Wally Wood

from Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

Wally Wood (born June 17, 1927 in Menahga , Minnesota as Wallace Allan Wood, † November 2, 1981 in Los Angeles , California ) was an American comic artist, who was mainly famous for his work for MAD magazine and EC Comics .

Life

Growing up in different places in his youth, Wallace got enthusiastic about drawing at an early age. His father Max, a lumberjack, thought that art was no job for men, but thanks to the support of his mother Alma, who sewed his first smaller works into small books with her sewing machine, he remained loyal to drawing. In 1944, after his parents separated and after successfully graduating from West High in Minneapolis , he joined the Merchant Navy . This work brought him to exotic places in the world such as the Philippines or Guam for the first time, and his life as a sailor was reflected in the comics he made in his free time. After his discharge from the merchant navy, he volunteered with the paratroopers and was transferred as a member of the 11th US Airborne Division from Fort Benning to occupied Japan to Hokkaidō . After the end of his service in July 1948, Wood began training at the Minneapolis School of Art , which he broke off immediately because it did not meet his expectations. Shortly thereafter, he moved to New York City with his mother and brother, Glen , where he found a job as an assistant in a Bickford's restaurant. The constant carrying of his portfolio was unsuccessful and all publishers initially rejected Wood as a comic artist.

Wood was married to the artist and comic book designer Tatjana Weintraub since 1950 .

Career as a draftsman

It wasn't until 1949 that he got a job as a letterer and background artist for Will Eisner's magazine The Spirit . At the time, he was making $ 5  per page. Wood broke off further studies at the School of Visual Arts founded by Burne Hogarth in 1947 after just one semester. But at the end of 1948, The Tip Off Woman was his first sole work in the Fox Feature Syndicate -Comic Women Outlaws # 4 . Wood founded his own studio in Manhattan with Harry Harrison , another comic artist who would later become a famous science fiction writer. From 1949 they sold their works to the comic book publisher EC Comics , including the self-produced I Was Just a Playtime Cowgirl , which appeared in April 1950 in the 11th edition of the series Saddle Romances . In the office of his agent Renaldo Epworth Wood met the draftsman Joe Orlando. He, Harrison, Wood, Sid Check and Ed McLean moved into a new office together on 64th Street and Columbus Avenue, the current location of Lincoln Center . In addition to creating their own works, the work of other artists was also discussed. Drawers like Joe Kubert , Frank Frazetta and Milton Caniff were always role models that the young team emulated. Wood and Harrison had a passion for science fiction and so they convinced the publisher William M. Gaines to bring out a science fiction comic series that later became famous among comic fans under the name Weird Science Fantasy . However, due to artistic differences, Harrison and Wood went their separate ways a short time later.

With the Disney cartoon Disneyland Memorial Orgy created in 1967 , he caused a stir.

The MAD time

After Fox Feature Syndicate went bankrupt in the early 1950s, Orlando and Wood owed about $ 6,000. Orlando then briefly interrupted his artistic career, but Wood continued to work. In 1950/51 Wood was involved in every issue of EC Comics and was able to gain a foothold in various genres such as horror ( Vault of Horror ), science fiction ( Weird Science ), crime ( Crime SuspenStories ) and war stories ( Two-Fisted Tales ) . In 1952 Harvey Kurtzman and William M. Gaines started MAD . Wally Wood was hired because he was very adept at imitating the drawing style of other famous illustrators. These skills were very useful to him at the time, as MAD was initially a satire of well-known superheroes. These works by Wood are still considered a model for many comic artists, such as Skip Williamson , and made him one of the first real celebrities in the comic business. His salary rose to over $ 200 a page. From 1957 Wood created illustrations for the Galaxy science fiction magazines and worked in all issues of MAD magazine (a magazine since 1955) until 1964. But after the onset of alcoholism and a rejection by MAD, which turned down a job in 1964, Woods resigned. EC Comics was broke and Wally Wood started working for Marvel Comics , where he coined the red costume for the character Daredevil , among other things . In 1964 Woody was next to Jack Kirby and Steve Ditko the third illustrator at Marvel, who was given more and more duties by Stan Lee , including writing the comics. Initially happy about the additional creative task, resignation soon set in, as Stan Lee did not declare the co-authors as such, let alone pay them a higher fee. Wood left Marvel in 1965, Ditko followed in 1966 and three years later Kirby also ended his Marvel career.

