Ep. 61: KELLEY JONES After Midnight

We started to title this "Keeping Up with the Jones", but thought better of it...

Back in 1988, artist Kelley Jones got people's attention when he started doing Deadman stories in Action Comics Weekly. The way he interpreted the character was completely different from how he'd been done in the past. It was quite odd at the time.

Up until then, Neal Adams' version was considered the most popular, but even Neal's was still fairly conventional. Kelley took Deadman and drew him all skeletal and emaciated—turned in on himself, he likes to call it. It was a brave experiment that absolutely worked. Fans (and editors) began clamouring for more as they realized they had something and someone, special on their hands.

Jones went on to shake things up on Neil Gaiman's Sandman, another Deadman project with Mike Baron ("Love After Death") and many a Batman graphic novel with his long-time collaborator Doug Moench. Oh yeah, and let's not forget the man's three year stint doing the monthly Batman series with Moench and inker John Beatty (over 36 issues in a row, I believe).

In our talk with Lil' Kel, we cover all of the above, his passion for the comics medium, some talented friends like Sam Keith, Marshall Rogers and Steve Niles, and of course his recent return to Batman with Niles on Gotham After Midnight.

Before we go though, allow Dwight and I to end things with something cryptic. There's a special reunion that takes place on this one, but you'll have to tune in to find out what that is! It's worth it, we promise. Embarrassing as hell, but worth it!

**For this episode, we played a snippet of Peter Gabriel's Red Rain in honor of Kelley's first Batman project with Doug.