Wallace Wood

"Being a comic book artist is like sentencing yourself to life imprisonment at hard labor in solitary confinement. I don't think I'd do it again."

   -Wallace Wood

"Wally may have been our most troubled artist. I'm not suggesting any connection, but he may have been our most brilliant."

   -William Gaines

The two now famous quotes by comic artist Wallace Wood and Mad Magazine publisher, Bill Gaines, illustrate - no joke intended - something - not just about Wallace Wood and Bill Gaines - but also about American entrepreneurship. If you have widely varied interests and serious hobbies, you might want to opt for salaried employment. "Working for yourself" always sounds good. Set your own hours. Work when you want. No boss telling you what to do. What could be better?

Weeeeeelllllll, reality often gets in the way of what we'd like reality to be. One businessman who set up a company said that he could indeed work any time he wanted to. Sure, any twelve hours of every seven days of the week he wanted. And he didn't have a boss anymore. He had about fifty. Only most people called them "clients".

On the other hand there are a lot of entrepreneurs who like their jobs. Particularly those who have others to do the grundge work themselves. I mean if you can rake in seven digit figures by doing nothing but attending meetings, haven't you found the secret of life?

Well, Wally would not have agreed.

You would think, though, that being arguably the most skilled and creative comic book artist of all time - although others will argue for their own favorites - would be the ticket to easy street. Particularly an artist whose art ran the gamut from cartoony cartoons with crazy looking and yet oddly appealing creatures to highly realistic "adventure" type strips with machismo protagonists surrounded by bevies of voluptuous babes. The latter figures almost became Wally's trademark and his - ah - "art" - impressed many a teenage boy.

The similarities between comic book and Renaissance artists are well known to historians. Neither type of artist has been very particular what they did as long as it paid the bills. They could also work in a variety of genres. The most famous comic artist are - unbeknownst to the younger fans - capable of producing realistic illustrations for advertising, books, and even science magazines. George Woodbridge, one of Mad Magazines's regular artists, was also one of the best illustrators of historical military costumes. There were some that even became award winning fine artists.

But the biggest similarity in comic and Renaissance artists is that the clients often put exact specifications of what they wanted to the art to be. If you wanted a triptych for your church you might specify the number of figures, where the figures were placed, and even the colors and what parts were to be relegated to assistants. Similarly the comic artists may have the type and number of characters in any panel specified, even down to the clothes they wear, the age, and genders.

Despite what seems to be hobbling the artists, client specifications didn't stifle their creativity at all. You can argue both the comic artists and the Renaissance masters created better art than what ends up in today's - quote - "fine art" museums - unquote - and sometimes gets thrown out because the custodians think the pile of bricks - that the museum directors spent $2,000,000 on because someone told them it was a work of art - is just a pile of bricks.

Wally was born on June 17, 1927 in Menahga, Minnesota and began drawing as soon as he could hold a pencil. His parents did not have an easy marriage and eventually separated. But Wally's mom recognized and encouraged her son's talent. After serving in the Merchant Marine and later in the Air Force, Wally briefly attended the Minneapolis Institute of Art but then moved to New York which was then - as now - a major hub of artistic professionalism.

And comic strip art, like fine art of the great masters, is a surprisingly collaborative venture. The primary artist - the head of the studio - often has a number of assistants and even "solitary" artists often swap work back and forth. You might call up an artist friend and ask if he can ink some of your panels while you finish up a job whose deadline is approaching just like a Dutch master would contract a friend to draw in the animals for a landscape.

And yes, like famous Renaissance and comic strip artists, Wally started off as an assistant. Usually assistants' first jobs are doing rudimentary work: lettering, ruling panels, and sometimes even just cleaning up (one of Wally's assistants who later became a well-known artist was paid $50 a week for cleaning his brushes). One of the most important of Wally's early employers was Will Eisner who many consider the true inventor of the now ubiquitous graphic novel - that is, rather lengthy comic books that tell a single story. Wally's time with Will honed his skills - although he was always very good - for him to start off on his own.

Comic book publishers do not normally have staff artists and - we have to admit it - some of the publishers Wally encountered were sleazebags. His early experiences with the less than reputable moguls colored his relationship with others who were on the up-and-up and sometimes led to difficulties that could have been avoided.

