Jeffrey G. Jones used to be a teacher at SUNY/Albany were he was teaching painting. He hadn't read comics in over ten years until his students started bringing in some comics. He decided that painting kinda sucked and he went into comics.

His first break came when he got some sample pages together and took them to a convention. At the convention he showed his work to Jim Shooter, who at that time was setting up Defiant Comics. He hired Jones pretty much on the spot, and he ended up doing some work on Defiant's Dark Dominion series.

After the demise of Defiant, Jones stayed with Jim Shooter and went over to Broadway Comics, working on the Fatale book for him for almost a year. That led into his working for Bill Tucci at Crusade, working on Tomoe, the Shi regular series, and the two part Shi: Black, White and Red mini-series.

After that Jones did the art on the Painkiller Jane/Darkchylde special for Joe Quesada and Jimmy Palmiotti's Event Comics. Quesada and Palmiotti liked his art so much that they offered him to do the Black Widow mini-series for the Marvel Knights imprint at Marvel Comics. The mini-series was a huge success.

J.G. Jones is also the artist on the highly acclaimed Marvel Boy mini-series, written by Grant Morrison for Marvel Knights.

In Early 2002, DC Comics published Wonder Woman: The Hiketeia hardcover graphic novel written by Greg Rucka, for which Jones did the art. But it was when JG hooked up with writer Mark Millar and Top Cow for Wanted, that he hit the next level, and he's still climbing!

(Thanks to the Incomplete JG Jones Checklist for portions of the bio)!

WANTED #2 DF FAN FEST FOIL COVER

DF: How has the Wanted experience and working with Mark Millar changed you?
JG JONES: I'm too old to let some little upstart scamp like Millar change me. I tried to work with the same approach on Wanted that I always use. Storytelling comes first. This was pretty easy with Mark. I didn't have to change much from his script when I was drawing, because he gives the artist pretty much every thing he needs to work with. He has clear, concise storytelling, which is something I like.

DF: How much input did you have in the creation and execution of Wanted?
JG JONES: I feel that I had as much input as I wanted. There were some things in the first version of the script for issue one that I felt were beyond the pale, even for a book like this. I asked the editor and Mark to make a few adjustments and take out a few things that I did not want in the book and that were not important to the story. Mark seemed fine with it, so we moved on from there. I had a lot of freedom in designing the characters. Mark told me what he had in mind for each one, of 'casting' actors in the principle roles. The rest was up to me.

DF: Are there more Wanted stories to tell?
JG JONES: I thought of a few right off the bat. Mark has created an entire universe with an implied back story that could be mined for years. You would have to ask Mark about doing more stories going forward, though. I'm just the artist here.

DF: What extras are you including in the collection?
JG JONES: We are working on that right now, so I don't have a definitive answer for you right now. There will probably be some stuff along the lines of what we included in the Death Row Editions of the single issues. Probably more stuff from Mark as well.

DF: What's the status of selling the series for a feature film?
JG JONES: We sold the film rights to Universal Picture this past summer, so keep your fingers crossed.

DF: Are you excited about DF creating the first-eve wanted statues? Has any of your work ever been translated before into 3-D?
JG JONES: The Yelena version of The Black Widow was made into a toy and that was pretty cool, but this is really awesome. I really like the action pose and it's a kick to see something I designed and drew make it to 3-D.

DF: What projects are you currently working on and what's next?
JG JONES: I'm working on writing a couple of projects of my own and also meeting with the major companies about working on a high profile book in the upcoming year, but nothing is signed yet, so I can't really give out any information just yet. It looks to be a really cool year, though!

DF: How did working with Grant Morrison [on Marvel Boy] compare to working with Mark on Wanted?
JG JONES: I liked working with both of those guys. Both write full script, which I like because it gives me a really clear idea of what the writer wants, even if I have to make changes occasionally. The differences in the look of the art were mostly self-imposed.

I took a more wide open approach to the layouts in Marvel Boy because I felt that it mirrored the kinetic style of Grant's storytelling.

With Wanted, I wanted a more contained, claustrophobic feel, so I mirrored Brian Hitch's all black panel borders and didn't break the panel borders very often. I thought this would also give a sort of "house style" to Mark's projects, which Brian established in Ultimates.

DF: What's your dream assignment at DC? Marvel?
JG JONES: Hmmm. That's not easy. I like the DCU, but I grew up a Marvel kid. I think I'd like to do a big crossover event with Spider-Man, the Fantastic Four, and Wolverine all involved. I pitched a story like that to Marvel right after I did Black Widow, but nobody wanted to let me play with all their toys at the same time.

DF: What's are you reading these days? Listening to? Watching?
JG JONES: I read history mostly. Right now I'm reading Charlie Wilson's War, about the CIA's covert operation in Afghanistan during the Soviet Union's invasion of that country in the 80's. I just finished a couple of books about Burma during WW II, and I'm reading Milton Caniff's Terry and the Pirates and Steve Canyon from the 30's and 40's. Great stuff.

As for comics, I still read 100 Bullets. I've been reading Hawkman and The Question. I also just read the She-Hulk TPB--that was really fun stuff. Loved Juan Bobillo's art, too.

The Incredibles was great, and I'm watching episodes of Samurai Champloo on DVD. If you haven't seen this anime yet, I strongly recommend it. Do yourself a favor and watch Cowboy Bebop first. It's perfect in every way.

Look for more Wanted merchandise and collectibles to come in the following months. In the meantime, pick up a signed copy of JG's Wonder Woman hardcover here.

We'll be back next week with another installment of 5 Minutes With. !