Russ Heath's Lone Ranger Rides Again

When Russ Heath was chosen to illustrate the new syndicated Lone Ranger strip in 1981, he soon got a call from Amber creator Doug Wildey. "Any illustrated strip is going to fall behind deadlines, and you will call your artist friends (to help), and stay up working all night," exclaimed Wildey. Heath soon found out how true that was, after only a few short months. Russ later said, "He sure as HELL was right! I called on Doug to help, and I called on others...If you've never had a syndicated strip, you just can't imagine what it entails...I had no time for exercise and put on thirty pounds."This almost forgotten feature that followed on the heels of the movie revival, The Legend of the Lone Ranger, debuted on September 13, 1981. Giving the feature one final strip incarnation of Fran Striker's world famous Western hero, created for a 1933 Detroit radio show. We all know the story right? West Texas in 1880... a group of six Texas Rangers lead by Captain Dan Reid rode towards a gap in the mountains...there Butch Cavendish's Gang launched a surprise ambush...and when the dust settled and the battle was over...all the Rangers were dead except the Captain's brother, John. Nursed back to health by his Indian friend, Tonto, John Reid took on a mask and vowed vengeance against all evildoers. This lone survivor...this Lone Ranger. (Which was actually the biggest misnomer in comics since Tonto was just as important in the strip, not to mention their beloved horses, Silver and Scout!)

The first artist to draw the famous lawman in 1938 was Ed Kressy, which most fans believe looked awkward at best in his adaptation of the material, but it had some great scripts by Striker. It was followed shortly by a brief interim stint illustrated by Jon L. Blummer, whose unigue style I really enjoyed. But the artist most fans remember and recognize today for the Lone Ranger was artist Charles Flanders, and his thirty-three year run on this Western legend. Better than most who drew the feature, it hit its peak in popularity in the mid-forties before slowly sliding down in quality to develop the look of a cheap grade-B Western (with no sets or background atmosphere of any kind). There was a boost in the title when writer Paul Newman and ghost artist Tom Gill did some later Sundays, as there solid teamwork had shown on the popular Dell Lone Ranger comic book. Although the strip seemed to be getting better with time, it still could not stop cancellation by the syndicate in late 1971. But hold on there folks, for the best artist and writer team is yet to come!

After searching for the right talent, the New York Times Special Features Syndicate finally chose comic book artist Russ Heath and longtime DC writer Cary Bates to produce the work. The strip even had a unique opening (breaking with most strip precedent) when the first daily just continued the storyline from their Sunday page the day before. Of the other creators who tried out for the new feature, only Gil Kane (who did the Aurora's 1974 Lone Ranger model kit illustrated comic) was considered a rival to Heath's skill and precision with Western subjects. Some of those rare Kane tryout dailies and Sunday still exist, though most of the Heath/Bates material was discarded by the syndicate making the art harder to obtain. I've had one daily I picked up a few years ago, and can tell you the quality was as good or better than any other Heath art I 've ever seen. I though these originals were difficult to find, until Heath consigned his work to a local auction house, so now some fantastic example have recently surfaced. However, you sometimes have to search for a good piece with the Ranger, since he was disguised in many of the storylines, and then his trusted scout Tonto was wonderfully showcased.

Clearly the best artistic team to ever produce the feature, unfortunetly, the Lone Ranger really never got its due. Published in no more than sixty papers at the height of its all too short two and a half year run, it ended on April 1, 1984. Most of us never even saw this beautiful strip the first time around, unless you lived in larger cities like Seattle or San Francisco. And when you did see the strip, the Sunday format usually lost its top tier splash panels, being cut down for space in many of the papers, so readers just missed out on what Heath was trying to do altogether. You can see that Russ put his heart and soul in the work, spending up to twelve to fourteen hour a day at the drawing board. Yet the high quality of art and writing was as fresh and alive the last day of the strip as the first day they started. Heath had his hand in all aspects of production, working his rich and detailed style on the preliminary sketches, pencil layouts, color proofs, test pages, as well as keeping up the penciling and inking the strip.

