Russ Jones

Russ Jones (born July 16, 1942 in Ontario) is a Canadian novelist, illustrator, and magazine editor, active in the publishing and entertainment industries over a half-century, best known as the creator of the magazine Creepy for Warren Publishing. As the founding editor of Creepy in 1963, he is notable for a significant milestone in comics history by proving there was a readership eager to read graphic stories in a black-and-white magazine format rather than in a color comic book.

During the mid-1960s, Jones also pioneered the presentation of original comics formatted directly for paperback books, such as Christopher Lee's Treasury of Terror (Pyramid, 1966).

Comics and graphic novels

While in the Marine Corps, Jones worked on Leatherneck magazine. Arriving in New York, he teamed with Wally Wood and Joe Orlando on several comics-related projects, some for Warren Publishing. Jones drew and scripted comic book stories for a variety of publishers, including Marvel, Seaboard, Gold Key, and Charlton. He penciled DC Comics' Mystery in Space, and his slick brush inking provided a polish to many DC romance comics, some inked in collaboration with Bhob Stewart. Jones and Stewart also teamed on scripts and art for Charlton Comics' Ghostly Tales. Jones teamed with penciler Jay Scott Pike as inker on DC's Heart Throbs for the long-running feature "3 Girls—Their Lives—Their Loves," which ran from 1966–1970.