About 10 years ago, Wayne Alan Harold, a locally based
director and comic-book fan who made short films for MTV, approached
Kent-based writer/illustrator P. Craig Russell about making a
documentary on his career as a comic-book artist. Russell gave him the
green light, and Harold began filming. But every couple of years,
Harold would upgrade his equipment and start all over. Russell says it
was only recently that Harold finally started filming the footage you
see in the film, Night Music: The Art of P. Craig
Russell.
“Almost everything in this movie is about two years old,” says
Russell, sitting in the sunroom of the modest home/workspace where he’s
lived the past 23 years. “One of the things he did that was interesting
was that he avoided the talking heads with the big slam-bam-pow special
effects and all that. Wayne got out and around and about. We went to
places like the Cartoon Research Library [at Ohio State University]
because I was talking artwork down there. That gave us a chance to look
at other people’s work.”
Essentially an overview of Russell’s career, Night Music starts with recollections of Russell’s childhood in Wellsville and
recaps the time he spent working at Marvel (he got a gig there when he
was 20). It also touches on his association with Neil Gaiman, with whom
he’s worked regularly — most recently on a graphic novel
adaptation of Coraline. The film then traces the
three-and-a-half years Russell spent in New York and his return to
Ohio, initially to teach at Kent State University.
“I really liked the teaching,” says Russell. “It forces you to
really explain yourself. When you work alone in a room at your drawing
board, you figure out how to do things and you know what’s right and
wrong. It was good discipline to have to explain and think it
through.”
Harold also hosted a party where he invited the various models
Russell has used over the last 25 years.
“Sometimes the models are my friends, and sometimes they’re just
acquaintances,” says Russell. “But that was one of the best parties
ever. It was such a motley crew.”
Russell and Harold introduce Night Music: The Art of P. Craig
Russell at 7 p.m. Wednesday, August 26, at the Cleveland Museum of
Art Lecture Hall (11150 East Blvd., 216.421.7350, clevelandart.org). They’ll answer
questions after the screening. Tickets: $8.
This article appears in Aug 19-25, 2009.
