Small Painting

Although described as a "small painting" this looks much like a 1950's girlie mag gag panel that ended up in the hands of Woody's late-in-life friend Gilbert Ortiz. Thanks again to Ronn Sutton for finding it on EBay.

Country Road Layouts

The ever-helpful Ronn Sutton points us toward even more Bill Pearson sketches from Woody on EBay, all from a series done, I believe, for one of the Childhood of Famous Americans children's books from the early 1960's, many of which featured illustrations from comic artists including Gray Morrow.

Who Are These Guys?

I found this wthout comment on the Wally Wood Yahoo group. It seems to have been there awhile and yet I'd somehow never before noticed it. Looks to me to be from the mid-sixties. Good to see Woody looking so robust but who are these other guys? His assistants? It occurs to me that I don't think I've ever seeen photos of any of the Woodworkers from that period! I have educated guesses on the identities of all three of these guys but I'm sure many of you out there actually know so please ID them for us in the comments rather than me speculating! Thanks!

Unrepentant Wally

Found a nifty blog today with which I was not previously familiar. Unfortunately it's only been updated sporadically since 2006 with the most recent time being a couple of months back. That said, the blog-owner claims Wally Wood as his favorite artist and offers a number of Wood related posts and some art I've never seen before such as the MAD-style lid of the box for an obscure TV game show's home version, seen here. Check out the archives at CONFESSIONS OF AN UNREPENTANT COMIC COLLECTOR here:

http://tales-calculated-to-blog.blogspot.com/

Sword and Sorcery at Marvel

When it comes to comics blogs, one can always count on the Groovy Agent to post the coolest stuff! He plugs us today so we tip our hat back by plugging his offering of two Wally Wood stories from Marvel's TOWER OF SHADOWS! Both written and drawn by Wood, the art here is very reminiscent of his WIZARD KING work and in spite of its less than stellar four color presentation in the original comics, remains some of his best work from his late sixties/early seventies stint at Marvel.

http://diversionsofthegroovykind.blogspot.com/2009/11/grooves-faves-of-swords-and-sorcery-and.html

Sam-The Haircut

Here, from MEET ANGEL # 7 (which was actually a continuatation of ANGEL AND THE APE) is Sam Simeon (The Ape) in a one page throwaway gag that seemed appropriate to me today as I just shaved my head earlier this week. GCD says Wood inks but doesn't know the penciller. Looks all Wood to me but if there is a penciller it's more than likely Bob Oksner.

Kid Flash

One of Wally's last inking jobs for DC came in 1978 when he gave good solid support to the great Jose Luis Garcia-Lopez without typically overwhelming his style on a KID FLASH solo story for the 1978 FLASH SPECTACULAR comic. Found over at RANDOM ACTS OF GEEKERY today are these two original art pages from that piece.
http://waffyjon.blogspot.com/

Adkins' Doorway

One of Dan Adkins' most Wood-like (with a dash of Ditko thrown in even) solo stories is "The Doorway" from an early issue of CREEPY. The whole thing is on view at the always interesting blog, BLACK 'N' WHITE AND RED ALL OVER.

http://blacknwhiteandredallover.blogspot.com/2009/11/post-11-doorway.html

Adkins himself, in his COMIC BOOK ARTIST interview, saw this story as the first stepping
stone toward his solo career:

CBA: When did you go off on your own? When you were working for Warren?

DAN: Yeah, and I did it in a cowardly way, according to Wally. [laughs] I went down to Archie, and had to beg him for about six months to let me do a story for him, which turned out to be "The Doorway." I was still working for Wally, until my third Warren story, "The Day After Doomsday." When that came out, I took my samples—I'd had my name on three jobs for Wally, and I had three jobs published on my own, including a one-page filler for Blazing Combat, plus my science-fiction stuff for years—and I went to Marvel. I saw Sol Brodsky, and went in to see Stan, and they gave me a Bill Everett "Sub-Mariner" job to ink. So I inked that, brought that back in, and they gave me my first pencil job, which Stan wrote. He gave me a plot written out on index cards. It was "It Walks Like a Man," or something like that. A thing from radiation. So, I did that story with Stan, and the second half I did with Roy Thomas, and those were my first stories.

