CBA Interview
A Man Called Jones Talking with Tower scribe & monster maniac, Russ Jones Conducted by Jon B. Cooke Transcribed by Brian K. Morris The following interview with writer/artist/editor Russ Jones was originally intended to appear in the currently-available book by Ye Ed and David A. Roach, The Warren Companion, but due to certain complications, it appears here. Russ wrote for Tower Comics during its brief life and we feature a career-spanning look at this multi-talented man. Though T.H.U.N.D.E.R. Agents, et al. are only briefly discussed here, Russ was associated with Tower art director Wally Wood for a number of years. This interview was conducted via phone on January 17, 2001 and was approved by Russ.
Above: Russ Jones at Chiller Con this past April. Check out Russ’s Website at www.horrorbiz.com where you’ll find Jones merchandise for sale. Courtesy of Russ and Dave of Horrorbiz.
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Comic Book Artist: Russ, where are you from? Russ Jones: Ontario, Canada. CBA: What year were you born? Russ: 1942. CBA: When did you start developing an interest in art? Russ: As a kid. Back in those days, it was the wonderful Sunday comics and we had all the great stuff like the Alex Raymond strips and Hal Foster’s Prince Valiant. My favorite was Dick Tracy by Chester Gould. CBA: Did you read comic books as a kid? Russ: Yeah, I was very interested in them. CBA: You were just in time for the ECs, right? Russ: Oh, yeah. I bought those on a regular basis, as soon as they came out. CBA: What particularly attracted you to EC Comics? Russ: They were different. They felt different, had a very different look and, of course, the work inside was unparalleled, as far as I was concerned. It was just knockout stuff. I had no idea, of course, what Craft Tint or Zip-A-Tone was or anything like that at the time but I would look at this and, with a kid’s wonderment, say, “Wow.” It felt like special effects make-up or something. It was unlike anything I’d really ever seen. CBA: Were there any particular artists that you really liked back
then? Was it Wally Wood? Russ: Well, yeah. Woody would be right up there pretty much on the top of the list, I’d say. Of course, all of them were very good. I liked George Evans and Reed Crandall and, of course, Al Williamson and Frank Frazetta. CBA: So you were more attracted to art than the stories? Russ: Oh, no. You see, the story and art amalgamated so well. It was the perfect combination. CBA: Did you collect them all? Russ: No, I didn’t. I was never really a collector. CBA: Did you pursue an art education? Russ: No, my education was in the United States Marine Corps. CBA: When did you join the Marines? Russ: I started out in Second Recon and went to Korea for 18 months and came back to the States in Quantico where I was with Criminal Investigations and went through most of the FBI academy. From there I went to Marine Corps headquarters. CBA: What years were you in Korea? Russ: I was there in 1959. I did some work for the Marine Corps magazine, Leatherneck, out of Penderson Hall in Arlington. CBA: Did you have a vocation in print production? Russ: Yeah. As a matter of fact, that’s what my MOS turned out to be. It was a 1461 MOS but, of course, your primary in the Marine Corps is a grunt. CBA: Did you encounter any action at all? Russ: Yeah, but I had to take an oath on that. The outfit that I was with was running what they would call today Black Ops. But we referred to it just as Search-&-Destroy or whatever. CBA: This was during your time overseas? Russ: Yeah. CBA: What did you do for Leatherneck? Russ: Illustrations. CBA: Did you want to pursue a career in comic books or comic strips? Russ: Yeah, that had always been my goal but I didn’t know, exactly, how to get there, and I met this wonderful old timer that no one on Earth had ever heard of. His name was Wood Cowan and Wood had taken over the Our Boarding House strip from Gene Ahern. Wood was doing editorial cartoons out of Connecticut, I met him and he invited me out to his place. He was quite a character. He must have, like, been close to 80 at the time, wore one of the worst rugs I’ve ever seen. [chuckles] He was very funny and in his studio, he had this wonderful portrait that James Montgomery Flagg had done of him. So I said, “Gee, this Wood Cowan guy must have had some real history.” He taught me some tricks and introduced me to the people at McNaught in New York. That’s really how the whole thing got started. CBA: What did you do at McNaught? Russ: I did some work for some of the different artists. Oh gosh, I worked with Mark Bailey. Through Mark, he was doing stuff for Lank Leonard. They had another strip called Dixie Dugan… just some odd stuff here and there. CBA: Doing assists, backgrounds, and the like? Russ: Yeah, and learning. I was going to start my own historical strip, and I knew Jack Davis. I wanted that EC look. Jack was very busy. This was back in about 1962 or ’63, I guess. Jack was keen on working on it but at that time he was actually making the big bucks. He just started getting into the movie ads and the TV Guide stuff and he pointed me in the direction of Wally Wood and that’s how Woody COMIC BOOK ARTIST 14
July 2001