JG Jones has been one of the comic book industry’s most popular artists for over two decades, doing covers for such series as Y: The Last Man, First Wave, Doc Savage, Mister Terrific, and Villains United, as well as collaborating with some of the best writers in the medium including Wanted with Mark Millar, Black Widow,with Devin K. Grayson , Marvel Boy and Final Crisis with Grant Morrison, Wonder Woman: The Hiketeia with Greg Rucka, Strange Fruit with Mark Waid, and Before Watchmen: Comedian with Brian Azzarello.
For the past few years Jones has been focusing on his health after receiving a challenging diagnosis. Now, with a variant Vampirella cover coming from Dynamite, JG was generous to take some time to chat with FOG! about his health, his art, and his inevitable return to comics.
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FOG!: For those readers that are unfamiliar with your health situation, can you tell people about your experiences with MPN?
JG Jones: Sure, I guess I can start off with a little explanation. MPN’s are Myoproliferative Neoplasms, a suite of diseases that affect the bone marrow and the production of the blood cells, red, white, and platelets. I was first diagnosed over a decade ago with one of these diseases, Polycythemia Vera, in which the bone marrow is sort of stuck in the ‘ON’ mode, and makes too many blood cells and platelets. This can cause a lot of damage in the body, and there is a constant threat of thrombosis, heart attack, stroke…basically any problem you can imagine super thick blood would cause. Luckily, it was pretty easy to treat, and I was fairly stable for a long time with phlebotomies and just one drug.
You battled MPN for several years before taking a break to focus on your health. How is your recovery going?
Eventually my Polycythemia Vera transformed into Myelofibrosis, and I had the opposite problem: my blood numbers began to crash and now my marrow was so full of scar tissue from being overworked, that now it couldn’t make enough blood products. I couldn’t just skate along with minimal treatment, at this point, an I got on the donor list for a stem cell transplant to replace my failing marrow.
J.G. Jones’ self portrait for the Rare Reflections: MPNs Unmasked project (Image credit: J. G. Jones / Incyte)
I had the transplant about two and a half years ago, and it has been a slow, bumpy, but steady recovery since then. I’m happy to say that I’m back at work full time, despite receiving treatment for chronic Graft VS Host disease.
You managed to do some cover work during your recuperation. Was it nice to get back to the drawing table?
It was one of the things (besides my wife, Dawn) that kept me going. I wanted to get better and get back to work as quickly as possible. Cover work seemed the easier way to go, since I didn’t have the grind of months deadlines with interior work.
Now, in addition to the cover work, I’m also working on a new Original Graphic Novel that I’ve written with my friend, Phil Bram (stay tuned).
You’ve also been working on a series of paintings, ‘Rare Reflections: MPNs Unmasked’. How are these being used to promote awareness?
It’s been such a treat to work on this awareness campaign for Voices Of MPNs. I have been interviewing a number of patients with an MPN and sharing their personal stories along with a painted portrait of each person by yours truly.
I’ve really enjoyed getting to know each of the people highlighted by the campaign. I’m working on some new interviews and portraits now, as we continue to shed light on they suite of rare diseases.
Dynamite is currently running a campaign with a Vampirella variant cover painted by you with 100% of the proceeds of this limited edition going to you. Currently the campaign is over 1300% of the goal. What has this meant to you?
It has really been great to be able to get back to painting and working again. Now that I have been back and working on covers for a while, I wanted to up my game and present some covers rendered in oils. Dynamite has helped me to highlight this cover and generate the eyeballs and interest in my work, letting folks who weren’t aware of the fact know that I’m back and ramping up to be more fierce than ever. I really appreciate that.
Prior to doing the cover, were you a fan of Vampirella?
I have always love the beautiful Vampirella artwork in the old Warren Publishing books, Eerie, Creepy, and Vampirella. Artist like José González, Rudy Nebres, José Ortiz, and a number of other fantastic artists worked on that book, and their work influenced my own. I was looking at some of the great Sanjulien covers for Vampirella, and that inspired me to try my hand at it. As for Vapirella herself, she is so much fun to draw and paint. She’s strong, sexy, and has a fierce character that makes her appealing to illustrate.
When you come back to sequential art, do you have any dream projects you’d like to do?
I have actually already begun work on my next continuity project, the OGN I mentioned earlier. I’m really excited to be doing this book, and I think that it may be my best work yet.
Between recovering and the pandemic, what have you been geeking out over?
I have been reading a lot. Between history books, I geek out with novels by Martha Wells, Richard Kadrey, Ann Leckie, Tamsyn Muir, and Nnedi Okorafor. I’ve also been reading some comics series and graphic novels: Deadly Class, Matt Fraction, everything by Brubaker and Phillips, there’s too much good stuff to mention it all.
As for television, I’ve been catching up on stuff like The Boys, The Umbrella Academy, which is utterly brilliant, The Expanse (also brilliant), there’s lots of stuff in my ‘to watch’ list that I’ve not gotten to yet.
Thanks for doing this and wishing you good health!
Thanks so much for the interest! I’m happy to do this.
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