Even someone as good and facile as Wally could not produce his output without systematization of the work - again something akin to business in the Renaissance workshops. Systems simplify things and make collaboration easier. For his part, Wally came up with the now famous "22 Comic Panels That Always Work" (which comic fans will immediately recognize) and he also gave three basic rules for drawing comics in general:

	Never draw when you can copy.
	Never copy when you can trace.
	Never trace when you can cut and paste.

The "cut and paste" recommendation may seem odd to the non-artist, particularly when realizing Wally's work was all in the pre-computer era where "cut and paste" really meant cut-and-paste. But remember that when reproducing the work for magazines and newspapers (and of course, the Internet), it's only what's on the reproduced page that matters - not how the stuff is put on the paper or computer file. In the pre-computer days cartoonists learned how to rearrange compositions and add new characters and background using scissors and paste so they wouldn't have to draw the whole thing over.

Today methods for printing images are so good that you can see the borders of the pasted sections and even slight wrinkles or folds in the paper. But in the 1950's and 60's the less than perfect photo-reproductions would take pasted images with splatterings of correction fluid and produce pages that looked like perfectly rendered drawings. (Correction fluid, for those who are too young to remember it, is white paint sold in little bottles with small brushes and was used cover up typing or drawing errors before the computer age.) On the other hand, some of Wally's work with half-tones and washes were too good for the technology of the era and came out looking dark and smudgy. By far his best work is his black and white ink work, a style of art that - like film noire - has sadly almost all but vanished. Art evolution and technology always go hand-in-hand.

Of course, a bit of a caution is in order. It's best if when you're tracing and cutting and pasting - physically or digitally - you use models of your own workshop or images that are public domain. Tracing and cutting and pasting of other artists' work is generally not considered cricket. One artist tried to save time by hiring kids to look through various magazines or comics when he had to render a particular type of picture. Eventually he found himself if not - as the Sheriff of Boone County said - in a heap of trouble, in a bit of trouble.

Wally is probably best remembered as one of the first artists for Mad Magazine. He was in the first publications from 1952, and one of the most famous of his early work was the now classic Superduperman. Although the character had been a feature of a movie serial and appeared in some opulent and quite elaborate and technicolor animated cartoons of Max Fleischer, Wally's parody was directed at the comic strip. Like many comic artists, then and now, Wally did not write the story. His initial work at Mad was often written by Harvey Kurtzman. Harvey was not only an artist himself, but one of the magazine's co-founders. At that time Mad was basically a comic book and it remained that way as long as Harvey was there.

The first editions of Mad were colored. The shading though was with the ink lines and so the images have flat, bright, and often primary colors which make them very easy on the eye. The intensely detailed panels - later almost a trademark of Wally's art - with the large crowds was dictated by Harvey, who actually said he didn't like Wally's renderings that much. Even for someone as fast as Wally, Harvey's stories took a lot of time to illustrate. You have to have some sympathy with Wally when you see the complicated backgrounds and number of characters that were in almost every panel.

Wally continued to work with Mad after Harvey left. The new magazine switched from being a comic book to being a "slick" magazine. Wally's work was easily recognizable - unless it was deliberate parody. Probably the only artist who could best Wally at imitating styles was Bill Elder, who had also been one of Harvey's assistants.

Like many great comedians, not all great cartoonists are personally funny. Some may be gregarious, some shy, others pushy, and still other completely dour and sour. From people who knew him, Wally was sort of "all of the above". Some people remember him being quite congenial, others as friendly but shy, and others said he was distant and at times difficult.

Varying behavior in an individual is often due to - well - we'll call them extraneous and environmental factors. Wally's difficulties were at least in part was due to what was, if not typical to his times, not that unusual either. He was a heavy smoker, which is never good for long term health and was one of the messages driven by the Mad editors long before the Surgeon General issued his famous report. Wally was also - which had more immediate consequence - a heavy drinker. Nowadays where drinking in the United States has been reduced dramatically and only 17% of adult Americans smoke, we forget how the Depression Era and World War II generation took to ciggies and liquor with élan. Albert Feldstein, Mad's editor during the 1950's to the mid-1980's, found Wally's boozing began to effect his work. At one point Al even rejected a submission - something that hadn't happened to Wally for a long time

One artist who worked with Wally actually thought that the "rejection" might have been intended as a joke. He said, yes, the pages were covered with correction fluid. But using correction fluid was par and some artists' work was shipped to the publishers looking like it was impasto impressionistic. But even with the corrections, Wally's work was superior to many of the other artists. Joke or not, Wally took the rejection seriously and called up Bill Gaines. After a few harsh words Wally gave his notice. He never worked for Mad again.

