Wally Wood
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Wally Wood
Born
Died
Nationality
Area(s)
Pseudonym(s)
Awards
Self-portrait by Wally Wood
Wallace Allan Wood
June 17, 1927
Menahga, Minnesota
November 2, 1981 (aged 54)
Los Angeles , California
American
Cartoonist , Writer, Penciller , Inker ,
Publisher
Woody full list
Wallace Allan Wood (June 17, 1927, Menahga, Minnesota – November 2, 1981, Los
Angeles , California ) was an American comic book writer , artist and independent publisher , best known for his work in EC Comics and Mad . Although much of his early professional artwork is signed Wallace Wood , he became known as Wally Wood , a name he claimed to dislike.
[1] Within the comics community, he was also known as
Woody , a name he sometimes used as a signature.

He was the first inductee into the comic book industry's Jack Kirby Hall of Fame , in
1989, and was inducted into the subsequent Will Eisner Award Hall of Fame three years later.
In addition to Wood's hundreds of comic book pages, he illustrated for books and magazines while also working in a variety of other areas
— advertising ; packaging and product illustrations; gag cartoons ; record album covers; posters ; syndicated comic strips ; and trading cards , including work on Topps ' landmark Mars Attacks set.
EC publisher William Gaines once stated, "Wally may have been our most troubled artist... I'm not suggesting any connection, but he may have been our most brilliant".
[2]
Wally Wood was born on June 17, 1927, and began reading and drawing comics at an early age. He was strongly influenced by the art styles of Alex Raymond 's Flash
Gordon , Milton Caniff 's Terry and the Pirates , Hal Foster 's Prince Valiant , Will Eisner 's
The Spirit and especially Roy Crane 's Wash Tubbs . Recalling his childhood, Wood said that his dream at age six, about finding a magic pencil that could draw anything, foretold his future as an artist.
[1]
Former Wood Studio writer-artist Bhob Stewart 's 2003 biographical anthology. Cover art by Wood, from 1978.
Wood graduated from high school in 1944, signed on with the United States Merchant
Marine near the end of World War II and enlisted in the U.S. Army 's 11th Airborne
Paratroopers in 1946. He went from training at Fort Benning , Georgia , to occupied
Japan , where he was assigned to the island of Hokkaidō . Arriving in New York City with his brother Glenn and mother, after his discharge in July 1948, Wood found employment at Bickford's as a busboy. During his time off he carried his thick portfolio of

drawings all over midtown Manhattan, visiting every publisher he could find. He briefly attended the Hogarth School of Art (later changed to the Cartoonists and Illustrators
School ) but dropped out after one semester.
By October, after being rejected by every company he visited, Wood met fellow artist
John Severin in the waiting room of a small publisher. After the two shared their experiences attempting to find work, Severin invited Wood to visit his studio, the
Charles William Harvey Studio, where Wood met Charlie Stern, Harvey Kurtzman (who was working for Timely/Marvel) and Will Elder . At this studio Wood learned that Will
Eisner was looking for a Spirit background artist. He immediately visited Eisner and was hired on the spot.
Over the next year, Wood also became an assistant to George Wunder , who had taken over the Milton Caniff strip Terry and the Pirates . Wood cited his "first job on my own" as Chief Ob-stacle , a continuing series of strips for a 1949 political newsletter. He entered the comic book field by lettering , as he recalled in 1981: "The first professional job was lettering for Fox romance comics in 1948. This lasted about a year. I also started doing backgrounds, then inking . Most of it was the romance stuff. For complete pages, it was $5 a page... Twice a week, I would ink ten pages in one day".
[3]
Artists' representative Renaldo Epworth helped Wood land his early comic-book assignments, making it unclear if that connection led to Wood's lettering or to his comics-art debut, the ten-page story "The Tip Off Woman" [sic] in the Fox Comics
Western Women Outlaws #4 (cover-dated January 1949, on sale late 1948). Wood's next known comic-book art did not appear until Fox's My Confession #7 (August 1949), at which time he began working almost continuously on the company's similar My
Experience , My Secret Life , My Love Story and My True Love: Thrilling Confession
Stories . His first signed work is believed to be in My Confession #8 (October 1949), with the name "Woody" half-hidden on a theater marquee . He penciled and inked two stories in that issue: "I Was Unwanted" (nine pages) and "My Tarnished Reputation" (ten pages).
Wood began at EC co-penciling and co-inking with Harry Harrison the story "Too Busy
For Love" ( Modern Love #5), and fully penciling the lead story, "I Was Just a Playtime
Cowgirl", in Saddle Romances #11 (April 1950), inked by Harrison.

