Monday, November 21, 2011

New, Improved, Rotten Circus

Yow, wow! A HUGE tip o' the hat to Glen Story for shipping over a scan of the complete spread by Wally Wood that I talked about last post! It's an extravaganza of art from an amazing artist. There's the Marx Bros and Jerry Lewis and Plastic Man and Melvin Cowznofski and the whole furshlinger crowd!

Thanks Glen! What a great community of bloggers we have. Check out Glen's beautiful images on his tumblr site here.

Wally Wood — Mad Magazine #41, pages 26-27

5 comments:

Annie said...

Wow! Glen's images are beautiful, and I've become a follower! Thank you for the link.

Mad Magazine was a huge part of my husband's life, growing up. (Being younger and of the wrong sex for Mad, I can appreciate the appeal, but, sorry, it just doesn't do it for me.)

Thomas Haller Buchanan said...

Gosh Annie, I wasn't thinking it was a gender thing. It isn't the humor or the subject of the content nearly as much as the talent of being able to control such a complex layout of action, and on the fast turnaround that deadlines of this sort would have demanded, with no reference material to speak of. This was all from his imagination! Not only is each and every figure detailed, but detailed in the consistent style that Wood had developed. It's an astounding amount of artistic control.

Annie said...

Hi Thom,

I wasn't speaking of this panel in particular, but the whole Mad Magazine experience! I enjoy the detail in this spread, and I definitely appreciate the talent and work it took to create it.

Thomas Haller Buchanan said...

Hi Annie—
I was never into Mad for it's humor. Other than the early Harvey Kurtzman years, the writing seemed forced and was definitely sophomoric. It was always the art for me. Those magazine years with Wally Wood, Mort Drucker, Jack Davis, George Woodbridge, Bob Clarke, Jack Rickard, all the others—those guys were supremely talented as artists and graphic designers as well. I would study each page to glean their art techniques. For the most part these guys worked strictly in black, white and tones of grey, and they were masters at it.

eViL pOp TaRt said...

Most remarkable! Thanks for finding it for us.