CHRISTOPHER JONES, Penciller for BATMAN STRIKES, Part 2

BAT-BLOG ~ When did you 1st think, "I wanna be a comic book artist"?

CHRIS ~ I've got drawings from when I was four or five years old featuring Batman and other heroes, and I would make up crude comic books with full-page crayon drawings telling stories that are pretty incomprehensible now. I think I've always wanted to grow up and draw comics. I drew a weekly comics feature for our local newspaper when I was 10 years old, and did some other amateur work through my teens. My first professional gig was providing art for Street Heroes 2005 for Eternity Comics in 1989 when I was twenty.

BAT-BLOG ~ Did you have any favorite artists from that time period who really inspired you?

CHRIS ~ I grew up loving Neal Adams, John Byrne, Gil Kane, Jack Kirby, Michael Golden and others. When David Mazzuccelli came on the scene - first on Daredevil and then Batman: Year One - he really blew me away. He was someone I actively tried to emulate for a while. Later I got into artists including Alex Toth, Steve Rude, Mike Mignola, Wally Wood, Dick Sprang, Jerry Robbinson, Alan Davis, Bruce Timm and Darwyn Cooke.