Pussycat, Pussycat?

I should have checked this in advance but the Wally Wood Yahoo newsgroup (click on the big "Wood" at the bottom of this page) went all through the questionable PUSSYCAT claim we documented here yesterday not long before I joined the group last Fall.

Former Woodworker Nick Cuti stated flat out that he saw no trace of Wood in the posted page but Roger Hill posited the theory that perhaps Woody "owned" the account and brokered the stories for artists like Ward and Mooney. If that was the case, then he might possibly have had a hand in layouts. As unlikely as that seems to me, I can't discount that completely without knowing for a fact that Woody DIDN'T own the account.

What IS known for a fact is that Woody himself did one story. Here, from Fred Hembeck's site, is that entire 5 page story: http://www.hembeck.com/More/Voodog/PussycatWood/PussycatOne.htm

Pussycat?

Well, this IS PUSSYCAT. The question mark above comes from the assertion on the Comic Art Fans website that this is:

A) from the first PUSSYCAT story published in "a MALE annual"

B) Has layouts by Wallace Wood and art by Jim Mooney

More than 20 years ago, I researched and wrote an article for AMAZING HEROES on the obscure Marvel (sort of) sexy heroine strip called PUSSYCAT. The 1968 one-shot collected a number of the stories of the character but many remain rare and completely uncollected to this day. It is, however, a widely held belief that Woody worked on only the very first story which was, in fact, printed in the one-shot. In fact, I speculated in my article that Steve Ditko may have helped with it as it looks a bit like the work that paring turned out at various times. That story was done in 1965 when Wood was still at Marvel finishing his DAREDEVIL run.

This page, however, is NOT from that story. I am fairly sure this is a later piece as the strip ran for at least five years in various issues of Martin Goodman's mens' mags and was reprinted in same well into the 1980's! Following a long run by veteran Bill Ward (BLACKHAWK), many of the later strips were nicely drawn by Jim Mooney. As the owner says, this does appear to be Mooney but I don't see the slightest trace of Wood or even Wood influence. Outside of Pussycat herself, in fact, I think I would be hard-pressed to identify this as Mooney! Some parts still look like Ward to me. Could Ward have done the layouts?

Dating this piece beyond 1965 would have Wally pretty busy at Tower and then at DC. He could conceivably done layouts for later stips when he returned to Marvel around the turn of the decade but why? If you have Wally Wood working on a strip with naked and semi-naked girls, it would be waste to JUST have him do layouts!

When I wrote my original article in 1987, I got a few things incorrect so it's possible I'm wrong here. There's very little actual info out there on PUSSYCAT even in these instant knowledge Internet days. Does anyone out there know the real, full extent of Wood's involvement? COULD he have done layouts for this piece? I say, "no." What do my readers think?

Susie Stripper

To celebrate our 100th post on Wally Wood, here's Woody's SUSIE STRIPPER from the 1950's. I'll be honest with you, I'm not at all sure where this paper doll came from--some adult mag, one assumes. This clip, however, appeared in THE BETTY PAGES, issue 2, the one with the amusing Woodyesque cover by avowed Wood fan Bill Wray.

Roy Thomas/Wally Wood

Roy Thomas's intro notes on SUB-MARINE MAN explain the background of these two pages better than I could. Reprinted here from the same issue of ALTER EGO Saturday's WITZEND ad came from, here are two MAD-style superhero parodies from Roy and Wally!

Teen Titans By Kane and Wood

WaffyJon from RANDOM ACTS OF GEEKERY has a running feature where he presents original art found on the 'Net. The most recent update, found at
http://waffyjon.blogspot.com/2009/04/cool-stuff-original-comic-art_25.html features a couple selections of Woodwork (along with some great Kirby THOR pages) including this TEEN TITANS page drawn by Gil Kane and inked by Woody. The Kane/Wood combination was yet another unique pairing in which the best of both artists always seemed to shine through.

