While most people are obviously going to flash on “GI Joe” when they hear Ron Wagner’s name mentioned, to me he’ll always be the artist on the most underappreciated works of genius from the 80s, “NTH MAN: The Ultimate Ninja.” I kid you not - this series was pure Marvel insanity from the mind of Larry Hama, and to this day remains one of my favorite Marvel comics of all time. I have no idea what Wagner’s up to these days, but that didn’t stop his local paper from interviewing him recently. There’s not a whole lot of information in the piece, but there are a few interesting comments from Wagner.

In my third year of school, one of my teachers got me a job doing background art. Then I got out of school and had the luck of living next door to Gray Morrow, a comic book artist from the ’50s and ’60s. I learned how to drink scotch and shoot large handguns because that was what Gray enjoyed. He was drawing a Tarzan strip for a few newspapers and I assisted him. He was a great support because I would go into the city every week to show my portfolio and come back and say, “I don’t have any work.” “Ah, don’t worry, kid. Here, have a drink. Let’s go shoot some guns.” He was very cool.

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