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Post by DubipR on Sept 21, 2014 16:14:48 GMT -5
Okay, it's not a Louie Malle film, but this happened to yesterday. This is something I did to help out the Hero Initiative, but a comic legend. Russ is 88 and still drawing. Sadly he's not so mobile but I was able to help him out yesterday in getting some items done around the area; getting some groceries, took him to lunch and basically made him a little social. I have to say Russ is truly a great guy. He's got his wits with him and the stories he told.... it was a great few hours hanging out with him. From his time spent living in the Playboy Mansion in Chicago to his animation days, he was happy to regale me with stories. He was also impressed with my knowledge of his stuff and brought up other items he forgot he did. He also dispelled some things that plagued me about his work and some things that were just wacky... It was great doing some charity work and helping out one of my favorite artists. He was a dear guy, a bit ribald in his jokes, and just a plethora of fun. I ask him to sign some stuff and he did. ![]() |
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Post by Deleted on Sept 21, 2014 16:45:44 GMT -5
Wow, that sounds like it was just an awesome experience.
-M
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Post by pinkfloydsound17 on Sept 21, 2014 18:03:30 GMT -5
Elaborate more! I wanna hear tales!
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Post by benday-dot on Sept 21, 2014 18:17:33 GMT -5
Fantastic DR, and well done. Your story brought to mind this neat little strip  |
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Post by fanboystranger on Sept 21, 2014 18:43:17 GMT -5
Great thread for one of my favorites. Russ is definitely one of the top five war comic illustraters of all time. (For my money: Kurtzman, Colquehon, Severin, Heath, Kubert... willing to argue...)
One way to support the Hero Initiative (besides direct donation) is to link any purchase you make at Amazon to Amazon Smile. You can choose any charity you'd like. The Hero Initiative is an accepted charity, Even though it's only .05% of every purchase I make, I feel good knowing that the .05% goes to comics creators whose work I've loved.
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Post by Deleted on Sept 21, 2014 18:46:11 GMT -5
Great thread for one of my favorites. Russ is definitely one of the top five war comic illustraters of all time. (For my money: Kurtzman, Colquehon, Severin, Heath, Kubert... willing to argue...) One way to support the Hero Initiative (besides direct donation) is to link any purchase you make at Amazon to Amazon Smile. You can choose any charity you'd like. The Hero Initiative is an accepted charity, Even though it's only .05% of every purchase I make, I feel good knowing that the .05% goes to comics creators whose work I've loved. Add Sam Glanzman to the list and I wouldn't argue it. And thanks for the tip on Amazon Smile. I never knew that, but next purchase will definitely set that up and make sure I do it every time. -M |
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Post by DubipR on Sept 21, 2014 19:10:13 GMT -5
Fantastic DR, and well done. Your story brought to mind this neat little strip I had Russ sign that issue of Hero Comics 2012. |
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Post by DubipR on Sept 21, 2014 19:34:44 GMT -5
Elaborate more! I wanna hear tales! From his Playboy experience, he explained to me that Harvey met with Russ from Will knowing him. He explained how the process when to get each episode done, how they cut up the page from panels and painted them and re-assembled them. Hef would look them over, make his corrections and retouch the pieces. Will championed Russ and Jack Davis over everyone else to get the episodes done. Hef wanted each of these monthly, and Kurtzman was such a perfectionist (like Hef) they clashed when it came down to getting these to print. He told me that he had a few shower experiences with some of the bunnies. "Show them you can draw and you can show them upstairs..." Had me laughing. The one piece he told me was about Jerry Adler when I told him I loved his Sea Devils covers. Adler never ziptoned Russ' covers.... all Russ. For some reason down the road in time, Adler associated him with Russ. Know I don't know what to think about this one..he is 88 but I'll take his word for it. He said his favorite was drawing the war comics due to you didn't have to draw that much background "Can't fuck up rubble" says Russ. Russ never cared for the idea of superheroes; the idea seems preposterous to Russ. He preferred tanglable ideas, like drawing horses, tanks and knowing that your enemy is real. He also said Kanigher was a bit of a hard ass and would change scripts while Russ and the gang went to lunch to see you're paying attention to the action. Russ would