Sky Masters comic strip by Jack Kirby (pencils) and Wood (inks)
Working from a Manhattan studio at West 64th Street and Columbus Avenue, Wood began to attract attention in 1950 with his highly detailed and imaginative science-fiction artwork for EC and Avon Comics , some in collaboration with Joe Orlando . During this period, he drew in a wide variety of subjects and genres, including adventure, romance
(which he really didn't care for) war and horror ; message stories (for EC's Shock
SuspenStories ); and eventually satirical humor for writer/editor Harvey Kurtzman in Mad including a satire of the lawsuit Superman 's publisher DC filed against Captain Marvel 's publisher Fawcett called "Superduperman!" battling Captain Marbles.
Wood was instrumental in convincing EC publisher William Gaines to start a line of science fiction comics, Weird Science and Weird Fantasy (later combined under the single title Weird Science Fantasy ). Wood penciled and inked several dozen EC science fiction stories, many considered classics. Wood also had frequent entries in Two-Fisted
Tales and Tales from the Crypt , as well as the later EC titles Valor , Piracy and Aces
High .
Working over scripts and pencil breakdowns by Jules Feiffer , the 25-year-old Wood drew two months of Will Eisner 's classic, Sunday-supplement newspaper comic book
The Spirit , on the 1952 story arc "The Spirit in Outer Space". Eisner, Wood recalled, paid him "about $30 a week for lettering and backgrounds on The Spirit . Sometimes he paid $40 when I did the drawings, too".
[4]
Books illustrated by Wood
Feiffer, in 2010, recalled Wood's studio, "which was at that time in the very slummy
Upper West Side [of Manhattan] in the [West] 60s, years before it was [the] Lincoln
Center [area]. It was a cartoonist and science-fiction writers' ghetto
— just a huge room where the walls were knocked down, dark, smelly, roach-infested, and all these cartoonists and writers bent over their tables. One was [science-fiction writer] Harry
Harrison." [5]
Between 1957 and 1967, he produced both covers and interiors for more than 60 issues of the science-fiction digest Galaxy Science Fiction , illustrating such authors as Isaac
Asimov , Philip K. Dick , Jack Finney , C.M. Kornbluth , Frederik Pohl , Robert Silverberg ,
Robert Sheckley , Clifford D. Simak and Jack Vance . He painted six covers for Galaxy

Science Fiction Novels between 1952 and 1958. His gag cartoons appeared in the men's magazines Dude , Gent and Nugget . He inked the first eight months of the 1958-
1961 syndicated comic strip Sky Masters of the Space Force , penciled by Jack Kirby .
Wood expanded into book illustrations, including for the picture-cover editions (though not the dust-jacket editions) of titles in the 1959 Aladdin Books reissues of Bobbs
Merrill's 1947 "Childhood of Famous Americans" series.
[6]
Wood additionally did art and stories for comic-book companies large and small
— from
Marvel (and its 1950s iteration Atlas Comics ), DC (including House of Mystery and
Kirby's Challengers of the Unknown ), and Warren ( Creepy and Eerie ), to such smaller firms as Avon ( Strange Worlds ), Charlton ( War and Attack , Jungle Jim ), Fox ( Martin
Kane, Private Eye ), Gold Key ( M.A.R.S. Patrol Total War , Fantastic Voyage ), Harvey
( Unearthly Spectaculars ), King Comics ( Jungle Jim ), Atlas/Seaboard ( The Destructor ),
Youthful Comics ( Capt. Science ) and the toy company Wham-O ( Wham-O Giant
Comics ). In 1965, Wood, Len Brown, and possibly Larry Ivie [7] created T.H.U.N.D.E.R.
Agents for Tower Comics . He wrote and drew the 1967 syndicated Christmas comic strip , Bucky's Christmas Caper .
[8] In 1970, he was a ghost artist for an episode of Prince
Valiant .
Daredevil #7 (April 1964): Wood's best-known work for Marvel, debuting Daredevil 's modern red costume
For Marvel during the Silver Age of comic books , Wood's work as penciler-inker of
Daredevil #5-8 and inker (over Bob Powell ) of issues #9-11 established the title character's distinctive red costume (in issue #7; see cover at left). When Daredevil guest-starred in Fantastic Four #39-40, Wood inked that character, over Jack Kirby pencils, on the covers and throughout the interior.
[9] Wood also penciled and inked the first four 10-page installments of the company's " Dr. Doom " feature in Astonishing Tales

