Malcolm Jones III (1959–1996) was an American

comic book artist A cartoonist is a visual artist who specializes in both drawing and writing cartoons (individual images) or comics (sequential images). Cartoonists differ from comics writers or comics illustrators/artists in that they produce both the literary ...

best known as an

inker The inker (sometimes credited as the finisher or embellisher) is one of the two line artists in traditional comic book production. After the penciller creates a drawing with pencil, the inker interprets this drawing by outlining and embellishing ...

on '' The Sandman'', where he added his illustrative line and textures to the work of

penciller A penciller (or penciler) is an artist who works on the creation of comic books, graphic novels, and similar visual art forms, with a focus on the initial pencil illustrations. In the American comic book industry, the penciller is the first step ...

s such as Mike Dringenberg,

Kelley Jones Kelley Jones (born July 23, 1962) is an American comics artist best known for his work on ''Batman'' with writer Doug Moench and on '' The Sandman'' with writer Neil Gaiman. Early life Kelley Jones was born in Sacramento, California and grew up ...

, and

Colleen Doran Colleen Doran (born July 24, 1964) is an American comic book creator, writer-artist and cartoonist. She illustrated hundreds of comics, graphic novels, books and magazines, including the autobiographical graphic novel of Marvel Comics editor and ...

. He was also known for inking

Denys Cowan Denys Cowan (; born January 30, 1961) is an American comics artist, television producer, media executive and one of the co-founders of Milestone Media. Early life Denys Cowan was first inspired by superheroes as a child from reruns of the 1950s T ...

's pencils on '' The Question''.

Early life

Jones attended the

High School of Art and Design The High School of Art and Design is a career and technical education high school in Manhattan, New York City. Founded in 1936 as the School of Industrial Art, the school moved to 1075 Second Avenue in 1960 and more recently, its Midtown Manha ...

with future

Milestone Media Milestone Media Company LLC is the media company which created the Milestone Comics line, which were published and distributed by DC Comics. Milestone Media created the source material that was adapted as the '' Static Shock'' animated series. T ...

co-founder Michael Davis.Davis, Michael (August 8, 2008)
"Milestone: If You're Not There, You Just Won't Get It: Straight No Chaser"

ComicMix IDW Publishing is an American publisher of comic books, graphic novels, art books, and comic strip collections. It was founded in 1999 as the publishing division of Idea and Design Works, LLC (IDW) and is recognized as the fifth-largest comic ...

. Quote: "I knew (we all knew) that Malcolm was a troubled soul and I’m sad to say that when he committed suicide a few years ago I was not that surprised.

Denys Denys () is both a form of the given name Denis and a patronymic surname. Amongst others, it is a transliteration of the common Ukrainian name ''Денис''. Closely related forms are ''Denijs'' and ''Dénys''. Notable people with the name includ ...

and I would often talk about how to deal with Malcolm and reached out to him many times. That does little to erase the feeling that we somehow let our friend down." Later, he graduated from

Pratt Institute Pratt Institute is a private university with its main campus in Brooklyn, New York. It has an additional campus in Manhattan and an extension campus in Utica, New York at the Munson-Williams-Proctor Arts Institute. The institute was founded in 18 ...

."Malcolm Jones III"
Kees Kousemaker's

Lambiek Comiclopedia Galerie Lambiek is a Dutch comic book store and art gallery in Amsterdam, founded on November 8, 1968 by Kees Kousemaker (, – Bussum, ). His son Boris Kousemaker has been the owner since 2007. From 1968 to 2015, it was located in the Ke ...

. Retrieved February 11, 2012.

Career

Jones made his professional comics debut inking Dennis Yee's pencils on "Cheap Labor", one of four stories in the DC Comics anthology comic book ''

New Talent Showcase ''Showcase'' is a comic anthology series published by DC Comics. The general theme of the series was to feature new and minor characters as a way to gauge reader interest in them, without the difficulty and risk of featuring untested characters i ...

'' #15 (March 1985). His first regular job was as the inker on DC's ''

Young All-Stars The Young All-Stars are a team of fictional DC Comics superheroes. They were created by Roy Thomas, Dann Thomas, and Michael Bair, and introduced in ''Young All-Stars'' #1, dated June 1987. The team members Tsunami, Neptune Perkins, and Dan th ...

'' #1-20, in addition to ''Young All-Stars Annual'' #1 (1988) (though he did not ink issue #17). He also pencilled his own work, including a

Spider-Man Spider-Man is a superhero in American comic books published by Marvel Comics. Created by writer-editor Stan Lee and artist Steve Ditko, he first appearance, first appeared in the anthology comic book ''Amazing Fantasy'' #15 (August 1962) in ...

story for ''

Marvel Comics Presents ''Marvel Comics Presents'' is an American comic book anthology title that was published in three series by Marvel Comics: from 1988 to 1995; 2007 to 2008; and in 2019. Volume 1 The first volume was released on a bi-weekly basis and lasted for ...

'', and the unpublished ''Coldblood'' mini-series for Marvel Comics.

Death

Jones died by suicide in 1996.

References

External links

* 1959 births 1996 deaths African-American comics artists American comics artists Artists who died by suicide Comics inkers Pratt Institute alumni High School of Art and Design alumni 1996 suicides 20th-century African-American people {{US-comics-artist-stub