While you're over at that site, why hot revisit "The Curse" also at
http://blacknwhiteandredallover.blogspot.com/2009/11/post-6-curse.html

Wood Obit From Eerie

Wood had done a lot of work for Warren Publsihing over the years even going so far as to be photographed and inserted into Warren's photo adaptation of the Grade Z monster film, THE HORROR OF PARTY BEACH early on. In later years, however, that relationship became strained as Wood had supposedly been promised his own sci-fi mag (WARP) only to have the company publish the dreadful and pointlessly dirty 1984 in its stead. In that mag, Bill Dubay once again rewrote a Woody story, this time making a nice fantasy story (the original of which Wood would self-publish in his WOODWORK GAZETTE) into a smarmy, sophomoric joke. Nonetheless, Warren's EERIE paid tribute to the artist on his passing with a full issue of reprints that included this obituary. Some nice quotes and stories here from Wood's contemporaries and co-workers.

Paul Krassner's 'Who's To Say What's Obscene?'

Portions of Woody's infamous DISNEYLAND MEMORIAL ORGY poster, once surpressed, turned up on the cover of a relatively recent book by Paul Krassner, whose magazine THE REALIST originally published it back in the sixties. Perhaps purposely, even here portions are censored.

Thanks to John Firehammer for the heads up on this book.

Kirby/Wood Tattoo

NOT me! This SKY MASTERS OF THE SPACE FORCE fan and his arm art were found on the Net.

Gil Kane/Ralph Reese

Wally Wood is generally thought of as having been an excellent inker for the work of the great Gil Kane. Today over at DIVERSIONS OF THE GROOVY KIND (which glitches my PC for some reason lately but it's still worth it) you can see what I believe to be the only example of Kane being inked by former Woodworker (and a wonderful stylist in his own right) Ralph Reese veru much in the style of his mentor. The story is "The Eavesdropper" from DC's FORBIDDEN TALES OF THE DARK MANSION # 13 in 1973. Thanks, Groove!

http://diversionsofthegroovykind.blogspot.com/2009/11/praising-kane-13-pages-of-bad-luck-with.html

The Mummy

No, not the usual Warren one by Woody with Russ Jones. No, THIS Warren one, with Dan Adkins, was the inside front cover of EERIE # 5...and strangely enough also of EERIE # 14 just a couple of years later.

Woody's Classic Covers # 34

Here are the front and back covers to the NOMAN volume of the Tower paperback series that collected T.H.U.N.D.E.R. AGENTS stories in the mid-sixties. Note that whoever laid out the cover had no idea that the background villain was NOT just another drawing of NoMan himself! Thus the word balloon. The back cover is by Woody with, I'm pretty sure, Dan Adkins. The front MAY be by Reed Crandall with or without Wood and both seem at least a bit retouched by other hands. Interior art also includes work from Mike Sekowsky and Gil Kane.

T.H.U.N.D.E.R. Agents Tribute

If you're on Facebook, the perpetual FACEBOOK COMIC CON is presenting a tribute to Wallace Wood's T.H.U.N.D.E.R. Agents. It's been up for some time now and continues through November 16th. Not much going on there sadly other than some nice fan art like this NoMan scene by Jay Piscopo but maybe Wood fans can change that. Check it out here sometime in the next 11 days:
http://www.facebook.com/l.php?u=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.facebook.com%2Fevent.php%3Feid%3D118136936259&h=ebd61bce5955ace1ee70cc69ec21d2e7

Around the World in Eighty Days

Mad's Comic Opera

One of Woody's most popular pieces for MAD would have to be the MAD COMIC OPERA in which our hero gets to draw all sorts of comic strip characters from Dick Tracy and Dagwood to Tarzan and Charlie Brown all mimicking the styles of the original artists! See it today over at
http://mydelineatedlife.blogspot.com/2009/10/comic-opera.html