Net Wood

A couple of recent findings.

The Quite-A-Man

Joe Bloke is at it again. Here, he shares Wood in Mort Drucker's future territory, caricaturing John Wayne and friends for EC's spoof of the movie, THE QUIET MAN in PANIC!

http://grantbridgestreet.blogspot.com/2010/06/quite-man-by-al-feldstein-and-wally.html

Woody's Classic Covers # 39

This was a posthumous WITZEND publication collecting all of Wood's work from that venerable and game-changing magazine.

Portage Porto-Ped Shoes Ad--1968

Reader Jeff Austin has kindly sent along another little known piece of Wood art, this one found in a 1968 PLAYBOY but done for the obscure Portage Port0-Ped Shoes. Woody somehow managed to avoid the advertising success many of his contemporaries enjoyed but his forays into the field, as in this signed page, are always interesting and fun to discover! Thanks, Jeff!

When Wally Met Jack...and Al

Here we have a delightful and delightfully odd photo of a smiling Wally Wood. I'll let writer/editor/educator Jack C. Harris (who generously provided this unknown shot) give you all the details. Jack writes, "Here's a strange photo. At first, it appears to be a clever front-and-side view of Wally Wood signing an issue of Weird Science Fantasy for me back at a 1966 John Benson New York City Comicon. However, it's actually a mistake. I took a picture of Woody first and forgot to advance the film, so I double exposed it over the next photo--which is of Woody and Al Williamson. If you look close, you can see Al beneath the left image of Woody."

A decade after this magiical shot was double-snapped, Mr. Harris would, of course, be a fixture at DC during Wood's last great hurrah in mainstream comics! Many thanks for sharing, sir!

Captain Action

CAPTAIN ACTION is back and being merchandized like crazy these days but here's a page of original art from Woody's sixties version for DC. Here he inks Gil Kane's lovely pencils for issue two.

LA Times on Wood's Birthday Yesterday

Thanks to John Firehammer for alerting me to this unexpected LA TIMES tribute on what WOULD have been Woody's 83rd birthday! And thanks to the LA TIMES site for linking here!

http://latimesblogs.latimes.com/herocomplex/2010/06/wally-wood-talented-and-troubled-was-born-83-years-ago-today.html

The Misfits

From 1969's legendary military one-shot, HEROES INC. PRESENTS CANNON, here's Wood and one of his best collaborators, Ralph Reese, credited side by side for a change, on THE MISFITS.

http://grantbridgestreet.blogspot.com/2010/06/misfits-by-wally-wood-and-ralph-reese.html

Woodwork Exhibition

Some interesting news making the rounds in the US today regarding our hero-- In September, in Spain, there will be an exhibition of 150-300 (depending on the source) pieces of original art by Wallace Wood. Most of the sites that have the news are in Spanish but run them through Babel Fish for more info. Here are a couple:

http://www.lacarceldepapel.com/2010/05/08/wally-wood-en-el-casal-solleric/

http://ferrandelgado.blogspot.com/2010/06/el-casal-solleric-hara-una.html

Then check back for Sr Delgado's latest Wood post comparing the original and revised covers for an early issue of DAREDEVIL.

JSA Calendar Portrait

This is from the one Marvel or DC calendar I never even saw in the mid-seventies (I usually bought them all!) and, in fact, had only seen a small black and white image of prior to spotting this abbreviated scan (due to scanner size) someone had posted on the Web. Apologies to the poster whose blog I failed to note for credit.

Wood's last big hurrah in mainstream comics included some lovely inking for DC on various features. At a creative peak, he even took on the plotting and penciling of the revived ALL-STAR COMICS. It was during that period that this calendar page (for August of 1977 ) was done.

Picto-Fiction Original

Here's a lovely page of original Wood art found on the 'Net from one of EC's post-New Trend Picto-Fiction titles. These were an odd combination of pulps and comics mostly written and drawn by the same folks who had been working on the regular EC titles before the bottom dropped out.

Mandrain the Magician-1966

Jim Halperin is a collector of many things, some of which he has been gracious enough to share on his website: http://www.jhalpe.com/. Seen here is the original art for the rarely seen Topps parody of MANDRAKE THE MAGICIAN from 1966. Check Jim's site for many more Wood treasures of original art.

Sally Forth 1976

Galaxy Pieces

Dino Riders-Paul Kirchner

Former Woodworker Paul Kirchner went on to be quite successfully involved in designing several toy lines including MASTERS OF THE UNIVERSE and DINO RIDERS. Here's a site that not only features the artists's reminiscences about the latter but also reprints one of his DINO RIDERS mini comics.

http://members.iinet.com.au/~jediboyy/Comics/minicomics/Issue%201/Issue1.htm

Woody's Filing Cabinet

The ever-helpful Alan Kupperberg, former Woodworker and an enjoyable artist and all-around good guy himself, has a great offer for the right Wood fan. Here's what Alan had to say:

My wife and I have been closing out a large storage room we rent.

One of the last items left is a large, very heavy even though empty, three drawer, steel

filing cabinet.

And it was given to me by Wally Wood. He had it in the Wood Studio.

I don't know how long he had it before I met him.

We have no place to keep it so it will probably wind up in the

trash. But it is in perfect working order and has Woody's pedigree.

If anyone wants it and is willing to pick it up in Manhattan in the

next two weeks, it's theirs!

This may be fruitless, but I'd hate to see this bit of history trashed.

Alan K

So there you have it. If you can arrange to have it picked up in Manahattan within the next two weeks, YOU can have Wally Wood's old, empty file cabinet. Like Alan, part of me sees that it's just a filing cabinet but the fan in me imagines all the treasures that must have been filed in it at one time. As history goes, it's not exactly the Rosetta Stone but it shouldn't be trash either. Can anyone help Alan by taking it off his hands? If you're legitimately interested, contact me ASAP at booksteve@aol.com and I will hook you up directly with Mr. K.

Dan Adkins Interview

I thought I had linked to this earlier but apparently not. Here's a telling interview with one of Woody's best collaborators, Dan Adkins. The piece is taken from COMIC BOOK ARTIST.

http://twomorrows.com/comicbookartist/articles/14adkins.html

Wally Wood's Alka Seltzer Commercial

My Facebook friend Dave Rawlins posted Woody's classic ALKA SELTZER TV ad earlier today so I thought I'd repost for our readers here.

Oberyll-Wayne Howard

Have you seen our new sister blog, FOUR-COLOR SHADOWS? It's one of those blogs that prints lots of full, readable comics stories from the 1930's through the 1970's. Today's offering there is a very Woody-esque, one-off Charlton story by former Woodworker Wayne Howard, OBERYLL.

http://fourcolorshadows.blogspot.com/2010/06/oberyll-wayne-howard-1976.html

Wood Homage by Larry Welz

Larry Welz is best known for his NSFW cult character CHERRY (nee POPTART) and his early seventies undergrounds like CAPTAIN GUTS. His natural style tends to be reminiscent of that of a naughty...well memorably filthy, actually... Dan DeCarlo but here's the artist's impressive take on Woody's style EC style.