Bruce Eliot Jones (born 1946)[1] whose pen names include Philip Roland and Bruce Elliot, is an American comic book writer, novelist, illustrator, and screenwriter whose work included writing Marvel Comics' The Incredible Hulk from 2001 to 2005.
Biography
Early career
Jones broke into comics in 1969 when he moved to New York City from his native Kansas City, Missouri, looking for work as a comics artist. He made his professional debut with Major Publications' black-and-white horror-comics magazine Web of Horror #3 (cover dated April 1970), writing and drawing the six-page story "Point of View".[2] Jones then wrote for Warren Publishing's black-and-white horror-comics Creepy and Eerie, and, under the pseudonym Philip Roland, for rival Skywald Publications' line.[3] During this time he wrote his first novel, The Contestants (Bee-Line, 1970).
During this time, Eclipse published the four-issue limited series The Twisted Tales of Bruce Jones, with stories and almost all the artwork by Jones himself.[7]
Later career
Jones wrote artist Richard Corben's Rip in Time five-issue miniseries (1986–1987), published by Fantagor Press. By the early 1990s, Jones had shifted to screenwriting, working on HBO's The Hitchhiker TV series and several television movies with writing partner and now-wife April Campbell Jones.[8] He also wrote a series of thriller novels including Sprinter, Maximum Velocity, and Game Running. From 1990 to 1992, Jones took over as writer of the newspaper comic stripFlash Gordon, then drawn by Ralph Reese, occasionally assisted by Gray Morrow.[9] He returned to Kansas City with his wife and children in 2000 and wrote two more novels, Still Life and Death Rites, under the pseudonym Bruce Elliot.
In 2001, he was contacted by Marvel editor Axel Alonso, with whom Jones had worked when Alonso was at rival company DC Comics. Alonso offered him a job scripting the then-floundering comic The Incredible Hulk.[10][11] Sales of the title rose significantly,[10] and in 2003, Jones noted that he planned to stay on as Hulk writer "until they [Marvel] throw me off".[10] However, the following year he signed a two-year contract with rival company DC Comics. In the interim, he scripted the five-issue series Call of Duty: The Precinct #1–5, a naturalistic drama about the New York City Police Department.
^ abcAaron, Jason (July 2003). "Twisted tales and a green giant". KC Active. Archived from the original on July 21, 2012. Retrieved February 4, 2006.
^Manning, Matthew K.; Gilbert, Laura, eds. (2008). "2000s". Marvel Chronicle A Year by Year History. London, United Kingdom: Dorling Kindersley. p. 310. ISBN978-0756641238. Creating a lengthy run to rival J. Michael Straczynski over on The Amazing Spider-Man and Brian Michael Bendis on Daredevil, writer Bruce Jones reinvented the green goliath with a modern, cinematic approach.
