I too, remember Wally Wood from Mad Magazine in the 1950s.
Of all the artists there, he was the best.
I remember with fondness the little kid pulling the wagon that always seemed to show up in some panel, completely disassociated from whatever plot the panel was referring to.

He seemed to me to be an artistic genius.
I always wondered what happened to Wally Wood…
So he shot himself! Thirty years ago! Well, thanx for the closure.
Did you ever see his “Disneyland Memorial Orgy” in Paul Krassner’s Realist magazine?
Here’s a copy –

At least I HOPE this is a Wally Wood!
Thanx.

I never met Wood, but I got my 22 Panels from Larry Hama at DC in 1978, but by that time i had a hard time looking at Wood’s work. His inking was insanely good, and is still a textbook example of old – school inking, but his personal stuff i found cold and neurotic. There’s a panel in one of his Cannon stories that seems typical – cannon and a girl, probably a blonde, sit at a round table in a dark room, and in a bright circle in the foreground a stripper dances. Somehow this image has stuck with me, symbolic of not only Wood’s deep sadness (commented on by everyone who knew him, even slightly), but of the alienation of a whole generation of men i did not want to emulate

That said, I want to address the notion that Wood was merely a tremendously ambitious journeyman. I think that’s unfair. It may be ironically noted that comics are the last place where Picasso’s merit as an artist is argued, so please let’s not forget that a good artist is not necessarily a good cartoonist, and a good cartoonist does not necessarily turn out good comic pages, and while I admit there are shortcomings to Wood’s work, he produced great comic pages (even incorporating Picasso-like images in his comics pages, for those who take note of such things). Even though his story telling seems staged and too anchored to the golden age, he was among the generation that opened up the constrictions of the comics page. Those EC science fiction jobs that he, and Orlando (solo, and with Wood), and Williamson did looked modern in a way no other comics did, despite the anachronisms that some complain of in Williamson’s work..

Wood’s black and white Mad work is insanely good. Try and duplicate it. Layer upon layer of craftint, zip and white out, and it’s never muddy, the compositions always sharp and reading clearly. Look at what wood was lampooning, look at 1950s TV and newspaper photos, and B&W advertising art. Wood was dead on, and never less than brilliant and often genius, which is why we’re discussing him, not because of his decline

Wood outclassed almost all of his inspirations and peers in every way, look at his modernization of the Spirit, his combined sense of illustration and cartoon made him Kurtzman’s most successful collaborator, he did better science fiction than Raymond, was more dramatic than Foster, and better tone work than Roy Crane, and even in his later years he could breathe life into a commercial romance ink job and make Garcia-Lopez look better than anybody.

I’ve got a page from the last issue of Anthro, which Woody inked over Howie Post. It’s a beauty. I showed it to Joe Rubinstein and he said he remembered the job, that Howie had turned in very rough layouts for a kill fee, but it was decided the book would be published, and Joe Orlando called Wally and said -Wally , you’re the only guy in the industry who can do this – and he was, you can see it on the paper, you can see the pure confident line of a top pro, who not only understands the visual language in which he’s working, but the subtleties and strengths of the original artist and who’s in full possession of his own skills to complete the drawing. I can’t see another hand on this page, the ink is all the same tone, and it’s a beautiful page, Little Wally doing what Little Wally liked to do best, drawing jungles and cavemen and spotting those beautiful blacks throughout the jungle backgrounds.

I’ve got a lot of comic books, and if you know where to look, in late 1949, in the Fox Jungle books, in the midst of some of the most awful art imaginable, you start to see these little faces, tight and controlled, with downcast shadows, and odd pieces of depth to the backgrounds, and within a year you start to see the most interesting romance stories, often awkward but passionate and very complete looking, here’s a crafts man, someone who understands that this is a medium, something worth really doing right, making it personal, and from there you can see Wood grow in the medium, and reach a point of influence that journeymen simply don’t have. Jack Kirby said there was only one genius in the comics field and it was Wallace Wood. I gotta go with that.

yrs,

tom christopher

comics fun at my website

http://www.tomchristopher.com

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To have a measure of understanding of the circumstances of Wood’s life and the events leading up to his suicide has been a quest for me. As I approach 50, I am at the stage where I examine my own life structure and glean whatever information I can from others who have gone before me (be they tragic or happy).

When I was a kid, I had dreamed of getting into the comics industry. It never happened but I’m thankful for the life I’ve had. Still, reading about the history of the comics world behind the scenes has been like following an alternate life story line and I remain fascinated by it.

Thanks for the terrific article and to all who made such insightful comments.

When one sees evidence of genius, it’s natural to assume the person so brilliant as a creator must have it all together in every area of life. The fact is, Wood found the real world a harrowing place to inhabit, which is why he tried to spend as much time as he could inside himself, in his imagination.

Woody (he hated being called “Wally” and preferred “Wallace” or “Woody.”) created the actual 22 panels, but they originally existed as scattered sketches on three or four 8X10 sheets. There was no editorializing or explanation, or even a title. Not long after his death, I had the various panels shot down by the photostat guys at Marvel and pasted them up on a single standard size original art board. I wrote the disparaging line about writers and lettered the title and copy at the top of the page. I take no credit for the creation, but I am the codifier who put the information into it’s most widely disseminated form.

There is a more detailed explanation at Joel Johnson’s website:
http://joeljohnson.com/2009/wally-woods-22-panels-that-always-work-unlimited-edition

I got a chance to meet him my second night in New York (I was working for Kurtzman & Elder on Little Annie Fanny) at a comics creators’ party in a house a Staten Island ferry boat trip away from Manhattan in 1972. Our chance meeting in the kitchen turned out to prove the old adage of “Never meet your heroes.” That’s OK; I love Wally’s best stuff so much that I’ll happily forgive him any lack of social graces he might have exhibited that evening.

I subscribed to Witzend from the get-go. Each issue was an anxiously anticipated and savored treasure; my favorite comics artists (Wood, Williamson, Krenkel, Frazetta, Torres, Morrow, etc.) drawing whatever the hell they wanted to draw. Woo hoo!

I also loved and respected the fact that Wally could excel at both the superhero genre and at funny stuff, too. Inspired by Wally, I made that a personal goal as well, alternating “straight” comics with funny stuff (what Williamson referred to as “bigfoot comics”).

Wally Wood’s huge volume of brilliant work, coupled with his tragic life should serve as a cautionary tale to all comics creators. In addition to consistently producing your best work, you should also be constantly paying attention to rights issues and the business details of what you do.