If not for Greg Theakston's fantastic Pure Imaginations black and white Lone Ranger reprint from 1993, most of us would never had the pleasure to read these delightful stories, unless you collected dailies or haunted some library newspaper vault. But don't take my word for it, just check out thes panels provided and that last Sunday page as the Lone Ranger and Tonto ride out into a sunset for the final time, with none other than Heath and Bates saying good-bye.

Everybody Loves Raymond

Everybody loves Alex Raymond, or at least I think they should! Who can doubt his impact on the comic art medium and American pop culture. George Lucas credits Flash Gordon as his inspiration for Star Wars; not to mention it kept actors like Larry "Buster" Crabbe and Johnny Weissmuller working for years. Raymond's millions of fans worldwide make him one of the most influential artists of our time. But I dare say his best creation was the "film noir" detective strip, Rip Kirby. But, don't get me wrong, Flash Gordon, Jungle Jim, Secret Agent X-9 and the other projects Raymond produced during his career are undoubtedly some of the greatest comic works of the century. But for all of Raymond's skill and talent, I believe it reached its peak with Rip Kirby. Perhaps its also my favorite strip because I can still afford some examples!

The story goes that when Raymond returned from WWII he was unable to resume Flash Gordon because of King Feature's contract with Austin Briggs. Not wanting to lose Raymond to a rival syndicate, they let him produce a new feature. It's debatable if King Features editor Ward Greene created the character, that was later more fully developed by writer Fred Dickenson. Whether Alex created the character or not, it was his success and name recognition that mattered with his audience. An instant hit for all involved, it even gave Raymond part ownership in the strip. And why not! Rip's not your average private eye. He's a perfect gentleman, who's also a brilliant scientist, athlete, Marine reservist, and sports car buff. Using more brains than brawn was his usual modus operandi in solving mysteries, but he still had time for a slug-out once in a while. It has many of the classic elements of detective fiction, but with a twist -- horn rimmed Buddy Holly glasses and a pipe! Similar in ways to other heroic gumshoes like Margery Allingham's Albert Campion and his side-kick Lugg. And to sweeten the deal, all the supporting cast are just as interesting as Remington, whether they're beauties, gangsters, hoods, con men, or cops.

Who would't want the life of Rip Kirby? A Mr. Lucky that lives in a snazzy New York apartment with his trusted aide, the frail balding butler Desmond. A reformed thief who's as skillful in making a soufflé as using guns or picking a lock. Next, Rip is blessed to have a knockout fashion model for a girlfriend, Honey Dorian, who often travels with him around the world on his exotic cases. We also have some interesting heavies like the charming femme fatale Pagan Lee. She shows up in my favorite storylines to the dismay of Honey since there is this love-hate relationship Pagan has with Rip. The two girls make interesting copy since they are portrayed as total opposites. A dark seductive worldly Pagan "yin" played against a pure sweet heavenly Honey "yang." And who could forget Remington's greatest villains like the Mangler or gambler Fingers Moray.

The strip debuted on March 4, 1946, and quickly introduced many new and innovative techniques to the medium. Raymond constantly searched for different ways to carry the story visually to readers with experimentation in his style. Driven for a clear and direct graphic, he changed the look every six or seven weeks on the daily. Always in firm control of his art and career, King Features offered Raymond $35,000 a year to produce a Sunday Rip Kirby page. Raymond declined citing the extra work the page would impose on his already limited free time.

We know Raymond used models, took reference photographs, and swiped from magazines in his efforts to absorb different approaches. He worked close to deadlines, leaving only three weeks of strips at the time of his death from an auto accident. He was inspired by living and drawing in an illustrator's community with the likes of Stan Drake, Al Parker, Robert Fawcett, Albert Dorne, and others. It gave him fresh ideas on Rip that helped promote the realistic story strip with a fresh contemporary new look. Abandoning the old soap opera approach of a simpler outline style, Raymond brought numerous slick advertising techniques to the daily. Often he used a minute and detailed, close up, “big head” approach on Honey and the other beauties of the feature.