look it over and then thought this is BS and didn't add anything; Russ is a firm believer of being in the action; Kanigher would throw in these weird tangent story pieces that didn't belong in the A-storyline. If it didn't progress the story, he didn't draw it. Russ is a ribald guy. He tells old man non-PC humor jokes and loved to show me the artwork of lots of naked women he painted pieces of. So when I brought up his Betty Page pages and his Penthouse Comix stuff, he just said "Hey, I like drawing T&A". Probably one of the highlights of Russ showing me his artwork was that he still had some painted pieces from his late teens/early 20s. I swear, these were nothing short of beautiful. A painting of his first wife, some war pieces when he was 19... incredible stuff. He had original pages from Sgt Rock, his Jonah Hex comic he did a few years back, all sorts of stuff. Some adult pages of stuff that never came to fruition, some National Lampoon work... Books Russ signed: - Hero Comic 2012 - Sea Devils #5 (first SD I bought)  - Jonah Hex #25 - Betty Page Comics - Penthouse Men's Adventure Comix #s 2,3,6,7 - Giant Sized Chillers #1 - Giant Sized Dracula #2 - and some issues of Playboy in which Russ is prominent in painting. |
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Post by DubipR on Sept 21, 2014 19:36:08 GMT -5
Great thread for one of my favorites. Russ is definitely one of the top five war comic illustraters of all time. (For my money: Kurtzman, Colquehon, Severin, Heath, Kubert... willing to argue...) One way to support the Hero Initiative (besides direct donation) is to link any purchase you make at Amazon to Amazon Smile. You can choose any charity you'd like. The Hero Initiative is an accepted charity, Even though it's only .05% of every purchase I make, I feel good knowing that the .05% goes to comics creators whose work I've loved. Add Sam Glanzman to the list and I wouldn't argue it. And thanks for the tip on Amazon Smile. I never knew that, but next purchase will definitely set that up and make sure I do it every time. -M And if you're a Ralph's supermarket shopper, we have a sign up for that as well.... |
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Post by Deleted on Sept 21, 2014 19:43:56 GMT -5
Hmm never heard of Ralph's, but a google search reveals it's a subsidiary of Kroger's, which is where we do the bulk of our grocery shopping.
-M
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Post by DubipR on Sept 21, 2014 19:52:46 GMT -5
Hmm never heard of Ralph's, but a google search reveals it's a subsidiary of Kroger's, which is where we do the bulk of our grocery shopping. -M I'll check if we can link up a Kroger's card to this... I'll let you know next week. |
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Post by Deleted on Sept 21, 2014 19:53:33 GMT -5
Hmm never heard of Ralph's, but a google search reveals it's a subsidiary of Kroger's, which is where we do the bulk of our grocery shopping. -M I'll check if we can link up a Kroger's card to this... I'll let you know next week. Cool, thanks. -M |
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Post by hondobrode on Sept 21, 2014 19:55:06 GMT -5
I'd heard about the Amazon charity thing but didn't know how to do it. Great ! I'll be signing up for the Hero's Initiative.
DR, did you happen to record the conversation? How'd you find out Russ was in your area ?
That's all very, very cool !
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Post by DubipR on Sept 21, 2014 19:59:27 GMT -5
I'd heard about the Amazon charity thing but didn't know how to do it. Great ! I'll be signing up for the Hero's Initiative. DR, did you happen to record the conversation? How'd you find out Russ was in your area ? That's all very, very cool ! No, I should have recorded it. It took place between lunch and his place. As for knowing where Russ lived, I've seen him at a few conventions here. Jim, who runs the Initiative, told me where he was at. |
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Post by hondobrode on Sept 21, 2014 20:03:04 GMT -5
Great thread for one of my favorites. Russ is definitely one of the top five war comic illustraters of all time. (For my money: Kurtzman, Colquehon, Severin, Heath, Kubert... willing to argue...) One way to support the Hero Initiative (besides direct donation) is to link any purchase you make at Amazon to Amazon Smile. You can choose any charity you'd like. The Hero Initiative is an accepted charity, Even though it's only .05% of every purchase I make, I feel good knowing that the .05% goes to comics creators whose work I've loved. Add Sam Glanzman to the list and I wouldn't argue it. And thanks for the tip on Amazon Smile. I never knew that, but next purchase will definitely set that up and make sure I do it every time. -M Colquehon ? European ? I haven't heard of him(?) before. |
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