DC Legend Bruce Timm has always been in love with comics. The artist, animator, writer, producer, and director has been one of the masterminds behind the popularity of modern animated DC comic shows.
The Batman Beyond: Return of the Joker showrunner revealed some stunning details about his fellow DC comic book artist and animator, Russ Heath. Timm further revealed the actual reason behind the poor-looking animations including GI Joe.
The GI Joe Animation Problem
DC legend Bruce Timm who has an astounding legacy to his credit including Batman: The Animated Series, The New Batman Adventures, and Justice League Unlimited, revealed why old-school animation similar to G.I. Joe: A Real American Hero was not up to the mark. A few animators, including the late Russ Heath who was a Model Designer in the show, as revealed by Timm, were in “for the money.” “Russ would make no bones about it,” he told Comicology in a chat with Brian Saner Lamken.
“I mean, Russ was a great artist — he’s one of my favorite comic-book artists — but he was a terrible animation designer because his stuff was so realistic that it didn’t animate. He didn’t care. They loved his work there; they hired him [for GI Joe] because of Sgt. Rock, and they wanted to basically make the show in his style, but they didn’t have the [money] to get that level of quality into it. And he didn’t care. The pay was so good, compared to what he was getting in comics, that he would just crank the stuff out. He could do it in his sleep; and sometimes he did.”
Of course, Heath has forged his legacy starting with his fantastic comic book drawings. Heath’s credit includes Keith Giffen’s Suicide Squad (2001 – 2002) #4 where Heath illustrated the book. But when it came to animation, there was a huge problem. Timm revealed that it was for money.
Bruce Timm Detailed What Went Wrong With GI Joe Animation
Timm made it quite clear that he was not disparaging Heath while explaining the poor animation of the GI Joe animation series. But perhaps, Heath was also bored with the development process of it. “I would literally catch Russ falling asleep at his desk in the middle of the day,” Timm recalled while speaking with Comicology.
“He’d be sitting straight up with his pencil on the page, and suddenly you’d hear him snoring. [Laughs] He was amazing, though. Watching him draw was a kick. He would never do roughs; he would sit down with a sheet of paper, and he would start at the head, and when he got down to the feet it was a full, tight, beautiful drawing. But it was actually really good experience, because by the time I got to the Batman show, I knew that a lot of the reason why shows like GI Joe looked so poor was that it wasn’t being designed for anim-ation.”
Russ, however, “would do these great drawings,” Timm added.
“Wrinkles all over the clothes, realistic facial features, every bolt on the gun — and from having to draw this stuff myself during the Don Bluth days, I started developing the quote-unquote Batman style, kind-of applying more of a classical animation technique to more of a comic-book style.”
Regardless, the legacy of Heath will stand the test of time with his immortal contribution to comic books as an artist.
the first two seasons of G.I. Joe: A Real American Hero is available to stream on Tubi.
