Posted By Dan Greenfield on Feb 26, 2024 | 2 comments

An opera in four colors…

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Welcome to BURIED TREASURE, Pete Stone’s new recurring feature that spotlights great, lesser-known comics that demand your attention…

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By PETER STONE

P. Craig Russell loves operas and has adapted a ton of them. He’s adapted Oscar Wilde fairy tales. He’s also done several Neil Gaiman adaptations of short stories. From a pure superhero point of view, Russell has also worked on Dr. Strange and Killraven.

(As a sidenote: Killraven is loosely based on a War of the Worlds adaptation created by Neal Adams, Roy Thomas and Gerry Conway, then penciled by Neal. Neal did not finish that first issue, but the concepts were there. Later on, Russell took over the art chores with Don McGregor as writer. That became the visual standard for the series. Neal later took his unused concepts for Killraven to his own company and character.)

In 1985, Russell did Pelleas & Melisande as part of his Eclipse Comics series Night Music. The two-parter is based on a play by Maurice Maeterlinck from 1902. Claude Debussy adapted the play into an opera. It is the only opera Debussy ever completed and it is considered a landmark in 20th century music.

The plot concerns a love triangle: Prince Golaud finds Melisande, a mysterious young woman, lost in a forest. He falls in love and marries her, bringing her back to the castle of his grandfather, King Arkel of Allemonde. Here Meisande becomes increasingly attached to Golaud’s younger half-brother Pelleas, arousing Golaud’s jealousy. Golaud goes to excessive lengths to find out the truth about Pelleas and Melisande’s relationship, even forcing his own child, Yniold, to spy on the couple. Pelleas decides to leave the castle but arranges to meet Melisande one last time and the two finally confess their love for one another. Golaud, who has been eavesdropping, rushes out and kills Pelleas. Melisande dies shortly after, having given birth to a daughter, with Golaud still begging her to tell him “the truth.”

Some people love opera, and some people don’t. Russell obviously loves it and it’s imbued in his career output. From his first moments drawing Parsifal for Star Reach (which actually made me watch a very long Parsifal movie in a theater in the Village in Manhattan), he was on a course to adapt his favorite operas into a comic format. He has done so for decades now.

I will also say that I truly enjoy his other work, especially the Jungle Book adaptation, which is not an opera but written by Rudyard Kipling (one of my favorite writers). His Kipling Red Dog adaptation for Eclipse is exceptional. (It is available through Wayne Alan Harold Productions, but at a larger size. Well worth it.)

Craig Russell is an exceptional artist and he is also an exceptional inker. Michael Golden himself has said he did a great job on his Dr. Strange short story with the wonderful Clea. Russell’s inking is thin and ethereal, capturing the cresting waves and spraying water. Michael’s pencils are precise and well-referenced, so Russell’s inks work well with them, delineating the droplets and sprays of the ocean.

Neal Adams often enjoyed looking at his new work. The tight quality of his linework was exceptional, according to Neal. Perhaps his was not as powerful as Neal’s own linework, but Russell brought a great quality to whatever he was working on. He even inked one of the Neal Adams Month variant covers for DC Comics in 2016. Decades earlier, Neal even wanted to sell an eight-page P. Craig Russell story (from his Night Music series) to the European publishers. That’s how much he liked Russell’s work.

Issue #1

Craig Russell understood the quality of Neal’s work but believed that comics could be so much more than men punching other men. He’s challenged his industry to make better comics and creators to explore their dreams. To look outside their small world and expand the vision of sequential storytelling. It can be about a warrior whose sword absorbs the souls of the men it strikes, or a boy who befriends the ghosts who live in the cemetery near his house, or about a king who wants his wonderful kingdom to live forever if only in a dream. (Elric, The Graveyard Book, and Sandman.)

Pelleas and Melisande was not the last opera Russell worked on, but it was an early exploration into that world of music and melodrama. Artists all over the world enjoy his work, his style and his drawing ability. In my opinion, he is one of the best artists in this industry and I seek out everything that he does. Being a writer, I loved his interpretation of Kipling’s Jungle Book stories because those stories are so good, and Russell’s work is so powerful. His Oscar Wilde Fairy Takes collection is exceptional. The Graveyard Book with Neil Gaiman is a great read.

Issue #2

Each one of his stories is clean, clear, and fully realized. People who have worked around him respect him and praise him for being a brilliant, unique artist. As well as being a nice guy. We had a delightful, albeit brief, conversation at a Baltimore convention when he discovered I worked with Neal Adams. We chatted about art and comics in general. He was great.

Coming soon is a new Russell book called 50 Years in Full Color. It’s loaded with beautiful paintings, including many that have never seen print before. Gods, monsters, men, Valkyries and demons. I plan on getting this book when it ships in April. It looks like a beautiful art book by a master.

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MORE

— BURIED TREASURE: GENE COLAN’s Magnificent PREDATOR Miniseries. Click here.

— BURIED TREASURE: KEVIN NOWLAN and GRIMWOOD’s DAUGHTER. Click here.

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Peter Stone is a writer and son-in-law of the late Neal Adams. Be sure to check out the family’s twice-weekly online Facebook auctions, as well as the NealAdamsStore.com, and their Burbank, California, comics shop Crusty Bunkers Comics and Toys.