Jim Janes started out in 1972 as the illustrator of the second issue of George DiCaprio's underground comic book Greaser Comics for Rip Off Press. He contributed a story of 'The Many Ghosts of Dr. Graves' by Charlton Comics in the following year and subsequently appeared occasionally in the Warren magazines Eerie, 1984 and The Rook Magazine.

He worked more frequently for DC Comics in the early 1980s on titles like 'The Unexpected', 'The Superman Family', 'Ghosts', 'Superman', 'House of Mystery' and 'The Legion of Super-Heroes' before disappearing off the comics radar around 1983. He was a character designer and storyboarder for many classic show such as Spiderman, Ghost Busters,The Hulk, Fantastic Four, Biker Mice from Mars,x-Men, Batman the animated series,Gi Joe,Peter Pan and the Pirates, Inspector Gadget, Karate Kid, Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles, Denver The Dinosaur, The Inhumanoids, Robotix & Bigfoot, Barbie and The rockers, Jem, Conan, Voltron,Sherlock Holmes and the The Avengers to name a few.