Witzend Ad-1969

Here's an ad for Wood's (and later Bill Pearson's) WITZEND that appeared in a 1969 issue of Roy Thomas's revived ALTER EGO fanzine. While that revival didn;t take (no doubt due to Roy's busy schedule at Marvel) a later one would and is still going today with frequent appearances by Woody and his work. Note that this ad eschews art, preferring to sell the product on the strength of its contributors!

Woody's Classi....Ummm...Wait a Minute

Here's one of the great missed opportunities. Warren's EERIE # 131 is a special tribute to Wally Wood issue and yet the cover is by...Rudy Nebres?? Love him or hate him, Nebres' style just isn't particularly Wood-like! Published as a "tribute" to Wood on the occasion of his death, this issue reprints 6 of his Warren stories seemingly at random along with an obit up front. Unlike the similar Steve Ditko tribute issue (with Ditko, of course, still alive) this one just seems like a quick cash-in. Nebres' cover presents Wood's staples by the numbers--heroic spaceman, sleek rocket, facial shadows, blonde babe and slimy monster. In spite of that, if you hadn't TOLD me this was a tribute to Wood, I would not have recognized it. In fact, I didn't and passed this up on the stands in 1982! I get the fact that Wood was no longer around to do a cover. Had he been, Warren as a company had so pissed him off that they would have probably had to pay through the nose to get one out of him anyway! How tough, though, would it have been to have utilized a scene from one of his excellent stories or even some generic sci-fi illustration he had done? Maybe even re-use the SPACEMEN cover he had done years earlier. Warren was nearing the end here, though, and what should have been a nice tribute to one of their longest contributors comes off like a rush job. The art, of course, still holds up and this is a nice addition to any Wood collection but still somehow disappointing.

He Was Nobody

I've just re-read this 4 page Wood story several times and I still don't understand it. "He Was Nobody" is from Atlas/Marvel's 1956 JOURNEY INTO UNKNOWN WORLDS and could easily be mistaken for an EC story if it had that company's distinctive Leroy lettering. There's no credit here or in Stewart as to the writer. Stan Lee? Woody himself? Whoever it was, I can't figure it out. Apparently some young guy pretends to be an old magician in a town about to be destroyed by a flood. Flood comes. Old guy suggests praying. Mysterious, silent guy shows up and like a Pied Piper leads the townspeople into trying in vain to save their town. Town gets destroyed anyway. Silent guy disppears. Months later, the government comes along to rebuild the dam. Townspeople look everywhere for silent guy to thank him (for what?) but can't find him so they thank old magician instead...only to have the old magician pull off fake whiskers in the end and show the rerader hat he was, in fact, silent guy! Was he God? the Devil? Merlin? Insane?WTF??? Pretty art though from a period when Wood was still riding high at MAD.

The Destructor

From last September, here's Wood again at the Fortresss of Fortitude. This time he's adding his marvelous inking touch to old pal Steve Ditko's nifty art on the Atlas (seventies version) character, THE DESTRUCTOR. As written by Archie Goodwin, as previously stated one of the virtually unsung GREAT comics writers of his day, the character was an attempt at a SPIDER-MAN type hero (this one with a gangster background, though!). The art is some of Ditko's best of the period and the Wood/Ditko team is always a treat. This was the story from issue 1.


http://fortressofortitude.wordpress.com/2008/09/25/the-destructor/

Neal Adams On Wood and Kirby

In 2003's JACK KIRBY COLLECTOR # 39, Neal Adams, an artist as influential and revered in his own right as any comic artist ever has been, explains that he did not always appreciate the art of Jack "King" Kirby. "It was the CHALLENGERS OF THE UNKNOWN with Wally Wood's inking that made Kirby palatable to me." He calls the Kirby/Wood combination "fantastic" and describes it as "a new style of comic art to my eyes." Adams concludes with, "So the first coming of Jack's importance in the field to me came from Wood's magical filter." I keep tellin you, Wood was Kirby's best inker! Apparently I'm not the only one who thought this.

