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 comic book illustrators in that they produce both the literary and ...

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. The penciller creates a drawing, the inker outlines, interprets, finalizes, retraces this drawing by using a pencil ...

on ''

The Sandman The Sandman is a mythical character in European folklore who puts people to sleep and encourages and inspires beautiful dreams by sprinkling magical sand onto their eyes. Representation in traditional folklore The Sandman is a traditional charact ...

'', 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, usually in collaboration with other artists, who provide inks, colors ...

s such as

Mike Dringenberg Mike Dringenberg (born ) is an American comics artist best known for his work on DC Comics/Vertigo's ''Sandman'' series with writer Neil Gaiman. Early life Mike Dringenberg was born in Laon, France and raised in Germany before moving to the Un ...

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 is an American writer-artist and cartoonist. She illustrated hundreds of comics, graphic novels, books and magazines, including the autobiographical graphic novel of Marvel Comics editor and writer Stan Lee entitled ''Amazing Fant ...

. He was also known for inking

Denys Cowan Denys B. 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 ...

'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, New York State, United States. Founded in 1936 as the School of Industrial Art, the school moved to 1075 Second Avenue in 1960 and mor ...

with future

Milestone Media Milestone Media is a company best known for creating Milestone Comics, which were published and distributed by DC Comics and the ''Static Shock'' animated series. It was founded in 1993 by a coalition of African-American artists and writers, con ...

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), itself formed in 1999, and is regularly recog ...

. 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 ( uk, Денис) 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 wit ...

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 (state), New York. It has a satellite campus in Manhattan and an extension campus in Utica, New York at the Munson-Williams-Proctor Arts Institute. The school was ...

."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, ), though since 2007, his son Boris Kousemaker is the current owner. From 1968 to 2015, it was located ...

. 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 in ...

'' #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 the Dy ...

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

story for ''

Marvel Comics Presents ''Marvel Comics Presents'' was an American comic book anthology series published by Marvel Comics originally from 1988 to 1995. It returned for a second volume in 2007–2008, and a third volume that started in 2019. Volume 1 The first volume ...

'', 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 creators American comics creators American comics artists Artists who committed suicide Comics inkers Pratt Institute alumni High School of Art and Design alumni 1996 suicides 20th-century African-American people {{US-comics-artist-stub