Jim Royal was born James Elmore Royal III in Montgomery, Alabama, but spend the greater part of his youth in Pensacola, Florida. He later lived in Charlotte, North Carolina, Macon, Georgia and Pasadena, California, before settling in Atlanta. While he was living in Macon, he was a member of Tony Harris’ Jolly Roger Studio.

He began his comic career in 1989 inking the story, THE DARK RETURN, in FEMFORCE #19. Through his association with Joe Pruett, and later with Andrew Robinson, he spent the early 90's working on projects for the NEGATIVE BURN anthology and honing his craft. Other titles that he worked on during this period were WILL TO POWER, DARK HORSE PRESENTS, BARB WIRE, and DIRTY PAIR. This early association with Dark Horse Comics led to a significant amount of his resume consisting of various STAR WARS comics from 2000-2001. In the latter part of the 90’s, Jim’s work also appeared in the short-lived PENTHOUSE COMIX publication.

From the year 2000 and beyond, much of his work was for DC Comics. His DC credits include BIRDS OF PREY, JSA, TRANSMETROPOLITAN, WILDCATS, ADVENTURES OF SUPERMAN, ACTION COMICS, DETECTIVE COMICS, JUSTICE LEAGUE ELITE and UNLIMITED, LAZARUS 5, BATMAN: SHADOW OF THE BAT, ARKHAM ASYLUM: LIVING HELL and the GREEN LANTERN, DC ONE MILLION and SUPERMAN 80-PAGE GIANT specials. Royal also did a run on THE SPECTRE from 2001-2002.

There were also a couple of Marvel projects that Royal inked: MARVEL KNIGHTS: 4 in 2005 and ALL-NEW OFFICIAL HANDBOOK OF THE MARVEL UNIVERSE A-Z in 2006.

Jim loved comics and a large part of the comic book community loved Jim. He died on February the 6th, 2009. Had he lived, April the 30th, 2009 would have been his 39th birthday.