Friday, November 03, 2006

A NEW BOOK ABOUT WALLY WOOD!

Hot off the presses, here it is! It appears to be a whole book of anecdotes about Wood by the people who loved him and worked with him over the years. This may be the ultimate book on Wood! I'll let you know when I've had a chance to read it! Thanks Milt! It's a great present!

I think I'll pay a visit to 15150 Parthenia in Van Nuys. I wonder if the apartment house is still standing?

14 comments:

Amir Avni said...

What a great year in print for Mad fans! Have you seen Will Elder's new sketchbook chicken fat?

Vincent Waller said...

Okay That's a must buy!
Thanks for the heads up Eddie.

Anonymous said...

completely off subject:
You'd better post those chimp drawings from Friday, Eddie.

Corbett Vanoni said...

Absolute must buy!

And that location is a stone's throw from me.
Worth a drive by.

- Corbett

Anonymous said...

Awesome! I've always dug Wally Wood and the old EC stuff. I got to interview Jack Davis for a class one time- and speaking of class, that is one SUPERCLASSY guy, a total gentleman- and I took the opportunity to ask him about Wood.

Kinda sad, really.

Dan Clowes did a cool little story called "Wally Wood," I think. The artwork in the first pic reminds me a lot of that.

From that pic, I'd say Wood looks a lot like one of his own drawings. I've got three fantastic books on Al Williamson... now I want this one!

Now I'm all excited about comics again.

J. J. Hunsecker said...

Thanks for the heads up. I agree that book is a must buy.

Anonymous said...

What a tragic loss. Great artists should not be allowed to grow old, get sick, or die.

Anonymous said...

It looks like it's still there.

Anonymous said...

Wally Wood was a genius but in the twilight of his life he drank himself into a wretched human speciman, causing his family plenty of torment and grief. So much so that when he needed an organ donation to save his life, he asked his own brother. His brother told Wally "Fuck you!" Contrast the hope in Wood's great 50's "My World" against the ruination in his late 60's version of it for but a wisp of proof. Wood could be as unsentimental in his self-assessments as Crumb but far more tragic.

Anonymous said...

C'mon, people, sing with me!

"Hooray for Wally Wood..."

Anonymous said...

Wally was a very depressed man and a perfectionist, which helped to feul his alcoholism. It's hard to believe that the same guy that created such gut-bustingly funny art for "Superduperman", "BatBoy and Rubin", and "Flesh Garden" looked at his chosen career as "a self imposed sentence to a life of solitary confinement". Even sadder was how changing tastes in comic art in the late seventies left him drawing cartoons for porno mags. True, he probably was his own worst enemy, but it's a shame he never found a way to combat his depression.

Eddie Fitzgerald said...

Anonymous: The chimp drawings? They're not worth posting!

Toonamir: Chickenfat!? It sounds great! I'll look for it!

Vanoni: I think it's apt. #71 on the sidestreet.

Jorge: I'm not aware that he hated Kurtzman. When he left Mad he made a deal with Kurtzman that he would still freelance for Gaines. I don't think there was any bad blood there.

mike fontanelli said...

Today, the answer to Wally Wood's debilitating depression would come in a prescription bottle. It's a shame that he lived before the time of antidepressant medication.

His friend and sometime assistant, Nick Cuti, told me that he and "Woody" would often stay up 4 days and nights straight in order to get a job finished. (Photos of Wood late in life certainly seem to bear this out. When he took his life in 1981, he was already terminally ill.)

His work influenced a great many great artists who came up later, including Bruce Timm, Bill Wray and Bob Camp.

I still think the epitome of comic art in America are the brilliant parodies SUPERDUPERMAN and BATBOY AND RUBIN - which can be read on one level as a commentary on the superhero genre in general.

They seem to sum up the inherent banality and stupidity of all superhero comics, (sorry, fanboys!)
The great Kurtzman/Wood collaborations of the 1950's were done at a time before superhero comics took over the entire comic book industry, (to its detriment.)

Vanguard said...

A few corrections to misinformation in comments here (not time to cover all):
1) Wood and Kurtzman shared a great mutual respect.
2) Wood's brother was going to donate a kidney but decided not to only because, the doctors explained that while Woody's kidneys were the greatest immediate issue, that Woody had so many health issues, that the kidney alone would not save him.

For good accurate info on Wood, join the official Wallace Wood Estate page on facebook