Russ Heath

Russ Heath was an American artist best known for his comic book work, particularly his DC Comics war stories and his 1960s art for Playboy magazine's "Little Annie Fanny" feature. In 1947, Heath started a $75-a-week staff position at Timely, the 1940s predecessor of Marvel, where he drew several Western stories. As Timely evolved into Marvel's 1950s iteration, known as Atlas Comics, Heath expanded into other genres. Heath later did the first of many decades' worth of war work for DC Comics, with Our Army at War #23 and Star Spangled War Stories #22, both cover-dated June 1954. Various Heath drawings of fighter jets in DC Comics' All-American Men of War were the uncredited and uncompensated basis for pop artist Roy Lichtenstein's oil paintings Whaam!, Blam, Okay Hot-Shot, Okay!, and Brattata. Heath was one of the artists who sometimes assisted Kurtzman and Will Elder on their regular Playboy strip "Little Annie Fanny". Heath began an additional career in the Los Angeles animation industry, which lasted throughout the 1980s.