The strip can also be appreciated for its sophisticated use in "spotting" heavy black ink. Early Rip's seem sparse in the placement of blacks, being applied mainly for night scenes. But about three years into the daily, Raymond switched to using a heavy black even when in full sunlight. On one of Raymond's visits to Drake's studio he explained using black areas as “pools of quiet” for pacing. It served as a pause for the viewer, something to the slow the reader's eye across the strip's panels. Later in the run, Alex's simple backgrounds fully develop into a photo realistic approach to the surroundings as well. Also with Stan Drake's influence we see an expanding use of character expressions within the Rip Kirby cast.

Perhaps Rip Kirby was such a success because Alex Raymond was a larger than like character himself that had many of the qualities of the famous detective. More sophisticated and urbane than the average artist, he was a striking figure: matinee-idol handsome, athletic, hugely talented and admired among his peers. Raymond's art influenced many of the talented comic artists of today including Frank Frazetta, Al Williamson, Wayne Boring, Lou Fine and scores of others.

To mention a few of his achievements, Raymond won the coveted Ruben Award in 1949 for Rip Kirby, was a member of the Society of Illustrators, and served as president of the National Cartoonists Society for 1950 and 1951. Even when producing both magazine and book illustration, and his combat paintings displayed in the National Gallery of Washington, DC, Raymond still always championed the comic strip as his preferred art form. He once said, "I decided honestly that comic art work is an art form in itself. It reflects the life and times more accurately and actually is more artistic than magazine illustration -- since it is entirely creative. A comic artist is playwright, director, editor and artist at once."

Oh, Those Seventies Art Prices!

I recently ran across a stack of old Comic Buyers Guide issues that were jam-packed with original comic art ads from the early seventies, and just about had a heart attack! It was good to see some dealers from that time period are still in business today, but a majority of them have gone by the wayside. Oh, but those prices on these pieces will really make your head spin. Like the cover featured here to Avengers #73 by John Buscema was on sale for a mere $45! You might want to sit down as a give a rundown from a few ads from Richard Pryor's Gallery Of Fine Comic Art. As well as that prime piece, Richard had...Covers by Ernie Chan for Detective #461---$75, or Batman #268 for $45, or how about Justice League of America #124 staring the Justice Society for $50, not to mention Freedom Fighters #1 for $50. Would anyone like a Dick Giordano cover for Tomb of Dracula #25 for $75? Or how about a John Romita cover for Captain America #117 (sorry no logo) where Cap meets the Falcon for the grand total of $50! There's also the Ross Andru cover art to some DC war book titled, All-American Men of War, with Indian Ace Johnny Could in aerial action for...$30. Gulp! Good thing those British Planet of the Apes or Spider-Man cover were going for $15, more affordable. Whew.

How about paying some "crazy" money for comic panel pages. Lets start out with a few Craig Russell Killraven pages from Amazing Adventures #27 for $45---nice but I might spring for that Buscema cover first. Paul Gulacy had some fantastic action-packed pages from Master of Kung Fu at $35 each, or you may want to invest in a Wally Wood gem of a splash page from my favorite toy title, Captain Action #1 page 24 for $45. What would you pay today for a nice Barry Smith Conan the Barbarian page from issue #9, well they were running $150 each - WOW - finally some high dollar stuff, or is it? Ever want any Reed Crandell pages from that beautiful Gold Key favorite, Flash Gordon #1 for $35-$40 each? Maybe your money was better spent on Ross Andru's Amazing Spider-Man pages from #129 where Spidey fight this new villain named Punisher for, get this,...$30 each.

