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I want to tell everyone, all the time, about how great Wally Wood was. A legend in the comic industry but, like many creators of his time, he still doesn’t get the widespread recognition he deserves.
Wood’s earliest work was on horror comics in the 1950s, primarily for EC. The roster at EC remains a comic book Dream Team, and their work still holds up almost 70 years later.
Wood encouraged EC to develop more science fiction comics, his most well loved work, and in titles like Weird Science cemented the bubble helmet aesthetic of the time. Will Eisner even tapped Wood to take over for him on the Spirit in Outer Space arc.
His sci-fi work influenced Topps to develop a line of cards about an alien invasion, and Wally Wood was asked to design all of the original 1962 Mars Attacks trading cards.
I love his war comics best. There’s a staggering amount of detail and humanity, especially in crowded battle scenes. EC and Wally Wood didn’t shy away from hard truths, making extremely critical comics at a time when other publishers were glorifying war.
Wood was one of the “Original Idiots” at MAD Magazine, along with most of his EC collaborators. His “Superduperman!” made MAD a huge success, established the magazine’s parody style for the next 70 years, and served as Alan Moore’s initial influence for Watchmen.
At the height of his fame, Wood quit MAD where he was making $200 a page (reportedly an industry high at the time) to work at Marvel for $45 a page. He started on Daredevil and immediately changed his yellow costume to red. His DD 7 and 8 are two of my all time favorite covers.
Despite the initial excitement of having Wood at Marvel (check out the gushing praise on the cover of DD5), he mostly tackled back ups and inks. He eventually moved to DC (where he co-created Power Girl) and independents where he had greater control.
Wood eventually became his own publisher with Witzend, one of the very first independent comics in 1966. He tackled almost every genre, producing fantasy, spy comics, even smut (including an X rated Disney parody that he never officially took credit / blame for).
His former assistant Larry Hama (of G.I. Joe fame) shared Wally Wood’s 22 Panels That Always Work when he became an editor at Marvel. It’s a classic reference piece that still pops up in art books, classrooms, and parody comics.
Less beloved is “Wally Wood’s Credo”. But maybe the brutal efficiency makes a lot more sense when you take into account getting paid $45 per page as one of the most popular cartoonists in America.
Despite his success in comics, he grew bitter with the industry. Wood struggled with lifelong headaches, alcoholism, and 2 failed marriages. Towards the end of his life he said “If I had it all to do over again, I’d cut off my hands”. He took his own life 39 years ago today.
Wally Wood is one of the all time great talents in comics. At once heartbreaking and awe inspiring, few artists have been able to leave such an indelible mark on so many genres, with so many publishers, in such a short period of time.