Publishing activity

With THUNDER Agents , a superhero series specially created by Wally Wood was published by Tower Publishing between 1965 and 1969 . All characters came from his pen. He employed Al Williamson and Reed Crandall, his former colleagues at EC, for the implementation. Steve Ditko and Gil Kane also contributed stories to the series. While this series was still being planned, Dan Adkins approached Wood with the suggestion to work on his planned magazine outlet (later Et Cetera and finally Witzend ). Wood, who saw his chance at MAD after the unfortunate ending to be his own publisher, accepted. In parallel to his involvement with Tower Publishing, he created new characters for the magazine, which left the copyright with the authors, a practice that was unusual at the time. The first edition of Witzend appeared in 1966, but after moderate sales, Wood stepped down from the publisher after the fourth edition to Bob Pearson. But his works continued to appear, MAD classics were reissued and by 1967 he had created 160 illustrations for Galaxy magazine.

1970s

Wood returned to Marvel for a year-long interlude in 1969, where he drew four issues of Astonishing Tales , a series starring Doctor Doom . But the bad relationship with Stan Lee led him to leave Marvel again in 1970. He had many smaller engagements, mostly as an Inker, for example for issues of Wonder Woman , Green Lantern or Vampirella . But the comic industry crisis in the mid-1970s was reflected in simpler manuscripts. Wood, who had a team of assistants, had to "standardize" his style so that his assistants' illustrations match his own to keep up with the pressures of publication. Wood also had a lot of problems privately. The divorce from his wife Tatiana in 1969 caused him to drink again. This, in combination with the nights spent at the drawing table and heavy smoking, was damaging to his health. His second marriage, which he entered into with his psychiatrist, only lasted three years, and a third marriage quickly fell apart. His frustration was reflected in his comics, which now, in the mid-1970s, were mostly sexual in character and appearing in men's magazines such as Playboy , Gent and the more extreme Screw Magazine . The stories were of moderate humor and seemed more uninspired than the older comics from Woods pen. With this kind of employment and engagement as an Inker over works by Ric Estrada and Keith Giffen , who were the real "heroes" of the comic scene, Wally was faced with a rapid decline. In 1976 he founded his own company Woodwork to be independent of all publishers and published Sally Forth and Cannon on his own; also his newsletter The Woodwork Gazette . Films, prose stories, hardcover editions of his collected works, to which he held the rights, and other publications were planned.

Sickness and death

But in the fifth edition of his Gazette he wrote that he was giving up. After several strokes, he was blind in his left eye and could hardly move his left hand. In addition, his kidneys were failing, a fact related to his unhealthy lifestyle as a smoker and drinker. His career was de facto over and Wood, who always strived for freedom and independence in his work, was dependent on the help of his fellow men. He was last seen alive on October 31, 1981. Wally Wood shot himself with a .44 caliber pistol. His body was found on November 3rd, but his death date is dated November 2nd, 1981.

Prizes and awards

literature

Individual evidence

  1. ^ Wally Wood. Splashpages, archived from the original on January 5, 2009 ; accessed on December 8, 2013 .
  2. ^ Wally Wood estate sues Tatjana Wood over art. 10.31.2014
  3. ^ Bhob Stewart: Against the Grain, part five
  4. ^ Bhob Stewart: Against the Grain, part seven
  5. ^ Bhob Stewart: Against the Grain, part nine
  6. ^ Bhob Stewart: Against the Grain, part eleven
  7. ^ Bhob Stewart: Against the Grain, part 38
  8. ↑ a b c d Michael T. Gilbert: Total Control - A Brief Biography of Wally Wood

Web links

personal data
SURNAME Wood, Wally
ALTERNATIVE NAMES Wood, Wallace Allan; Woody
BRIEF DESCRIPTION American comic artist
DATE OF BIRTH June 17, 1927
PLACE OF BIRTH Menahga , Minnesota
DATE OF DEATH November 2nd 1981
Place of death Los Angeles , California