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by James Harvey  No stranger to the “animated comics” line of DC Comics, now dubbed
Johnny DC, Christopher Jones has become a recognized name in the
industry. The current artist for The Batman Strikes!, the comic based on
the hit series The Batman, Jones has found himself working in a whole
new style, much different than what he’s worked on in the past. With the
first year of the title almost over, Jones reflects on the visual style
that accompanies this bold new take on the Dark Knight.DC will be releasing some of your "lost" Justice League Adventures stories in the upcoming months in the current Justice League Unlimited comic. Any thoughts on these stories finally seeing the light of day after so many years? I'm DELIGHTED that these are finally being published! I got paid for them when they were first done, but when you tell a story you want it to reach an audience! I can't wait to have a copy of the finished comic in my hand and to hear feedback from readers!  The first one up is a story focusing on Wonder Woman and the Royal
Flush Gang, the second focusing on Booster Gold and Blue Beetle. Do you
remember working on these stories and, if so, can you provide any
specific details on how your approached them? If you worked on them
today, would you approach them any differently?I vividly remember both, especially the Beetle/Booster story as it was written by Keith Giffen and was one of the most enjoyable scripts I've ever worked on! It broke my heart when that story was shelved. The Royal Flush Gang story was written and drawn before the Royal Flush Gang appeared on the TV show, so it's a different line-up for the Gang than appeared in the TV episode. The Beetle/Booster story features the Demolition Team, an old bunch of Green Lantern villains who are essentially evil construction workers. Gotta love Keith Giffen. I don't know that I'd approach them differently today, other than that I think I draw better now. But there's some pretty good stuff in there, especially in the Beetle/Booster story. I'm looking forward to seeing them!   The Johnny DC titles contain twenty pages or story, but you worked on these two issues when twenty-two pages were still the norm for these titles. Do you know what DC will be doing to accommodate their new page count? Are you worried anything will be lost? These stories were done for Justice League Adventures four years ago when the stories were 22 pages long, and Justice League Unlimited and all the current Johnny DC titles are only 20 pages, so the stories will be trimmed by two pages. Nothing I can do about it. It's beyond my control. If it was up to me, I'd lose a page or two of in-house ads to print the complete story, but apparently there's some internal bureaucracy that prevents that. When the issues come out and I know what cuts have been made, I'll post the missing pages on my web site for anyone who wants to read them!  Outside of these two issues, do you have any other Justice League Adventures, or any other DC Animated stories, waiting for print?These two are the only stories I've done for DC that have been hiding in a drawer somewhere. If people just can't get enough of my work, they can look for a fill-in issue I'll be drawing (#3) of Gargoyles: Bad Guys for IDW. It's a spin-off from Disney's Gargoyles, and is written by Gargoyles creator Greg Weisman. Greg is always quick to point out that there was a whole team of talented people who developed the show and he doesn't like to claim sole creator credit, but he's not here right now, so I can call him whatever I want. Greg asked me to do the fill-in and I couldn't say no. Ironically, part of the story is set in Paris and features Notre Dame Cathedral, which was the primary setting for the FIRST story I did with Greg, which was something of an unofficial Captain Atom/Gargoyles crossover in JLA 80-Page Spectacular #1. The World’s Finest would like to thank Christopher Jones for
his participation in this Q & A. To find out more about Christopher Jones, please
visit his official website. |