Ross Andru

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Ross Andru bigraphy, stories - American comic artist

Ross Andru : biography

June 15, 1927 – November 9, 1993

Ross Andru (born Rossolav Andruskevitch, June 15, 1927 – November 9, 1993)[https://familysearch.org/pal:/MM9.1.1/JKTS-SW5 Ross Andru] at the Social Security Death Index. Retrieved 16 February 2013. from the original on 16 February 2013. Note: Birth year is given as 1925 in Additional . was an American comic book artist and editor. He is best known for his work on Amazing Spider-Man, Wonder Woman, Flash and Metal Men.

His most frequent collaborator was inker Mike Esposito, with whom he worked on projects over a span of four decades. The two founded three short-lived comic books companies: Mr. Publications (1951), MikeRoss (1953) and Klevart Enterprises (1970).

Andru was inducted into the Will Eisner Comic Book Hall of Fame in 2007.

Awards and homages

Andru was inducted into the Will Eisner Comic Book Hall of Fame in 2007.

In Ultimate Spider-Man issue #87 (Feb. 2006), a "Ross Andru" has a cameo as the principal of Peter Parker’s high school.

Biography

Early life and career

Ross Andru was initially raised in Cleveland, Ohio, by Russian emigre parents who had fled the Russian Revolution; according to family lore, Andru’s mother was part Polish and part Russian royalty, while his father had played French horn for the Ballet Russe before later doing so for the Cleveland Symphony Orchestra.Esposito, Best, p. 17 After moving to New York City, Andru graduated from The High School of Music & Art, then in Harlem, where one of his classmates and friends was future comics artist Mike Esposito,Esposito, Mike, in Additional , June 16, 2012. with whom he would draw collaborate on flip-book animation. Andru served in the U.S. Army, and after being discharged in 1946, found work later that year with an animation studio in Manhattan drawing for Chiclets chewing-gum commercials.Esposito, Best, "Two: Learning the Business > Part 1: Animation: We Leave the Army", p. 21.

Andru’s first professional comic book work was for the Tarzan newspaper strip in 1948. As his longtime art partner Esposito recalled, he and Andru were attending Burne Hogarth’s Cartoonists and Illustrators School (later renamed the School of Visual Arts) in 1947 when

Another source says penciler Andru first teamed with inker Esposito in 1949 for the publisher Fiction House, but this is unconfirmed at the Grand Comics Database. The team’s first confirmed collaboration was on the six-page "Wylie’s Wild Horses" in Hillman Periodicals’ Western Fighters vol. 2, #12 (Nov. 1950), signaling the star of a four-decade collaboration. at the Grand Comics Database

They quickly founded their own comics-book company, the name of which is variously rendered as MR Publications,Esposito, Best, "Three: Some Hard Business Lessons > Part 1: MR Publications: We Get ‘Taken’", p. 39. after the initial of their first names; Mr. Publications, (Requires subscription) Print version: "Mike Esposito, Comic Book Artist", p. A30 after the company’s sole series, the whimsical adventure comic Mister Universe, which ran five issues (July 1951 – April 1952); at the Grand Comics Database or the hybrid MR. Publications. The two also co-founded Mikeross Publications in 1953, which through 1954 produced one issue each of the 3D romance comics 3-D Love and 3-D Romance, two issues of the romance comic Heart and Soul, and three issues of the satiric humor comic Get Lost. at the Grand Comics Database. Retrieved October 25, 2010.

DC Comics

By this time, after having teamed for early work on Key Publications’ Mister Mystery in 1951 and Standard Comics’ The Unseen and Joe Yank (the latter credited as "Mikeross"), the two began a long career as one of DC Comics’ primary war story artists, alongside the likes of Joe Kubert, Russ Heath, and Jerry Grandenetti, beginning with a story each in All-American Men of War #6, Our Army at War #14, and Star Spangled War Stories #13 (all Sept. 1953). For those titles as well as G.I. Combat and Our Fighting Forces, Andru and Esposito drew hundreds of tales of combat under editor and frequent writer Robert Kanigher.