Ragged Claws Network

The original reproduction on many of the following covers by Jeffrey Jones, all from the library of yours truly, was very poor, so my scans are sometimes not the best here. One exception is the last cover, Twilight of the Serpent, which actually showcases Jones’s artwork in more detail and with more lively colour than does the rather dour reproduction on the back cover of publisher Underwood-Miller’s lavish hardcover, The Art of Jeffrey Jones.

My favourites this time around are the covers for The Curse of Rathlaw (1968), an early effort in which Jones’s attractive design for the vignette is nicely reinforced by the typography, and Twilight of the Serpent (1977), a later cover which displays Jones’s hard-won skills as a draftsman (or draughtsman, if you prefer), mastery of lost-and-found edges in oil painting, and increasing willingness in the 1970s and early 1980s to produce images that went against the grain of traditional heroic fantasy.

The following cover by Jones is from the Skywald horror magazine, Nightmare, volume 1, number 6 (December 1971):

Jones’s Scheherazade graced the cover of the Styx #2 back in 1973 (37 years ago!):

Styx was published by Winnipeg’s own Joseph Krolik, who was very active in fandom beginning in the mid-to-late 1960s, when he and a buddy, Andris Taskans, both in high school at the time, started a club called “The Science Fiction Fans & Comic Collectors of Winnipeg” and published a “clubzine” called Universe that ran for seven issues.

Even though I don’t much care for any of the above covers, I have decided to include them here anyway for what they reveal about Jones’s slow but steady development as an artist.

Here’s one of a signed-and-numbered edition of fifty prints, published by Idyl Impress in 1977, that were hand-coloured with watercolour by Jeffrey Jones. It is followed by the uncoloured version, which was published the same year by Idyl Impress in a signed-and-numbered edition of 1200:

You can view the printed version, with the title stripped in, here; it’s third from the top.

Jeffrey Jones, Fantasy, Science Fiction, Illustrator, Artist — this new site with its own domain name (www.jeffreyjones-art.com) has all the content from the old official Jeffrey Jones Web site (www.ulster.net/~jonesart/), slightly reorganized, with some new additions (see, for example, the expanded “autobiography” section) and a new design template.

The new site even includes a quotation from yours truly about Jones’s landscape paintings. Cool (although if the Webmaster of the Jones site is reading this, please delete the word “is” that appears immediately before the word “consists”; it’s a typo that I have today corrected in the original post).

Thanks to Greg for the heads up!

Todd Adams of Glimmer Graphics has a beautiful new limited edition print by Jeffrey Jones available for purchase on his company’s Web site. “I have published over 50 fine art prints through the years,” writes Todd, “and this is the finest print quality I have seen to date.” Here’s a link to the order page. And here’s a copy of the image Todd sent out to promote the print:

Jones created the above painting for Meisha Merlin Publishing’s deluxe limited edition of the first book in George R. R. Martin’s “A Song of Fire & Ice” epic. The new Glimmer Graphics print is comprised of 375 signed and numbered copies, as well as 25 artist proof copies, all on 500 g/m² acid-free, ultra-smooth paper. Sheet size is 22 x 16 inches, with an image size of 19 x 12.5 inches.

BONUS LINK:

Work in Progress: The A Game of Thrones Cover by Jeffrey Jones

Yes, there are some serious creases and wear marks on some of the covers, but it is difficult to find pristine copies of thirty-nine-year-old-plus paperbacks, especially when one limits one’s search to local bookstores:

I don’t really like any of the above covers, with the exception, perhaps, of the Uncharted Stars cover, which I feel is a step up from the others in terms of draftsmanship, composition, technique, originality, and wit.

In a recent reply to my blog entry entitled Call and Response: Franz Von Stuck and Jeffrey Jones, a reader suggested that I should “take a look at Jeff Jones’ ‘Chastity’ painting from 1978 and Bastien-LePage’s ‘Jeanne d’Arc’ (or ‘Joan of Arc’) from the late 1800s. The female figure’s pose was taken directly from the famous Symbolist/Naturalist painting hanging in NYC’s Metropolitan Museum of Art.”

So, having a longstanding interest in the channels, permutations, and anxieties of influence, I immediately went and took a look, and now I’m here to say, if you’re a Jeffrey Jones fan, I think you should take a look, too. Thus, this post…

However, not to be outdone in the “spot the visual allusion” game, I’ve added the image of a second famous work that I think shaped Jones’s interesting-though-not-entirely-successful little painting just as much as, if not more than, Bastien-LePage’s obsessively detailed work.

From The Witching Hour #14 (April-May 1971), with art by Jeffrey Jones and script by Gerry Conway:

The last panel on the last page wasn’t drawn by Jeffrey Jones, obviously.

From Creepy #16 (August 1967), pages 21 to 26, with script by Archie Goodwin and art by Jeffrey Jones:

From Vampirella #5 (June 1970), a story written and drawn by Jeffrey Jones:

In a previous “Look Here” post, I uploaded a series of photos of a painting in progress by Jeffrey Jones along with a photo of the small sculpture of a caveman (also by Jones) which provided the figure reference for said painting. In response to that post, in which I said that I wished the images were larger, RCN reader, Patrick Hill, kindly offered to send me a larger photo of the sculpture. Of course, I immediately accepted Patrick’s offer, and a very short time later, what to my wondering eyes should appear in my email box but a series of detailed views of not one but two sculptures by Jeffrey Jones (all photographs by Patrick Hill; click images to enlarge, as usual):

And as if that weren’t enough, along with the terrific photographs displayed above, Patrick also provided the following historical/contextual information:

There were three distinct castings of this GIRL sculpture. The first was a group of ~10 that Jones gave to various individuals to advertise his capabilities or as gifts of gratitude. These were cast in actual plaster in 1970 and were signed by Jeff in ballpoint pen.

The second casting was an edition of ~100 in Vatican Stone (which is less brittle/more durable than plaster), signed by Jones in ballpoint pen, also from 1970. Several of these were damaged in shipping to customers, so the quantity of undamaged pieces is less than the edition of 100.

The third casting (the one in the first few photos), also in Vatican Stone, was prepared in 1976, and was marketed by Robert Weiner via his TKII imprint. The third series was also of ~100, but was not signed.

All versions were cast and hand-finished by Jones.

The caveman was merely a casting of 100 in Vatican Stone, hand-finished by Jones. Jones posed for the man and did the girl from his head…

My favourite details: (1) Jones signed two editions of castings in ballpoint pen, (2) Jones himself was the model for the caveman sculpture, and (3) Jones produced the sculpture of the girl from imagination.

In conclusion, thanks again, Patrick, for enabling those of us who will probably never get to hold one of Jones’s little sculptures in their hands to examine two of those works from a variety of angles, up close and personal, as it were. Your contribution to RCN is much appreciated!