The Combat Art of Russ Heath
Saturday, 3. March 2007, 07:06:21
RUSS HEATH
Russ Heath is most famous for his meticulously drawn combat stories and in particular his Sgt. Rock and other war stories for DC. The samples I found and edited here are not the best of his work in any sense and I will try to find some works that show not only his keen eye for technical detail but his skill at expressing the emotion of his characters as well. The first image is from his Sgt. Rock and is the best example of the lot of what his story telling and artistic skill were like at their apex.
Joe Kubert did the most famous Sgt. Rock stories I suppose. His style was very different and less detailed than Heath’s but Kubert was a master illustrator as well who worked with brush more and Heath seemed to prefer pen and ink in a painstaking cross hatch style. I am going to do a post with the combat work of Kubert, Heath and John Severin side by side soon. Outside DC he did work for Timely and Atlas, some Marvel and even some work for Warren Magazine. He did some superb stories for Warren’s short lived but highly acclaimed Blazing Combat. I actually found a sample and posted it above under two pages from The Nam.
Included as a little treat is his most famous work that any reader of comics of the late 60’s and early 70’s had to have seen on the back cover… his 132 Roman soldiers for $2.25. I just knew as a kid the figures could not be as cool as that ad but I always wanted them anyway.
Russ Heath is most famous for his meticulously drawn combat stories and in particular his Sgt. Rock and other war stories for DC. The samples I found and edited here are not the best of his work in any sense and I will try to find some works that show not only his keen eye for technical detail but his skill at expressing the emotion of his characters as well. The first image is from his Sgt. Rock and is the best example of the lot of what his story telling and artistic skill were like at their apex.
Joe Kubert did the most famous Sgt. Rock stories I suppose. His style was very different and less detailed than Heath’s but Kubert was a master illustrator as well who worked with brush more and Heath seemed to prefer pen and ink in a painstaking cross hatch style. I am going to do a post with the combat work of Kubert, Heath and John Severin side by side soon. Outside DC he did work for Timely and Atlas, some Marvel and even some work for Warren Magazine. He did some superb stories for Warren’s short lived but highly acclaimed Blazing Combat. I actually found a sample and posted it above under two pages from The Nam.
Included as a little treat is his most famous work that any reader of comics of the late 60’s and early 70’s had to have seen on the back cover… his 132 Roman soldiers for $2.25. I just knew as a kid the figures could not be as cool as that ad but I always wanted them anyway.
WIDGETIZE
Anonymous # 7. March 2007, 22:32
Wow, I never heard of this guy. There are a couple of masterpieces here, I think. That lead image of the man over the map is really great. The shading on "Give and Take" is incredible, and there's that disturbing cover of GI Combat where the planes are going straight down. The color composition on that one is really interesting.
Anonymous # 12. February 2008, 00:21
as a kid, i read every combat story that featured art work by mr. russ heath; to me he stood out and i still love to remember his work-simply put---the greatest. thank you for the excitement and looking back; thank you for the good times you gave us kids-god bless.