Batman - Carbon Copy Crimes
Jim Mooney began his career in the 1930s Californian science fiction pulp magazine scene, submitting his first drawings to Weird Tales. He attended art school and had several odd jobs before settling in New York City in 1940. It was in New York where he began his career as a comic book artist, during the Golden Age of comics, in 1940. Mooney started at the Eisner-Iger shop, drawing features for Ace and Fox Publications, before landing a six month job as a staffer at Fiction House on features like 'Camilla' and 'Suicide Smith'. Shortly afterwards, he turned freelance and drew some funny animal features for Stan Lee at Timely, but also for the Catholic comic book 'Treasure Chest'.
Jim Mooney found a professional home at DC Comics in 1946 where he stayed for the next 22 years. Mooney worked on many of DC's top-selling characters, such as 'Batman' and 'Superboy' and 'Supergirl', but also on features like 'Dial H for Hero' in House of Mystery and 'Tommy Tomorrow' in Action Comics and World's Finest Comics. His best known work for DC was the 'Supergirl' back-up feature from Action Comics, which he drew from 1959 to 1968. During this period, Mooney lived in Los Angeles, managing an antiquarian book store on the side. He additionally drew for issues of 'Lorna the Jungle Queen' for Atlas Comics in the 1953-54 period.
Monsters on my back, with Gray Morrow (Red Circle Sorcery 11, Archie Comics)
After leaving DC in 1968, he returned to Stan Lee at Marvel as an inker on John Romita's 'Amazing Spider-Man' and John Buscema's 'The Mighty Thor'. He also pencilled stories for 'Peter Parker, the Spectacular Spider-Man' and 'Marvel Team-Up', as well as mini-series like 'Man-Thing' and 'Omega the Unknown'. The Marvel character he remained most associated with remained 'Spider-Man' however, drawing the character for coloring books, the children's series 'Spidey Super Stories' and a 'Spider-Man' feature in the children's magazine The Electric Company.
Amazing Spider-Man
Mooney also drew for the adult-oriented 'The Adventures of Pussycat' by Marvel's sister company Magazine Management Company. Mooney settled in Florida in 1975, where he co-created 'Star Rangers' with Mark Ellis for Adventure Publications and drew 'The Mummy' for Millennium Publications and 'Creepy' for Harris Comics. He has done continuing work on 'Elvira' for Claypool Comics in 1993, and was a regular inker on Peter David's 'Soulsearchers and Company'. Among his final work was inking a retro 'Lady Supreme' story for Awesome Entertainment, and the sole issue of Mark Evanier's 'Flaxen'.
Elvira #14 (1994)