loved in Jones' BATMAN run.

It's kind of like saying Aparo, Grell, Byrne and Brunner are Adams clones. While they clearly have an Adams influence, each has work that is distinctly their own.

For that matter, Wrightson could be said to be a Frazetta clone. But that diminishes how far Wrightson has advanced beyond his Frazetta roots.
But yeah, I'd put Wrightson in a rare category of "comic book fine artists" along with artists like Lou Fine, Al Williamson, Frazetta, Kaluta, Windsor-Smith, Suydam, Bolton, Adams, and Steranko.

While Jones is not on that level, he's still a very good comics illustrator, comparable to Golden, Mignola, Keith, Russell, and Rogers, bringing a very clean and distinctive style to the books he does.

Another Kelley Jones interview:

https://13thdimension.com/the-kelley-jones-interviews-how-marshall-rogers-lit-the-fire/

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.

Somehow I stumbled on this 4-issue Kelley Jones MAGNETO series from 1996, that I was previously unaware of.

Definitely conforming to the Jim Lee/Rob Liefeld look of that period, but still worth seeing, and interesting to see a Kelley Jones X-book.