Ross Andru

Ross Andru (born June 15, 1927 , † November 9, 1993 ) was an American comic book artist and publishing editor. Andru was best known as the co-creator of the comic characters Punisher (for Marvel Comics) and Metal Men (for DC Comics).

Life and work

Andru began working as a full-time comic artist in the late 1940s. He presented his first work in 1948 for the newspaper comic strip Tarzan. At the beginning of the 1950s, Andru was firmly signed by the publisher DC-Comics. In the first years of his career he mainly worked as a war story draftsman for series such as All American Men of War (1953-1964), GI Combat (1957), Our Army At War (1953), Our Fighting Forces (1955) and Star Spangled War Stories (1954-1966). At the same time, Andru began to expand his activity in science fiction and superhero comics in the late 1950s. He drew for series such as Wonder Woman (1958–1967), The Flash (1959), Rip Hunter, Time Master (1961) and Showcase to draw. Andrus most famous works for Showcase were the series Sea Devils and Metal Men (from Showcase # 37 from 1962), devised and written by Robert Kanigher , whose visual design he de facto developed as the first draftsman of both titles.

At the beginning of the 1970s, Andru switched to DC's rival publisher Marvel Comics, where he primarily hired himself as a draftsman for The Amazing Spider-Man series , at that time the best-selling series in the publisher's program. Together with the author Gerry Conway, Andru developed the antihero Punisher in the # 129 issue of The Amazing Spider-Man , which was so popular with readers that he was eventually made the protagonist of numerous of his own comic series as well as three full-length feature films. In addition to his work on Spider-Man, Andru also drew such series as Marvel Feature (1971–1972) and Marvel Team-Up (1972) for Marvel . The artistic highlight of his Marvel years was One Shot Superman vs. The Amazing Spider-Man , in which both publishers brought their most popular characters together in a jointly published story.

In 1978, Andru returned to DC Comics as a senior editor. In addition to his editorial work for the publisher, he drew numerous covers for series such as Action Comics and Superman in the late 1970s , as well as the newspaper comic strip The Unexplained , which he created together with Marv Wolfman and Mike Esposito in the 1980s . Other works from this period include magazine content for series such as Jonah Hex (1982–1984), Vigilante (1984) and Blue Beetle (1987).

Andrus' attempt to start his own publishing house failed several times; most recently in 1990 and before 1951, 1953 with MikeRoss and 1970 with Klevart Enterprizes.

Andru delivered his last work in 1993 for the series Zen, Intergalactic Ninja , which was published by Archie Comics.

The double biography Partners for Life was published in 2006 through the collaboration with the ink draftsman Mike Esposito , who frequently revised Andrus' work .