Jones and his brother, Desmond, were raised in Detroit, Michigan, and were both active in early comic book fandom.[1] Along with fellow Detroiters and future comics professionals Rich Buckler, Tom Orzechowski, Keith Pollard, Jim Starlin, Al Milgrom, Michael Netzer, and others, Jones worked on the Detroit Triple Fan Fair,[1] one of the earliest comic book conventions, and published the local fanzineFan Informer; it lasted into 1971.[2] Jones in 2006 recalled how he and his compatriots "would take a 13-hour drive and spend the night with Al Milgrom and his roommate, hang at Rich [Buckler]'s, then go see [art director] John RomitaatMarvel, get our butts spanked, and go back to Detroit to work on our samples again."[1]
Jones entered the comics industry as an assistant for Buckler, the first of the Detroit group to enter the field professionally.[1] After helping Buckler on the Black Panther and the Buckler-created cyborgantiheroDeathlok, Jones received his first published credit, for art assistance, along with Pollard, on the Buckler-pencilledThor #228 (cover dated October 1974). He then did pencil "breakdowns"—layouts that break down the plot elements—for all but page one of the 18-page team-up story "The Return of the Living Eraser", starring the Thing and Morbius, the Living Vampire, for Dick Giordano's finished pencils.[3] This eventually ran in Marvel Two-in-One #15 (May 1976).[1] After drawing a spot illustration for the text story "The Atomic Monster" in the Marvel black-and-white horror magazine Monsters Unleashed #9 (Dec. 1974), Jones made his debut as penciller of an 18-page story starring the martial artist superhero Iron FistinMarvel Premiere #20 (January 1975). He also pencilled the next two Iron Fist stories[3] and co-created the supporting character Misty Knight with writer Tony Isabella.[4] Jones also worked on Iron Man starting with issue #73.
Jones worked on the DC series All-Star Squadron in the mid-1980s, penciling the majority of the issues between 1985 and 1987. He left the comics field for several years to work in television,[7][8] and focused on graphic design work.[9] Jones returned to comics in 1994 to pencil Marvel Comics' Captain America Annual #13, and issues of DC/Milestone Media's Kobalt, Hardware, and Blood Syndicate. His last published comic was Marvel's Daredevil #343 (Aug. 1995), on which he and Keith Pollard did breakdowns, with finished pencils by Tom Palmer.[3]
^Lent, John A. (2005). Comic Art of the United States through 2000, Animation and Cartoons: An international Bibliography. Santa Barbara, California: Greenwood Publishing Group (GoogleeBook). p. 50.
^Losinski, Brendan (March 2, 2018). "Harper Woods library to host comic book artist Arvell Jones". C & G Newspapers. Archived from the original on August 2, 2020. Retrieved August 7, 2018. I had some training in the field, attending Cass Tech and the School of Visual Arts in New York, as well as Wayne State University here in Detroit. I concentrated on drawing and painting, and the design aspect came to me as I kept working.
