Roussos worked in comic books and strips for an amazing 60 years, straight through. He worked for nearly every major publisher, worked in every aspect of comic production and managed to set the look for the most recognizable pop icon of the 20th century.
Roussos was born Aug. 20, 1915 in Washington, DC, to William and Helen Roussos. He and his two sisters, Helen and Alice, were orphaned at a young age and he spent his youth at the Brooklyn Orphan Asylum. He went to school at PS 125 in the Woodside area of Queens, NY, where he started drawing for the school paper. Roussos told close friend Bill Cain, "I was always interested in the newspaper comic strips. I actually learned the basics of comics production from Frank Miller's strip, Barney Baxter. I would imitate Frank's style and send him samples of my work. He'd critique my work and I'd learn from his comments and criticisms." Roussos has said he was most influenced by the artists Chester Gould, Stan Kaye, Robert Fawcett and Hal Foster.
With an indelible knack for adaptability, Roussos broke into the comics in 1939 doing lettering for a Spanish language version of the Ripley's Believe it or Not strip. He couldn't read Spanish, but as he told Mark Gruenwald, "It wasn't as hard as it sounds. I know Greek and there's a lot of similarity between the two languages." In 1940 Roussos answered, along with 60 other applicants, an ad in the paper that was hiring assistants for Bob Kane on the Batman comics published by National (DC) Comics. George's familiarity with comic production, thanks to Miller's advice and his own skill, got him the job. Bill Finger wrote the stories, Jerry Robinson would draw the people and Roussos would do almost everything else (including drawing backgrounds, inking, lettering and possibly coloring). Though Batman was quite popular, Roussos wasn't fazed by the character's success. "I needed a job," he told Jon B. Cooke (The Jack Kirby Collector #18 - January 1998).
After a few years Roussos moved on to work directly for DC Comics on Vigilante, Johnny Quick, Superman, Starman and most notably Airwave: "I had so much fun with this title because I could do almost anything with the character. It was only five pages, so I could go in many directions." He turned a little known filler character into a work of art, remembered to this day. On Airwave Roussos began, in earnest, a lifelong passion for experimentation with every aspect of the art including coloring. "One thing I did in an Airwave was use only grays," he said. "Mr. Leibowitz, who was the publisher, came in. 'George' he said to me, 'Where's the color?' I said 'This is a different effect. This is color but it's different.' I don't know what the hell I said! I made it up! He walked away and after a while he said 'I'm talkin' to another nut!'"
During his time at DC, fellow artist Stan Kaye became a friend and mentor of sorts, taking the place of the art schooling Roussos had never had. Roussos continued working for DC Comics off and on through the end of the 1960s. Roussos would sometimes draw the whole package, but often he would sign on as an inker, letterer and/or colorist. He was recognized by editors as a superlative drawer of settings and backgrounds.
During the 1940s, Roussos worked for companies like Timely, Standard, Avon, Fiction House, Family, Better, Spark, Hillman and Lev Gleason, among others. Through DC, Roussos also produced a series of 16 comics for General Electric in the early' 40s; he told Bill Cain, 'These pamphlets were distributed 111 schools throughout the country and South America, Europe and India. I received an extension from the local draft board in order to complete this publication. When the work was over, the bomb ended the draft. This is a good thing for the Army ... they might have lost the war!" There were 68 million of the pamphlets distributed, according to an article in the New York Daily News. He worked on an advertising comic for Thom McAnn Shoes in 1944 and '45. During this time, Roussos also began a long period of working as, his usual, inker/ penciller/ letterer/ colorist with fellow comic artist Mort Meskin. Roussos told me that Meskin, suggested opening an art school. "We rented this room for about 25 bucks a month and we [set up] chairs and everything," Neither of them were too business minded though, "We bought orangeade and made tea and coffee, so the profit went out the window, plus paying the model."
One thing Roussos was always very adept at was dealing with authority. While working at DC he had a run in with editor Mort Weisinger: "His trick was to give you a job to ink and he would have your job to ink and another job ready. The third week, you go up there and there was no check and no story. He would watch your expression. Now he's got you at bay. Finally, you'd say 'Where's my check Mort?' He said 'Oh, the check!' and all that, try to see what my reaction would be. He'd hope for me to get angry. I said, 'Mort, forget about it.' So, I pulled out some change from my pocket, about a dollar fifty or so, and I said 'Don't worry, I can get along with that very nicely. Whenever you have my check, fine. I didn't want to give in to his tricks."