One thing that irked Wally was the way the artists - without whom the publishers and editors wouldn't be making a dime - were treated as hired hands. Retirement and healthcare benefits were non-existent and as the work was "work-for-hire" it was the company, not the artist, that owned the rights. Today there is a major magazine that still requires artists who submit "on-speculation" submissions - that is work just sent in without any contract - to sign a false statement that the drawing was work-for-hire.

Even Mad - the golden pinnacle of comic art and who paid very well - didn't pay their artists a penny when their work was reprinted. Wally wasn't the only artist who got fed up with Bill and his lack of generosity. Don Martin, one of Mad's most popular artists, decided to write an original book but then found out that Bill wouldn't let him even mention Mad's name on the cover unless he forked over 50% of the earnings. Eventually Don severed all connections with Mad and went to its rival (and some think imitative) magazine Cracked.

So it's no surprise it was the executives, managers, and bean counters who were making the money. The artists and writers were cogs in the money making machine and if some of the pioneering comic artists of the 20th century ended up living in poverty in their old age (and it did happen) so what? After Wally left Mad, he became an advocate of artist controlled publications.

Today contracts do tend to be more creator friendly - at least if the artist sells. First time contracts though can still be pretty restrictive, and work-for-hire and having to sign away rights is still part of the business. But reprint residuals are more common, and there have been comic artists who have retired at age 40 to live a life of ease off reissues of their strips. Even in Wally's generation some artists did well and were able to retain control over the use of their art. Frank Frazetta lived long and did indeed prosper.

Wally's solution was to create his own publishing company. The ventures, though, usually lasted only a few issues, although one comic book artist thought Wally might have pulled it off if it hadn't been for his personal problems.

Even for his time, Wally was a heavy drinker. An indication of how much people drank is that in the mid-1950's Ernest Hemingway, whose health also began to decline in middle age, was once put on a health diet by a doctor. The doctor - quote - "limited" - unquote - Ernest's alcohol to one glass of wine per meal and five ounces of whiskey per day. In other words in the 1950's, on a doctor-prescribed diet to improve health, you could still have about seven - count 'em - seven drinks a day.

Drinking began to affect Wally's day-to-day behavior. Getting ready to attend a conference, Wally went out, unaware that he had put on only one shoe. Bill Gaines always took the artists and writers who contributed 18 pages more for the previous year on a tropical cruise. On one of the trips Wally ended up getting arrested.

After he left Mad, Wally necessarily continued working free lance including doing straight illustrations. He contributed the drawings for the "Childhoods of Famous Americans" series which was about (obviously) the childhoods of famous Americans like Thomas Edison and George Washington Carver. Although the gist of the biographies is there, the books present the stories in highly fictionalized scenes with invented dialog and events. Wally's illustrations are technically excellent although not particularly exceptional.

One of Wally's many skills involves one aspect of the old style comic art which was rarely appreciated even at the time and with the advent of computer created comics is almost forgotten. That's inking. A skilled inker can turn so-so pencils into a great art and good pencils to a masterpiece.

You may hear stories of a penciler who sneers he is a penciler and not a (ptui) inker. Actually the best artists do both and when working in collaboration, the jobs sort out as to who does what. With his tendency to re-work the drawings ad infinitem Bill Elder was a tortuously slow penciler but a fast inker. Harvey Kurtzman was fast on the pencil but slow with ink. So in the works where both Bill and Harvey collaborated it made sense for Harvey to pencil and Bill to ink.

Wally was one of the best inkers in the business and had often done his own inking. But as his entrepreneurial plans weren't panning out, he took on straight inking jobs for others. Inkers, though, rarely got credit on the strips and there's lots of work that Wally inked where he was left off the by-line.

[There is an amusing story in the first issue of the horror comic Creepy which is a somewhat satirical look at the comic book industry of the early 1960's. The story is about a comic artist who, due to lack of skill and a nagging wife - the latter a 1960's stereotype - hires a writer, a penciler, and an inker for a comic strip where only he got the credit. Naturally he doesn't tell any of his collaborators about the others, letting them think he does all the other work. And when they find out ... Well, you can read the story "Success Story" in Creepy #1.]

