Look Here: Jeffrey Jones’s “Epic Illustrated” Cover
Look Here, Read: SPASM! (1973) by Jeffrey Jones
My apologies in advance for the poor quality of the scans in this post. It’s not easy to get decent results from thin, yellowing newsprint. But if you’re like me, you don’t want scans. You want a hardcover omnibus of every comic Jeffrey Jones has produced!
Published by Last Gasp in 1973 (36 years ago!), Spasm! collects the following short stories, all written and drawn by Jones, solo, for various pro and fan publications: “Co-Incidence” (2 pages), “Spirit of ’76” (4 pages), “Saved” (2 pages), “The Enemy” (5 pages), “Luce” (2 pages), “Deja-Vu” (4 pages), “The Bridge” (3 pages), “Guarantee” (4 pages), and “Death” (5 pages).
Notice that Jones’s distinctive J-cartouche on the back cover is upside down. That’s no mistake on my part; rather, it’s the way the piece was printed. In fact, the identical motif of the woman cradling and kissing the skull also appears, with the same orientation, in a painting and a drawing I posted earlier. Then again, the back cover of Spasm! is reprinted, with the J-cartouche right-side up, in The Art of Jeffrey Jones (Underwood Books, 2002). So…
Look There: More Comics Stories with Art by Alex Toth
Here are the links, listed in order of first publication of the stories themselves:
“Toreador from Texas,” Danger Trail #2 (DC, September-October 1950).
“Too Many Suspects,” Green Lantern vol. 1, # 37 (National Comics Publications: March-April 1949), as reprinted in Detective Comics #440 (DC, April-May 1974).
“The Bandidos,” Zorro #9 (Dell, March-May 1960).
“Dangerous Competition,” The Frogmen #5 (Dell, May-July 1963).
“Vision of Evil,” Eerie #2 (Warren, March 1966).
“Eternal Hour,” The Witching Hour #1 (DC, February-March 1969).
“ComputERR,” The Witching Hour #8 (DC, May 1970).
“Mask of the Red Fox,” House of Mystery #187 (DC, July-August 1970).
“The Mark of the Witch,” The Witching Hour #11 (DC, October-November 1970).
“Bride of the Falcon,” The Sinister House of Secret Love # 3 (National Periodical Publications, March 1972).
“Black Canary,” Adventure Comics #418 (DC: April 1972) & #419 (DC, May 1972).
“Death Flies the Haunted Sky,” Detective Comics #442 (DC, August-September 1974).
“Daddy and the Pie,” Eerie #64 (Warren, March 1975), as reprinted in UFO and Alien Comix (Warren, January 1978). And if you don’t like that scan, try this one.
“Chennault Must Die!” Savage Combat Tales #2 (Atlas, April 1975).
“The Question,” The Charlton Bullseye #5 (CPL/Gang Publications, March-April 1976).
“39/74,” Witzend #10 (Bill Pearson, 1976).
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Click here for another short list of links to “Comics Stories with Art by Alex Toth” available on the Web.
Look Here, Read: “Synchrony” by Jon Jay Muth
Here’s another early, heavily Jones-influenced* story by Jon Jay Muth:
What is it about death at the hands of “La belle Dame sans merci” that the young Romantic finds so alluring? Depends on what you mean by “death,” I suppose. But the Romantic goes further, conflating “la petit morte d’Holophernes” with “Le Morte d’Holophernes,” even though common sense says the two are drastically different things. Is common sense the enemy of art? At the very least, it would appear to be the enemy of Romanticism, new as well as old.
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* If I had to guess, I would say that comic artist and illustrator, Barry Windsor-Smith, who has drawn and painted numerous pictures over the years of historical and mythological women holding, fondling, and kissing the severed heads of young men, and who was himself a prominent member of the “New Romantic Brotherhood” of the late 1970s and early 1980s, was also a proximate influence on “Synchrony.”
Here, Read: “A Recollecting Remembrance” by Jeffrey Jones
On offer this time round at RCN is a touching concatenation of fragile biographical reminiscences rescued from Jeffrey Jones’s former Web site; the header of the HTML source lists a “publicationdate” of “122197” (December 21, 1997) and a “version” date of “12.20.2003” (December 20, 2003). Since the piece is a bit too long to display comfortably, in its entirety, in-line with my other blog entries, please click here to jump to a separate blog page that includes the full text of “A Recollecting Remembrance” by Jeffrey Jones.
Look Here: Three more paperback covers by Jeffrey Jones
Jones really began to hit his stride as a skilled cover artist with a distinctive stylistic sensibility in the early 1970s:
Look Here: Four more early paperback covers by Jeffrey Jones
I don’t much care for any of these covers from 1968 and 1969, but since I have yet to break out of the collector/completist mentality — and believe me, I’ve tried — here they are, scanned and posted for your “enjoyment”:
To make up for the lacklustre art this time round, my next post will feature two covers by Jones from the early 1970s that I think are very strong, along with one that I have mixed feelings about, so stay tuned for that!
Look Here, Read: “The Return” by Jon Jay Muth
From Epic Illustrated #24 (June 1984), here’s “The Return,” by Jon Jay Muth:
Has Muth’s early work in comics ever been reprinted? Not that I know of, and it’s a damn shame, too!
Look Here: Jon Jay Muth’s Portrait of Jeffrey Jones
Like it? Enough to buy it? If your answers are yes, and yes, you’re in luck, because the current owner has it listed for sale at US$600. Contact information is available on this Comic Art Fans page.
Look Here, Read: Two short stories by Jon Jay Muth
From Epic Illustrated #12 (June 1982), here are “Small Gifts” and “Pursuit” by Jon Jay Muth:
Rightly or wrongly, I have long thought of Muth’s style at the beginning his career, when he drew the above stories, as “School of Jeffrey Jones.” There are, however, definite similarities between Muth’s painting style and palette and Alan Lee’s watercolour illustrations of the late 1970s* and beyond; so much so that it wouldn’t surprise me if Lee’s work was also, as much as Jeffrey Jones’s, an influence on the “look” of “Small Gifts” and, especially, “Pursuit.”
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* The first edition of Faeries by Lee, Froud, et al., appeared in 1978.
Ragged Claws Network 