Greg Goldstein's Comic Art Gallery

Tag: Roy Lichtenstein

Russ Heath — Watch It!

Original Art and The Artists

Battlefront #17, March 1954

Here’s a terrific early and rare Atlas war page form the legendary artist, Russ Heath.

This page’s great dogfight reminds me of some of Russ’ later DC work, including the classic “Aces Wild” in All-American Men of War #89, otherwise known as Roy Lichtenstein’s favorite comic book. Lichtenstein, the renowned pop art pioneer, “appropriated” (swiped / repurposed / purloined — take your pick) two Heath panels from that story, as well as others in that issue. (See below.)

Those paintings are worth millions of dollars. Multi-millions.

The best 12¢ anyone ever spent.

Happy Veterans Day to all who served!

Fun Fact: Russ, a veteran, used himself as reference for the role of Major Leo Grabeski (also below) in this extremely multi-cultural group of airmen.

Two Heath panels from the same page from “Aces Wild” story (All-American Men of War #89, 1962) became the basis for two well-known Roy Lichtenstein war paintings: “Brattata” and “Blam.”.

A panel from an Irv Novick’s story in the same issue was the basis for Lichtenstein’s “Whaam.”

Russ Heath — The Devil For Dinner

Original Art and The Artists

G.I. Combat #131, September 1968

Roy Lichtenstein never met a DC war stories artist he didn’t like — including Russ Heath.

More accurately, Lichtenstein probably never met a comic book artist he didn’t like.

Lichtenstein, the legendary “Pop” modern artist of the 60s referenced much of his work from contemporaneous romance and war stories. The critics raved, and art fans swooned, but hardly anyone paid much attention to the original source material.

That changed, but only (and slowly) over time. To this day, there’s never been an official Lichtenstein catalog that identifies all the source comics. In many cases, the works are only occasionally acknowledged.

There is a great website about all this, although the author is reluctant to share the specific issues and dates. Still with all the examples visually presented, it is pretty mind blowing. It’s nearly impossible to find an original Lichtenstein without a corresponding comic book reference.

But as always, we digress.

Behind Joe Kubert, Russ Heath is probably the single artist most identified with DC’s classy war books of the silver and bronze age. 

He was a terrific artist, who could accomplish inventive storytelling, polished lines and wonderful detail. 

And he was quite the character too. But those are stories I will save for another day… Except…

When Russ was dealing with some health and financial issues the Hero Initiative stepped in and provided some much needed support. In return, Russ created this special strip below to pay tribute to that support.

Sounds good. Except…

Heath choses to reference Lichtenstein’s “Whaam” a DC war panel that was actually created by Irv Novick. Russ’ art is the inspiration for “Blam” an equally powerful, but lesser known painting. (Both are originally from the same issue of Men of War.)

That is an odd one.

Despite the autobiographical strip’s premise, Russ created the inspiration for “Blam” above, not “Whaam”, below. Whaam, Blam… this stuff writes itself, sometimes.