Another Ebay Sketch

The Monster

From a late 1971 issue of DC's HOUSE OF SECRETS, you can find "The Monster" by Woody with Jack Oleck (himself a late veteran of EC) over at http://grantbridgestreet.blogspot.com/2009/04/momster-by-jack-oleck-and-wally-wood.html

Early Cannon

Also spotted on Ebay was this early sketch of a slightly older version of CANNON.

Rare Wizard King Print

I don't have this one but I spotted it on the 'Net recently. It's a rare late-period Odkin/World of the Wizard King signed and numbered print. I just love the way Wood drew trees. Along with POGO's Walt Kelly, he drew trees with such character that they sometimes actually upstaged the action!

Two-Gun Wally?

Here's an oddity. It may be nothing or it may, in fact, be hitherto unknown Woodwork. TWO-GUN KID was a long-running Marvel western title and its longest-running artist was veteran cowboy cartoonist Dick Ayers. Issue 69 of TWO-GUN KID was dated April, 1964 which meant it would have come out around the same time as other April Marvels, probably in January. DAREDEVIL # 1, drawn by Bill Everett, was also dated April, 1964 and actually has a full page ad in that issue of TWO-GUN KID (watch for it to be posted soon at BOOKSTEVE'S LIBRARY). Wallace Wood's first issue of DAREDEVIL was dated December of 1964 meaning it probably came out around September of that year.

My question then is...how come these few panels in TWO-GUN KID # 69 appear to me to have been inked by Wally Wood? The rest of the story was drawn by Ayers and looks vaguely Kirbyesque like much of Ayers' work during that period. Is it just my Wood-tuned imagination at work here? As most people know, the fabled Marvel Bullpen really did not include all of the artists. Most of them worked from home and had their pages either shipped in or else delivered them themselves. Ayers presumably worked at home and was inking himself during much of this era. What if Wood, perhaps already feeling around over at Marvel at the beginning of the year, just happened to be there visiting when Stan or Sol or somebody needed some inking touchups on a few panels of Ayers' already delivered pages? Is that too hard to imagine? Ayers, to the best of my knowledge, never tended to show any leanings toward Woody's style either before or since. Could TWO-GUN KID # 69 contain at least a little bit of secret Woodwork or is it just me? Ronn? Bhob? Anyone?

Woody's Classic Covers # 16

The ever-helpful WALLACE WOOD CHECKLIST only lists 5 issues of Woody's self-published fan club newsletter, THE WOODWORK GAZETTE. I, myself, only have the first 4. Found on E-Bay, however and labelled as a portfolio is this cover for a 6th issue featuring Nudine and baby man, Pip. Does anyone know if this was actually distributed or was the prepared cover used to promote a new portfolio for potential employers?

Jazzbo

Here we have one of my favorite Wally Wood pieces of all time. It's just so detailed you could easily spend ten-twenty minutes savoring it. From MAD # 31 in late 1956, this is a portrait of Al "Jazzbo" Collins, a now mostly forgotten name in pop culture history. Collins had been a popular "hip" disc jockey in the early days of radio dj's. He was popular enough that he also appeared as himself in a very good episode of the sci-fi radio series, X MINUS ONE. In 1957, he even briefly became a host of the TONIGHT SHOW in its flop incarnation as TONIGHT! AMERICA AFTER DARK. I remember hearing him on Public radio as late as the early 1980's but for the most part his star faded rapidly. MAD, however, in these early Feldstein issues, was often getting popular topical folks such as Ernie Kovacs, Stan Freberg and Tom Lehrer to either do pieces for them or let them illustrate already existing bits. Al "Jazzbo" Collins' piece in this issue wasn't really that funny but it featured some nice illustrations as always during this period from Woody...including this masterpiece!

