A heartbreaking article on the life and death of the legendary Wally Wood at The Hero Initiative blog.
“I worked 12 hours a day, seven days a week for years. 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.”
Sometimes I think the only happy endings are between the covers of the book.
Written by Jim McLoughlin for Wizard magazine, presented by kind permission of Wizard magazine.
Woody was one of the greats. Not sure that a Hero Initiative style organization would have helped him though. He was on a self-destructive path pretty much from day one, that was what made him who he was. Without it, he might not have been as good. Whatever, he never seemed to lack the ability to find work — even right at the end.
Sad.
Must concur with Allan on this one. I revere Wood’s work. But I hold the work of Gil Kane, Curt Swan and Al Williamson in equal regard. All were quite prolific, but their different approaches to life informed their relative happiness, at least as judged from the outside.
I disagree with Allan’s speculation that without his self-destructive tendencies, Wood might not have been so good an artist. Except in very rare cases, suffering does not make people better artists. It just hurts. When you’re suffering in any way, it’s much harder to do good work.
I concur with Bodefan on the happiness question.
The worse he felt, the worse his art became, and that got him fired from MAD, so feeling lousy obviously didn’t help any. I don’t think anyone who didn’t knew the guy can say much about it, except that a great talent was lost. He’s still missed, and he’s still awesome.
Joe Kubert said that Wood was an true artist, and finding grunt work was never the problem – but finding work that was artistically satisfying was. I think maybe that’s closer to the truth. He was too good for the comics market at the time.
I think what Allan means is that what we are makes our art. But I really don’t see anything deeply personal in Wood’s art that makes a kind of personal statement about his life. I see that in the work of someone like Robert Crumb.
Wood was a great draughtsman, storyteller, and technician. But nothing in his work looks like the province of the tortured artist to me. I think he would have been a terrific comic book artist with or without the personality problem.
Maybe Amikael nailed it: perhaps Wood was tortured because he could not find work that had deeper meaning for him. I really don’t know. He may have simply been an unhappy person or had a mood disorder which had nothing to do with his art. We’ll never know.
It’s an interesting question, though.
Time to state the obvious. The three works that are most personal in the Wood archive are My World, Oddkin, and My Word from the Big Apple comic. The cynicism of the last one betrays his state of mind. Whether it’s cause or effect, I couldn’t say.
One of the commenters over at Hero Initiative speculated that Wood might have had undiagnosed Aspberger’s, which I found intriguing, akin to the speculation that van Gogh might have had an optic disorder.
That’s really interesting.
And when I say “personal statement” I am referring to the kind of autobiographical work that Crumb did.
I don’t know enough about Wood to know just how much something like Oddkin was a reflection of his personal mindset.
Quite depressing and possibly true, but I hope not.
http://johnglenntaylor.blogspot.com/2010/04/nsfw-week-wally-woods-my-word.html
Woody’s biographies (there are several available) are even more depressing. I think the bottom left panel of page two of that strip sums up pretty well his feelings towards the comics community, both publishers and fans. He hated that his earliest work was revered over his better (in his view) later efforts.
Yikes.
OK, I would not know enough about Wood to know how much of that is a reflection of his life, but dang.
That story sort of buzzkills the whole day.
It really is sad to see the product of bitterness. Buzzkill indeed at the moment, but I don’t have to stay in that mindset.
I pity anyone who is that bitter, angry and disconnected. But that’s not me, and I don’t have to stay there.
For one thing — I take joy in life. I may not have a life-partner (still haven’t found the Right Guy). I may not be getting my work out in front of an audience the way I want (yet). I may be scraping by. But I love life and being alive. And I’d hope that my work reflects that.
As yours does, Colleen. There is joy in your lines, a sweep and flow that can only come from someone embracing life and getting enjoyment out of it.
How’s that for a pep talk? Have a great weekend! (Must dig out 1776 and sing-along!)
As stated, Wally was not in a healthy state of mind when he did not strip. And from what I have read, it is easy for someone with a depressive disorder ( which Wally may have had) to see the world in bleaker and bleaker terms.
I would say that in comparison to everyone else the fans and publishers are not portrayed that badly.
I do know it’s a common complaint from artists that fans revere there early work and think that nothing they have lately is as good.
I have actually heard one artist say half-jokingly ” So what you are saying that in the umpteen years as a comic artist, I have not only learned nothing, but my skills have gotten worse?”
oops typo – I meant “did the strip”
When talking about comics, I’m not sure that WAS a typo.