As time went on Wally's work wasn't always for kids. He is credited with the famous Walt Disney parody which shows the Disney characters engaged in less than family valued activities. Evidently Walt, understanding that parody is protected speech, did nothing against the original publication but did call in the big guns when the drawing began to show up as posters. Of course, that type of stuff is hard to stop and the posters never vanished until the hippie era faded.

So finally Wally turned to X-rated comics. Some were humorous, others were in the guise of adventure stories with unclothed ladies rather gratuitously standing around, and some are a bit disturbing even by today's standards. Ironically, in his X-rated work Wally was allowed to retain the copyright.

In the precarious world of free lancing, Wally did little else but work and had no real outsider interests. His work schedule ran 12 hours a day, 7 days a week. Naturally, a heavy drinking workaholic is not the easiest person work or live with. Eventually Wally began seeing a psychiatrist, and he and his wife of nearly 20 years (a noted artist herself) separated. A second marriage was brief and Wally continued to spiral downhill into alcohol-fueled depression. Naturally the amount of work he could do dropped off as did his income. Eventually he settled in Los Angeles.

High alcohol intake not only causes liver problems but also can be a direct cause of diabetes and high blood pressure, the latter being dangerously exacerbated if you're also puffing sixty cigarettes a day. Wally began to have eye problems and in 1980, only in his early 50's, he had a series of strokes. Friends came to his aid and helped him with his commitments. Some of his later work was created more by his assistants as he was finding it more and more difficult to draw. The following year doctors told him his kidneys were almost shot. The option was a kidney transplant but as there was a waiting list he was scheduled to begin dialysis.

Exactly when Wally died isn't clear. Most accounts say November 2, 1981, but the coroner thought it was a day earlier. What we do know is that on November 3, 1981, his publisher called the police. She said she had been trying to reach Wally for some days. The police went to his apartment and found him dead from a gunshot wound to the head.

References

Wally's World: The Brilliant Life and Tragic Death of Wally Wood, the World's 2nd Best Comic Book Artist, Steve Starger and J. David Spurlock, Vanguard Productions, 2006.

Mad Comics of Wally Wood, http://whatwoodwallydo.blogspot.com/. Great site with good samples of Wally's art.

Mad Art : A Visual Celebration of the Art of Mad Magazine and the Idiots Who Create It, Mark Evanier, Watson-Guptill, 2003.

"Tragic Genius", Jim McLauchlin, Wizard, No.228, Reprinted at http://heroinitiative.blogspot.com/2010/06/tragic-genius-wally-wood.html.

"Wally Wood (1927 - 1981), American Art Archives, http://www.americanartarchives.com/wood,wally.htm.

"The Wally Wood Letters: 1976-1981, Correspondence with the Artist at the End of His LIfe", TVParty.com, by John Hitchcock, Compiled by Billy Ingram, http://www.tvparty.com/comics/wood.html

"Total Control: A Brief Biography of Wally Wood", TwoMorrows.com, http://www.twomorrows.com/alterego/articles/08wood.html. Extensive on-line biography.

"Hooray for Wally Wood: A BookSteve Blog", Steven Thompson, http://wallywoodart.blogspot.com/?zx=18749a4d9e4fc9a3.

"Wally Wood, talented and troubled, was born 83 years ago today", Geoff Boucher, Hero Complex, http://herocomplex.latimes.com/uncategorized/wally-wood-talented-and-troubled-was-born-83-years-ago-today/, July 18, 2010.

22 Comic Panels That Always Work, Wallace Wood. Web. The panels have been reproduced so often that it's hard to find the first publication. But the Modern Language Association guidelines for Internet references no longer requires the actual URL. That's because if you put up a URL - like we have above - it's a good bet it will soon lead to a dead link. So type in the title and author on a search engine and you'll likely find the reference if it is still on-line.

"Success Story", Writer: Archie Goodwin, Artist: Al Williamson, Creepy, Number 1, pp. 37 - 41, Warren Publishing, 1964. Not to be confused with Creepy #1 of 2009 when the magazine was relaunced, also in black and white - unusual for a comic book at this late date. It's most interesting and instructive to compare the change in style of the drawings of these two premiere issues that were produced over 40 years apart.