Silver Age Comics reviews T.H.U.N.D.E.R. Agents # 1

Continuing this past week's trend of Wally Wood appearances on other blogs, the great SILVER AGE COMICS at http://sacomics.blogspot.com/2009/04/single-issue-review-thunder-agents-1.html now offers a single issue review of the original T.H.U.N.D.E.R. AGENTS # 1 with some lovely and nostalgic panel reprints from Wood, Reed Crandall and Mike Sekowsky. There is, of course, no question that this issue is now considerd one of THE seminal mid-sixties comics!

Cleopatra and Thomas Buchanan

Thomas Buchanan over at http://mydelineatedlife.blogspot.com/ has been running a lovely thread on Wallace Wood for the past few days and it has now culminated with his tale of an appropriately mysterious encounter with Wood himself as well as some interesting art finds including this one!

Daredevil Guides

These have been floating around fandom for some years now. In fact, somewhere, I have one for Foggy Nelson and, I believe, Karen Page also. They're guides that Wood did around the time of DAREDEVIL # 7 in order to be sure of a uniform look for the height, weight, etc. for the characters. Here's Matt Murdock and his alter ego.

Captain America

Here's yet another blogger revisiting Woody's turn of the sixties return to Marvel. This time it's cousin Rick from LET'S RAP WITH CAP, one of a couple blogs dedicated to CAPTAIN AMERICA while awaiting the return of the once and future Cap. The issue, 1970's CAPTAIN AMERICA 127, offers up one of Stan Lee's lesser tales of the star-spangled Avenger but one which showcases the unusual artistic combination of Gene Colan and Wally Wood. Their collaboration is a rare and beautiful thing. There's some wonderful night scenes, a laboratory and some lovely snow scenes. Along with Cap, Gene and Woody get to present their versions of Nick Fury, Sharon Carter, DAILY BUGLE editor Joe Robertson and an iron-free Tony Stark. Between Colan's distinctive, realistic penciling style and Wood's classic inking, Steve Rogers never looked better.(http://letsrapwithcap.blogspot.com/2009/04/captain-america-127.html)

Flight Into Fear

"Flight Into Fear" was the well-done TOWER OF SHADOWS story from which the self-portrait on the cover of THE MARVEL COMICS ART OF WALLY WOOD was taken. It's turned up on line over at http://bronzeageofblogs.blogspot.com/2009/04/flight-into-fear.html.

Vampirella # 9-The Curse

Once again Woody gets name-checked on a cover. I probably should be keeping track of these. Anyway, VAMPIRELLA # 9 came out in late 1970 and featured the original publication of "The Curse." As we noted in a previous post, "The Curse" is one of Wally Wood's best pieces of the era and his second best for Warren Publishing. It was so popular that later in 1971 it was reprinted in toto in Les Daniels' hardcover book COMIX: A HISTORY OF COMIC BOOKS IN AMERICA. Warren went on to reprint it at least three times themselves. Note that someone at Warren must have thought enough of it to give it a large portion of the cover that one would have normally found fully taken up with Boris Vallejo's (?) now shrunken painting. Instead, Wally's black and white line art from page two of the story makes for a unique and memorable cover. If you haven't read "The Curse," here it is online over at THE FORTRESS OF FORTITUDE from last November:http://fortressofortitude.wordpress.com/2008/11/24/the-curse/

Woody and the Prince

Friend Thom over at MY DELINEATED LIFE (http://mydelineatedlife.blogspot.com/) offers up a ton of Wood stuff today including in-depth looks at Kurtzman and Wood's PRINCE VALIANT parody from MAD, some later parodies of the strip and then a panel by panel look at Wally's actual PRINCE VALIANT try-out strip! On top of that, there's yet another appearance of the late '60's DRAGONELLA strip. Check it out!