#1-4 (August 1970 - February 1971), and both wrote and drew anthological horror/suspense tales in Tower of Shadows #5-8 (May-November 1970), as well as sporadic other work.
[10]
In one of his final assignments, Wood returned to a character he helped define, inking
Frank Miller 's cover of Daredevil #164 (May 1980).
In circles concerned with copyright and intellectual property issues, Wood is known as the artist of the unsigned satirical Disneyland Memorial Orgy poster, which first appeared in Paul Krassner 's magazine The Realist .
[11] The poster depicts a number of copyrighted Disney characters in various unsavory activities (including sex acts and drug use), with huge dollar signs radiating from Cinderella's Castle . Wood himself, as late as 1981, when asked who did that drawing, said only,"I'd rather not say anything about that! It was the most pirated drawing in history! Everyone was printing copies of that. I understand some people got busted for selling it. I always thought Disney stuff was pretty sexy... Snow White , etc." [12] Disney took no legal action against either
Krassner or The Realist but did sue a publisher of a " blacklight " version of the poster, who used the image without Krassner's permission. The case was settled out of court.
During the 1960s, Wood did many trading cards and humor products for Topps
Chewing Gum, including concept roughs for Topps ' famed 1962 Mars Attacks cards prior to the final art by Bob Powell and Norman Saunders . Discovering (from Roy
Thomas ) that Jack Kirby had returned to DC in 1970, Wood called editor Joe Orlando in an attempt to get the assignment to ink Kirby's new work, but that role was already filled by Vince Colletta .
[13] Wood continued to produce periodic work for Marvel during the early 1970s, primarily as inker, and then worked on a handful of comics for DC between
1975 and 1977, producing in particular several covers for Plop!
, pencils and inks for issues of All Star Comics in which Wood contributed to the creation of Power Girl by giving her huge breasts and an opening of her costume in the chest which exposes the majority of her breasts, just covering her nipples. Also Wood inked (over Steve Ditko ) on
Paul Levitz ' four-issue miniseries Stalker . Active with the 1970s Academy of Comic
Book Arts , Wood also contributed to several editions of the annual ACBA Sketchbook .
His last known mainstream credit was inking Wonder Woman #269, cover-dated July,
1980.
[14]
Over several decades, numerous artists worked at the Wood Studio. Associates and assistants included Dan Adkins , Richard Bassford , Tony Coleman, Nick Cuti , Leo and
Diane Dillon , Larry Hama , Russ Jones , Wayne Howard , Paul Kirchner , Joe Orlando , Bill
Pearson , Al Sirois, Ralph Reese , Bhob Stewart , Tatjana Wood and Mike Zeck .
In 1966, Wood launched the independent magazine witzend , one of the first alternative comics , a decade before Mike Friedrich 's Star Reach or Flo Steinberg 's Big Apple
Comix (for which Wood drew the cover and contributed a story). Wood offered his fellow professionals the opportunity to contribute illustrations and graphic stories that detoured

from the usual conventions of the comics industry. After the fourth issue, Wood turned witzend over to Bill Pearson , who continued as editor and publisher through the 1970s and into the 1980s.
The Marvel Comics Art of Wally Wood (1982) collects his 1970s Dr. Doom and fantasy stories.
Wood additionally collected his feature Sally Forth , published in the U.S. servicemen's periodicals Military News and Overseas Weekly from 1968 –1974, in a series of four oversize (10"x12") magazines. Pearson, from 1993 –95, reformatted the strips into a series of comics published by Eros Comix , an imprint of Fantagraphics Books , which in
1998 collected the entire run into a single 160-page volume.
[ citation needed ]
In 1969, Wood created another seminal independent comic, Heroes, Inc. Presents
Cannon , intended for his "Sally Forth" military readership.
[ citation needed ] Artists Steve Ditko and Ralph Reese and writer Ron Whyte are credited with primary writer-artist Wood on three features: "Cannon", "The Misfits", [15] and "Dragonella". A second magazine-format issue was published in 1976 by Wood and CPL Gang Publications. Larry Hama , one of
Wood's assistants, said, "I did script about three Sally Forth stories and a few of the
Cannon' s. I wrote the main Sally Forth story in the first reprint book, which is actually dedicated to me, mostly because I lent Woody the money to publish it".
[16]
In 1980 and 1981, Wood published two issues of a completely pornographic comic book, titled Gang Bang . It featured two sexually explicit Sally Forth stories, and sexually explicit versions of Disney 's Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs , titled So White and the
Six Dorks ; Terry and The Pirates , titled Perry and the Privates ; Prince Valiant , titled
Prince Violate ; Superman and Wonder Woman , titled Stuporman Meets Blunder
Woman ; Flash Gordon , titled Flasher Gordon ; and Tarzan titled Starzan . A third issue, published posthumously, reprinted Wood's 1976-1977 Malice in Wonderland , from
National Screw magazine, and other Wood material from Wally Wood's Weird Sex-
Fantasy (1977).
[ citation needed ]

For much of his adult life, Wood suffered from chronic, unexplainable headaches. In the
1970s, following bouts with alcoholism , Wood suffered from kidney failure . A stroke in
1978 caused a loss of vision in one eye. Faced with declining health and career prospects, he committed suicide by gunshot three years later.
Wood was married three times. His first marriage was to artist Tatjana Wood , who later did extensive work as a comic-book colorist .
EC editor Harvey Kurtzman , who had worked closely with Wood during the 1950s, once commented, "Wally had a tension in him, an intensity that he locked away in an internal steam boiler. I think it ate away his insides, and the work really used him up. I think he delivered some of the finest work that was ever drawn, and I think it's to his credit that he put so much intensity into his work at great sacrifice to himself".
[17]
This section does not cite any references or sources .
Please help improve this article by adding citations to reliable sources . Unsourced material may be challenged and removed . (February 2010)


