Keaton, Russell 1910-1945

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Keaton, Russell 1910-1945

PERSONAL:

Born 1910, in Corinth, MS; died of leukemia, February 13, 1945; married; wife's name Virginia Keaton Anderson; children: two daughters. Education: Attended Academy of Fine Arts, Chicago.

CAREER:

Comic strip author and artist, 1929-43; flying instructor for U.S. Army, 1943-45.

WRITINGS:

Flyin' Jenny, Arcadia Publications, 1987.

The Aviation Art of Russell Keaton, Kitchen Sink Press (Northampton, MA), 1995.

Assistant artist and author, Buck Rogers and Skyroads daily and Sunday newspaper comics, 1929-39; creator, author and artist, Flyin' Jenny daily and Sunday comic strip, 1939-43, consultant to strip, 1943-45.

SIDELIGHTS:

Russell Keaton died at the age of thirty-five, but not before he had created a pioneering comic strip that ran in newspapers throughout the years of the Second World War. Keaton's strip, Flyin' Jenny, featured a strong-willed female aviator named Jenny Dare. Keaton based his character on his wife but endowed her with a knowledge of aviation technology and flying procedures that he learned himself by becoming a pilot. Jenny's adventures may have been exotic for a woman of that era, but her abilities, expertise, and love for her aircraft were solidly realistic. Keaton's widow released two posthumous collections of his work, Flyin' Jenny in 1987 and The Aviation Art of Russell Keaton in 1995. The latter work also includes some of the material Keaton provided to Skyroads and other daily comic strips from the 1930s, as well as Keaton's correspondence with his collaborators and editors.