The comic books weren't enough to keep Roussos busy and he branched out into newspaper comic strips over and over again throughout his career. He worked, as always, in many capacities on The Lone Ranger, Judge Parker, Judge Wright, The Phantom, and Flash Gordon during the 1940s, '50s and '60s. He also came up with a number of finished proposals for his own strips: 2001 A.D. (in 1945, 20 years before the movie), Azeena (1967), an archeology strip and Transisto (in the late '60s with writer Bill Finger, but these ideas never made it into the papers.
During the 1950s he worked for outfits like St. John, EC, Atlas and Crestwood (a shop run by Jack Kirby and Joe Simon). He returned to Atlas, now Marvel Comics, in 1964 where he worked under the pseudonym "George Bell." Stan Lee needed a fast and good inker. Roussos told Mark Gruenwald (in Comics Interview #2), "I could sit down and ink 24 pages in about a day. I sat down with a pen and outlined a whole job in about 10 hours (less with a brush) then went back and spotted blacks. But I wouldn't bring it in the next day, because I didn't want them to know I was so fast.” Roussos even worked for Warren publishing for a brief time in 1970 and '71.
After working for Marvel for years, in 1972 he joined the staff of in-house artists and began a second career in comics, as a full-time colorist, taking over the position after Marie Severin quit. Roy Thomas, chief editor at Marvel, from 1972-'74 remembers Roussos as somebody who knew what he wanted: "I liked his coloring and we got along real well. We used to go around and around about one little thing. When he was coloring interiors, whenever Spider-Man, who wore red and blue, leapt from one wall to another, he was always leaping from a yellow wall. Whatever wall he headed for suddenly became yellow when he landed on it to contrast. He would say, 'You've got to have contrast: and I would say, 'There's also got to be continuity.'" Roussos' amazing color sense reinvented the look of Marvel books, particularly the covers. He believed that colors in comics had to be simple and striking and developed a unique approach to using white that would "make a white seem whiter than the paper it was printed on," he told Gruenwald. His color sense is unmistakable. He was working on cover proofs and corrections until his death this year. He still continued to do hand coloring as a back-up, even when computer coloring became the norm in the '90s. As usual, playing down his own role, Roussos told me in 1999, "A very easy job, I have now."
In the 1950's Roussos began a lifelong interest in photography which would eventually lead, in 1984, to The Bayard Cutting Arboretum, a book, of his photographs and writings on the history of a local (Oakdale, NY) estate. Flo Steinberg, longtime Marvel Comics staffer, puts it best: "George was many dimensional" Steinberg knew Roussos from his days as "George Bell" but in the 1990s the two began sharing a workspace in the Marvel offices. "He was a very learned guy," she said. "He was always reading: papers, books, magazines. He had such eclectic tastes, he could be reading about history, philosophy, ethics, politics or architecture. He was very erudite and had sophisticated tastes. As a young man he had traveled all around the world."
Roussos, always the philosopher, told me his ideas on art: "Our natures are expressed in the way we work. Some people are very meticulous in the way they live, the way they do things, and it expresses itself in their work. When you find a detailed artist, he's usually not a very creative artist. In order to make up for it, he becomes meticulous. When you look at his work you see everything in order.You appraise him on that value. People who are more creative, they are more or less like [their] handwriting.You know how some of the guys write with this wild handwriting, even, terrible penmanship? The same thing with [their] artwork. Technique, usually, is a disguise for creativity. Sometimes you don't need creativity, you need people with technique. It's a toss up."
Roussos, a Leo and astrology buff, always noted that his life was full of Geminis: "The first artist who helped me out (Stan Kaye) was a Gemini. So was the second, Mort Meskin. My two wives were both Geminis." His first wife's maiden name was Viola Fink; they had met at school in their youth. Roussos married his second wife, Florence Lacey Nov. 17, 1980. The second Mrs. Roussos passed away in 1998. He is survived by his sister (Alice), three sons (William, Robert, and Louis) a daughter (Marie), four grandchildren, and four great grandchildren.
One thing that everyone I talked to about Roussos has noted is that for the last 20 years of his life, he would always take time, even in the dead of winter, to go the nearby park, the Sportsmen's Club and feed the deer. His daughter Marie has told me, "The deer knew him and did not run from him."
Two interviews of Roussos are being printed in the comic magazines: Alter Ego (6/00) and Comic Book Artist (4/00). You can send any letters to the family of George Roussos, care of Marvel Comics, 387 Park Ave, South, New York, NY 10016.
Dylan Williams
[Originally published in The Comics Journal # 223, May 2000]
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