Written and Illustrated by
Wallace “Wally” Wood
Published by Act 4 Publishing/
Skybound/Image Comics
As some of you may know, I started a blog celebrating comic book artist Wallace Wood back in 2009 that ran for a dozen years. It’s still online but no longer gets updated. It was in my blogger capacity that I ended up with a review copy of the original Wally Wood’s E.C. Stories Artist’s Edition. By the time I got through it, however, the book was sold out everywhere so I ended up not reviewing it.
Now comes Scott Dunbier’s new edition, from his own company (and published by Image), and let’s just say up front that Scott has managed to improve on perfection. Although he excelled at all types of artwork, Wood was particularly renowned for his work in humor, science-fiction, and Good Girl Art (an actual recognized genre of comic book art).
All of that and more is on view in this expanded edition of Wally Wood’s E.C. Stories Artist’s Edition.
The expanded part involves ten additional E.C. stories by the artist, scanned, like everything in the book, from the original art pages.
As others have noted, it’s like looking over Wood’s shoulder as he worked at his drawing board.
Wallace “Wally” Wood had been drawing since childhood and had gravitated to comic books after a stint in the Merchant Marine. Even when he was a kid, he showed great promise and his early work—often done in conjunction with other artists such as Harry Harrison, Joe Orlando, and Sid Check was pretty good…but it got better.
Around the time that Bill Gaines and Al Feldstein were first embracing their New Trend horror and science fiction comics, it was like Wood hit upon a magic spell or something and his work—no exaggeration here—seemed to grow by leaps and bounds overnight!
Known in later life for his use of sidekicks and assistants (I call them Woodworkers), Wood worked pretty much solo during the second half of the 1950s. His work became known for his highly detailed panels, his instinctive use of shadows and lighting effects, his masterful deployment of Craftint paper or pasted on Zip-a-tone, his instantly recognizable machinery and rockets, and unique alien creatures. Oh, and of course, his pretty girls.
At E.C., Woody also developed the humor art that would make him THE artist at Mad even after it became a black and white magazine. His work with Harvey Kurtzman on Mad and Al Feldstein on Panic is some of his most memorable. Unfortunately, only one Panic story shows up here, Wood’s parody of the John Wayne movie, The Quiet Man.
What else does show up, though, is page after page after page of amazing, brilliantly detailed drawings representing E.C.’s Ray Bradbury adaptations, Kurtzman’s astonishing and historically accurate war stories, and even the original art from the legendary unpublished E.C. 3-D story, “Spawn of Venus” (with notes by the estimable Roger Hill). In all, there are 19 sci-fi stories showcasing not just the artist at his best, but some of the best comic book art ever.
As always, too, the point of the Artist’s Editions is to reproduce the 70-year-old black and white penciled and inked art pages in sharp detail in full color so that the reader can see scribbled notes, use of white paint for effects or corrections, the occasional unerased pencil lines or pasted over items. Wood’s work was so near perfect in this period that one finds very few impurities anywhere. Man, did he go through a lot of ink, though!
The stories, of course, are mostly choice classics written or adapted by Feldstein or Kurtzman. Toward the back, there are another 14 examples of covers by Wood, as well as a few stray pages for which the entire stories weren’t available.
If you aren’t already a Wallace Wood fan, you aren’t going to want to pay the cost of this giant, hard to store volume. If you are, however, a Wood fan, you need this new edition of Wally Wood’s E.C. Stories Artist’s Edition…even if you have the earlier version.
Booksteve recommends.
