Russ Heath

Russ Heath (September 29, 1926 – August 23, 2018) was an American comic book artist whose long career stretched from 1948 to 2014 and encompassed work across more than 370 issues for multiple publishers. He is remembered primarily for his superbly drafted war comics, particularly his contributions to DC titles such as *Our Army at War*, *G.I. Combat*, and *Star Spangled War Stories*, where his precise, kinetic rendering of military hardware and combat made him one of the defining artists of the genre. He also worked on westerns like *Kid Colt Outlaw* and the adventure series *Sea Devils*, demonstrating a versatility that kept him in steady demand across decades.

Beyond comics, Heath contributed to Hugh Hefner's *Little Annie Fanny* feature in *Playboy* during the 1960s, and two pieces of commercial art he created for toy soldier packaging became unexpectedly ubiquitous, appearing on comic book back covers throughout the 1960s and into the 1970s. His war drawings also attracted a more complicated kind of attention: several of his fighter-jet panels from *All-American Men of War* were appropriated without credit or compensation by pop artist Roy Lichtenstein as the undisclosed basis for paintings including *Blam* and *Brattata*. Heath was inducted into the Will Eisner Comic Book Hall of Fame in 2009.