Woody's Classic Covers # 15

The Marvel Comics Art of Wally Wood

To be honest, I've never really been sure exactly what this harcover book is! It came out in 1982, the year following Woody's death, so it can be assumed to be a tribute. It is NOT, however, published by Marvel Comics. According to the copyright info it is, in fact, licensed from Marvel. The publisher is Thumbtack Books. I have never heard of them in any other situation. Just this book. According to the book itself, they were based in Brooklyn but the book was printed in Italy. More than anything else it resembles a more garishly colored British Annual.

Once past that mystery, however, it is an enjoyable package. Woody loved to do self-portraits and the cover here is a nice mid-period one from "Flight of Fear," one of the TOWER OF SHADOWS reprints included in the volume. It's augmented nicely with some sword and sorcery images from the other stories. The first half of the book, in fact, is made up of Wood's late-sixties Marvel fantasy stories. The latter half is the memorable DOCTOR DOOM series from ASTONISHING TALES #1-3. Perhaps the most unusual Doom story of them all, Roy Thomas's script features aliens, mummies, other dimensions, and a Latvarian revolution, all of which are readily handled by Wood at something of a peak of his art from that period.

World of Wood

WORLD OF WOOD (with no "THE") was a 4-issue mini-series from Eclipse in 1986. It was a 4 issue mini-series that ran 5 issues. At the time, Cat Yronwode and Dean Mullaney's Eclipse Enterprises had picked up reprint rights to various "one-off" stories from a number of popular comics creators and was running newly colored comics by each individual illustrator. Wallace Wood fared best with his series, thus the extension to an extra volume that came out 3 years later. Let's take a look at Woody's series issue by issue.

Issue 1-We start with a Wood homage cover from the then hotter-than-hot Dave Stevens. Encompassing Wood trademarks such as skulls, shadows, detailed armor, a semi-naked blonde and at least the hint of a slimy monster, this is a most inviting start to the series. In fact, it's 1983 copyright would seem to indicate that this series had long been in the planning. The series logo is, naturally, based on Wood's classic gothic lettering of his name. Inside, we open with a nice, informed essay on the importance of Wally Wood to comics. Then we have what is arguably his second-best Warren story, "The Curse," from VAMPIRELLA. This is the one Stevens based his cover art on. Although a bit dark, the colors lend an extra layer to this brief but well-told fantasy fable. Up next is a Warren horror piece with Woody's Snorky substituting for Uncle Creepy (or was it Cousin Eerie. The worst thing about these volumes is that they do not detail the original publication). The highlight of this issue is the bright, fun MISFITS story from the Bill Pearson-published HEROES, INC #2. We round it out with the lesser of Wally's BLAZING COMBAT stories, again with a color scheme almost too dark (due to all the use of Zipatone on the originals perhaps?).

Issue 2-The cover here is based on a sketch by Wally Wood that had previously appeared in the second WALLACE WOOD SKETCHBOOK. It's a cute "Ma, can I keep him?" drawing painted up here by (again) Dave Stevens. It was popular enough to warrent a poster that stayed on my walls for years. The Yronwode piece from the previous issue is repeated on the off-chance that someone buying these books would not be already familiar with the artist. First up is "The End" a semi-surreal story set in Woody's self-created "World of the Wizard King" an originally published in this form in his own WOODWORK GAZETTE. "The Cosmic All" was EC-esque sci-fi from Warren again. "War of the Wizards" is a traditional sword and sorcery piece. All three stories this issue feature some particularly nice art and the coloring seems better.