 National Cartoonists Society Comic Book Division awards, 1957, 1959, and 1965.
 Alley Award , Best Pencil Artist, 1965


Alley Award, Best Inking Work, 1966
Best Foreign Cartoonist Award , Angoulême International Comics Festival , 1978
The Jack Kirby Hall of Fame , 1989
The Will Eisner Award Hall of Fame , 1992
 List of Mad magazine issues
 Merry Marvel Marching Society recording includes voice of Wally Wood
1.
↑ 1.0
1.1
Stewart, Bhob , ed. Against the Grain: Mad Artist Wallace Wood .
TwoMorrows Publishing , 2003. Trade paperback ISBN 1-893905-23-3 , hardcover
ISBN 1-893905-28-4
2. ↑ Evanier, Mark , Mad Art (Watson Guptil Publications, 2002), p. 47; ISBN 0-8230-
3080-6
3. ↑ Wally Wood interview, originally published in The Buyer's Guide #403 (August 1,
1981), reprinted in Comic Book Artist #14 (July 2001); p. 18 of the latter.

4. ↑ Wood interview, Comic Book Artist #14, p. 19
5. ↑ Transcript of March 24, 2010, Feiffer interview at the Museum of Comic and
Cartoon Art , published as "Backing into Jules Feiffer: An Exclusive Q&A" , p.2,
FilmFestivalTraveler.com, 18 April 2010
6. ↑ Guthridge, Sue. Tom Edison, Boy Inventor . Illustrated by Wood. New York :
Aladdin Books ; London : Collier Macmillan, 1986, c1959
7.
↑
Ivie, Larry, "Ivie League Heroes", Comic Book Artist #14 (July 2001), pp. 64-68
8. ↑ Starger, Steve and J. David Spurlock, Wally's World (Vanguard Productions,
2007), p. 177. ISBN 1-887591-80-X
9.
↑
Per Stan Lee in letters page, Fantastic Four #42 (September 1965)
10. ↑ Wood inked The Avengers #20-22 and the " Iron Man " feature in Tales of
Suspense #71, both over penciler Don Heck , as well as the " Human Torch " feature in Strange Tales #134, over Powell, in 1965; Captain America #127, over
Gene Colan , in 1970; Kull the Conqueror #1, over Ross Andru , and " Red Wolf " in
Marvel Spotlight #1, over Syd Shores , in 1971; and The Cat #1, over Marie
Severin , in 1972. He inked Kirby on the covers of Avengers #20-21 and The X-
Men #14. The Grand Comics Database (see "References", below) also cites
"additional inks... uncredited" on the Kirby layouts and George Tuska pencil and ink work of the "Captain America" feature in Tales of Suspense #71.
11.
↑
The Realist Archive Project: The Realist #74 (May 1967): "The Disneyland
Memorial Orgy", by Paul Krassner and Wally Wood, pp. 12-13 , with credits listed at archive's May 1967 Contents Page
12. ↑ Comic Book Artist #14, p. 20
13.
↑
Ro, Ronin. Tales to Astonish: Jack Kirby, Stan Lee and the American Comic
Book Revolution (Bloomsbury, 2004)
14. ↑ ComicBookDb: Wonder Woman #269 . Accessed April 2, 2008
15. ↑ Wally Wood's "The Misfits" , InternationalHero.co.uk
16.
↑
JoeGuide.com: "Larry Hama: Writer & Artist" , no date. Original link dead as of at least February 4, 2010. Web.Archive.com link .
17.
↑
EC Lives! The 1972 EC Fan-Addict Convention Book (privately published)


Wallace Wood and Wally Wood at the Grand Comics Database
Gilbert, Michael T. "Total Control: A Brief Biography of Wally Wood" , Alter Ego vol.
3, #8 (Spring 2001). WebCitation archive .
 Wood, Wally. The Marvel Comics Art of Wally Wood . New York: Thumbtack
Books, 1982, hardcover. ISBN 0-942480-02-3




The Wally Wood Letters and photo album. WebCitation archive .
Stiles, Steve "Wallace Wood: The Tragedy of a Master S.F. Cartoonist" ,
SteveStiles.com, n.d. WebCitation archive .
"Comic Book Creators Trading Cards #3: Wally Wood" IsThisTomorrow.com, n.d.
Wally Wood (1927 - 1981) American Art Archives

 "Wood" , BPIB.com (fan site), n.d. show v • [[|d]] • e
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