Too much to spend you say, you're on a budget and need to save for college. Richard had prices for us poor boys too, so I could spring for the John Buscema Conan #47 pages for $25 each. Ditto for Ditko's Hawk And Dove pages from issue #2, or maybe you like that weird Creeper character @$25. Can he dare go lower than that! Well, to scrape the bottom of the barrel, I guess you would have to pick up some Val Mayerick pages from Marvel's The Living Mummy or Monster of Frankenstein horror titles for $15 a piece. Or there is this guy called Russ Heath whose pages from Our Army at War with Sgt. Rock and Easy Company were selling for $15 a shot, and you can even have pages from his 1950s Battle Comics for that same price! Too bad I didn't start collecting original comic art for another fifteen years.

Keith Giffen's HEX

Jonah Hex was always one of my favorite characters as a kid. I remember the teaser DC did a few months before his arrival, "He's WILD... He's SAVAGE... He's coming in the next issue of All-Star Western #10", this "weird" outlaw as a two-faced surly bounty hunter. And I must not be the only fan who loved Jonah Hex, since I saw on eBay a few weeks ago a nice page from his first appearance went for a mere $910. Quite a hefty sum for any second or third tier character from 1971. Hex had quite a long run in All-Star Western which became Weird Western Tales before his own self-titled book. Then came that infamous jump into the 21st Century as writer Michael Fleisher tried one last ditch effort to save the character in the new sci-fi incarnation, Hex.

After enjoying talented figure artists like Cruz, Wildey, Ayers, and DeZuniga drawing this Western anti-hero, and some early work by Texiera for the futuristic feature, it came as quite a shock for long time DC artist Keith Giffen to draw this gunslinger turned biker gang member. Perhaps if Giffen had drawn Hex in his older “Kirby” style before his new avant garde approach, it would have been easier to swallow. I was confused, as others were, with Giffen’s sharp line, extreme exaggerated close-ups, always a big eye shot or just talking lips, strange angles, heavily inked, and other bizarre elements in his composition. Styled after the Argentine artist, Jose Munoz, Giffen once said, “All I could do was study this guy's work; poring over it and poring over it, until the point I practically became that work, and I stepped over a line.” Over a few months time where he didn’t work, Giffen just absorbed Munoz style to make it his own. Those few issues he illustrated was enough for me to quit the book, which quickly folded, even though it was very popular overseas at the time. I am glad to see Jonah Hex has been resurrected as his old crusty self in the recent series, just as wild and down right mean as ever.

So jump ahead 20 years, I ran across these issues again, gave them a second look and, surprisingly, now I've grown to enjoy Giffen! Something strange draws me in when I look at his original art. Perhaps seeing the stark black and white shapes helped me better understand what Giffen was trying to “say”, although it still helps to see the color comic pages to have a better feel for the action. Maybe now I don't mind trying to figure out the distorted angles, like the image in the middle panel of the page above from Hex #15, is that a talking chainsaw coming directly at Hex in extreme close-up? But years ago, I would have just given up on his storytelling. This moody, wild, hard-boiled approach was way ahead of it's time. I wanted that old familiar, solid figure drawing that I was used too, something, easy to "read". But with all the new approaches in comic art today, (especially Munoz’s effect on Frank Miller’s style), this page would seem tame by comparison. I never really thought this final incarnation of the character was the "real" Jonah Hex, but now I believe it worked. Once you get a taste of Giffen though, you want more of those fantastic funky pages, wild aliens, the energy bursts, all make the art more appealing as ever. And those shapes jammed together in those nine panel page layouts without any borders make it all the better too. Over the years, Giffin seems to have softened his style somewhat with The Heckler, Lobo, Trencher, and his other titles by adding more minute detail to the drawings. Even thought I enjoy his later works, I am still taken by his earlier attempts in his “Munoz” style. I've enjoyed this example, but on closer inspection, I started to wonder why the villain’s cutting hand was on the left arm in the first panel, and then on his right arm for the remainder of the page? I guess everyone is allowed some dramatic license with their work, even Keith Giffen, to make this page more powerful.