Issue 3-The cover here seems a tad busy and distracting to me. It's a Wood sketch finished up by Bret Blevins and Woody's old EC cohort Al Williamson. It's good but not great and I would not have used it for the cover, particularly as it partially obscures the title which is what would, in theory, be selling the book. This time we get a reminiscence from former Woodworker Nick Cuti. "Prelude to Armageddon" is a lesser Warren strip but still fun with its swordfighting centaurs, undead warriors and lots of naked ladies, all painted up in a rather murky job by one Nancy O'Conner. BLAZING COMBAT's "The Battle of Britain" comes next with a controversial Warren sci-fi piece rounding out the issue. According to THE WALLACE WOOD CHECKLIST, "The Manhunters" (credited here to writer Gerry Boudreau) was originally written by Wood but extensively rewritten by then-editor Bill DuBay, the first of several times he would do this to the increasing agitation of Wood. As presented here, however, it features superior art (with Paul Kirchner) and wonderful color from Woody's old EC colorist Marie Severin.

Issue 4- This time the cover is pure Wood--a signed painting with a naked girl, a warrior, a huge slimy monster (nobody did 'em slimier than Wood!), a ton of skulls! That said, it appears to be an earlier and lesser work and probably would not, on its own , have enticed me to buy the magazine. Inexplicably, the issue opens yet again with Cuti's remarks. They are a bit more related to the issue's content which makes one speculate that perhaps they were meant all along for this issue. Three more Warren stories are newly colored and they run the gamut. "Killer Hawk" is more lovely to look at sci-fi (story credited to DuBay) and "The Mummy" is the oft-reprinted Karloff movie adaptation done with Russ Jones. The finale here is some of Wallce Wood's best art ever. According to the Cuti intro, it's all Wood, too, done in response to what he perceived as criticism of his use of assistants. "To Kill a God" is a VAMPIRELLA reprint with more detail than any Woodwork had shown since the EC days.This is without question Wally Wood's best work for Warren. Set in ancient Egypt, it is loaded to the gills with all of Woody's stylized signatures. There's even a naked woman chained to an actual mountain of skulls at one point! Wisely, the powers that be at Eclipse chose to color this all in a light sepia that does not in any way obscure the magnificent detail. It works and it is an excellent way to end the series.
Issue 5-Then, without warning, issue 5 turned up nearly three years later. This one's cover appears to be a colored up version of an unused sci-fi cover sketch from Wood's very early professional days. Inside, with no explanation as to why we have another issue, we get a black and white, Theakstonized reprint of 1950's FLYING SAUCERS # 1 (actually credited now!). It's a fun story and it's followed up by "Skull of the Sorcerer" another very early PD story actually drawn by Al Williamson but nicely inked by Wood.
With a ton of public domain sci-fi available from the early 1950's, it's entirely possible that Eclipse planned to continue WORLD OF WOOD but the collapse of the independent boom and personal conflicts between Yronwode and Mullaney--as well as a disastrous flood that cost the company a not-so-small fortune--led to the demise of the company.

Wood and Kirby

Here's a beautiful example of SKY MASTERS OF THE SPACE FORCE, the newspaper adventure strip drawn by Jack "King" Kirby in the late 1950's/early '60's and inked (in the beginning) by Wallace Wood. Kirby had longed for syndicated strip success but this one came tinged with a less than wonderful deal he made with DC editor Jack Schiff. This ultimately led to a messy lawsuit and the demise of the strip just as American interest in the space program took off. The strip was written by Dave and Dick Wood (no relation) who apparently got a third of the profits to split between themselves. Kirby paid Wally out of his two-thirds, thus ensuring that Woody stayed out of the ensuing legal problems. Then Schiff demanded a cut due to brokering the initial sale of the strip. Dig up a back issue of the April, 1997 issue of THE JACK KIRBY COLLECTOR for an in-depth look at the legal proceedings that followed. The results sent Kirby scurrying from DC back to Atlas and put him in place to co-create THE FANTASTIC FOUR soon afterwards. In the same issue of TJKC, EC veteran Al Williamson has a nice quote about the Kirby/Wood collaboration: "...Wally was Wally. He and Jack Kirby, you can't mistake who they are. And the two of them working together is amazing, because you know it's Jack Kirby and you know it's Wally Wood!"

