
Long before I had any actual contact with him, I had encountered his work throughout nearly my whole life. I was a huge fan of his Topps products in early grade school, I was obsessed with his CASTLE OF FRANKENSTEIN mag in my teens, I discovered his cheesy movies as a young adult, and admired his place as a comics historian and, in fact, in comics history itself as I grew older and discovered EC. I never would have guessed I'd work with him on what would be his final project.
After Bhob's passing, word eventually came that Fantagraphics would finish the book. As the months dragged on into years, it became two volumes because there was so much good stuff they didn't want to leave any out. And now, finally, it's shipping. Although I have yet to see a copy, I have to presume that with all this attention, this will, in fact, turn out to be the book Bhob Stewart had been working on in a way since the 1950s! The ultimate tribute to Wallace Wood!
At several points along the way, it was conformed to me that my chapter made it into this first volume. Not sure yet if it made the final cut. I hope it's good enough to sit beside the contributions of so many others who admired, knew and/or worked with Wood. I hope it's as good as Bhob Stewart thought it was.
http://www.fantagraphics.com/lifeandlegendofwallacewood/
I really enjoyed this book! Then again, I have almost every book ever written about Wallace Wood, who is one of my favorite comic book artists. When I did cover artwork for IDW's MARS ATTACKS: FIRST BORN series, Chris Ryall suggested that we do tribute covers to Wood's EC WEIRD SCIENCE covers, and it was a great honor to get to draw those. Hopefully, I did Woody justice with my homages.
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