Dorothy Lamour

Some of Wood's earliest work appeared in two 1950 issues of DOROTHY LAMOUR-JUNGLE PRINCESS, a comic ostensibly based on the sarong-wearing actress of the Hope/Crosby Road pictures but really just an excuse for yet another of the then-rampant jungle girl comics.

The Stewart/Vadeboncoeur Checklist indicates the likelihood of Harry Harrison also working on the first story and Sid Check on the second. GCD adds the cool trivia that on the last page of this second story, there are incongruous initials. The W-A-W is presumably for Wallace Allen Wood.

Anyone want to venture a guess as to what, if anything, the other letters refer to? Check out the stories at  They're far from the best examples of his work but his style was already developing and in just a few years would be light years beyond this.

Woody's Classic Covers # 14

Slipping Beauty

Around the time he was finishing up DAREDEVIL, still working for Topps on varous projects and just beginning his association with Tower, Wally Wood began a series of naughty fairy tale parodies that ran in the magazine CAVALCADE. These were called FAR-OUT FABLES. From 1967, here's all three pages of SLIPPING BEAUTY courtesy of reader Norman Boyd who spotted them in an old UK fanzine! Thanks for sharing, sir!

Blazing Combat

BLAZING COMBAT is not an easy read. The 1966 four issue run (recently collected) has young editor Archie Goodwin taking Harvey Kurtzman's anti-war war comics concept and updating it to the Vietnam era at a time when young people--the mag's intended audience-- were just starting to question the need for the war. Not all of the stories are set in Indochina, however. Like Kurtzman before him, the sensibilities are far from the "Gung Ho" attitudes of WWII era comics. We see the Civil War, The American Revolution , both World Wars and more but not always with "us" as the heroes. There is little honor shown in these short stories--just blood and tragic loss as the reader is often given the POV of the victims or of the players on the other side. It sometimes actually HURTS to read BLAZING COMBAT.

Some of the stories seem a bit heavy-handed now but at the time were on the cutting edge of what makes comics a unique art form. The violence and its aftermath tend to be realistic to an almost painful point and Goodwin is at his early best both as editor and writer. The real stars of BLAZING COMBAT, however, are the artists. As with CREEPY and EERIE before it, the mag gathered many of the best of the EC crew a decade after that company's essential demise. To a man, their work here is some of their best storytelling the medium had seen up to that time.

To start with, all for striking covers are by Frank Frazetta who even then was starting to transcend the comics medium and become the ultimate fantasy artist of his day. These paintings, however, showed that he could present hard-hitting realism when called for also.

Inside, the visual treats continue with two Wally Wood stories late in the run. According to THE WALLACE WOOD CHECKLIST, the first is with Adkins and the second with Reese and Adkins. Just a guess, but the second seems to me to possibly have some work from Russ Jones, a Woodworker around this time who had also been the original editor of Warren's CREEPY. I could be wrong.

Both of Woody's stories are World War II air war pieces. The first, in issue three, "The Battle of Britain," is the more celebrated of the two and offers some wonderfully illustrated fighter plane scenes. The writing is also credited to Wood.

The second Wood strip "ME-262," is a Goodwin script with art that is heavily shaded and screened. There is also a heavy emphasis on photo reference and traced imagery, leaving it sadly as the least strip in the magazine's final issue.

Other EC veterans who appear are Reed Crandall, John Severin, Angelo Torres, Joe Orlando, Al Williamson, George Evans and DC war specialist Russ Heath. Other comics veterans offering some of their best work are Gene Colan, Gray Morrow, Alex Toth and the vastly under-rated Al McWilliams. Unlike the other Warren magazines of the era, there is no filler here.

BLAZING COMBAT is nobody's definition of a fun read but if you're a comics art fan, BLAZING COMBAT is essential. If you are a student of the influences on the later sixties anti-war movement don't overlook Archie Goodwin. Once again, like Kurtzman before him, we may never know just how many young readers were influenced by these four issues.