Part of the Magical Formula

OK, so I was at a sci-fi/comic art convention in the spring of '81, sort of flush with some money. A table vendor had some pretty cool art pieces for sale at reasonable prices. For the price of one finished piece I could buy several sketch pages of various artists, which I did. I'm a sucker for sketches, anytime, anywhere, as they show more of the artist's thinking process and is part of the magical formula of 'making something from nothing'.

The best of the sketch pieces was this one:

The man that I bought it from couldn't tell me anything about the sketch, like what it was for. When I asked him where he got it from, he was vague and elusive. But generally he seemed reputable. Nothing seemed shady, and boy he had some nice finished art, priced at levels I couldn't afford. He said he had some good sources for other material, if I was interested, so I left my phone number with him.

Many of my memories from those days are pretty hazy, as one boring day blurred and blended into another. But once something out of the ordinary happened, my brain synapses seemed to kick into high gear, absorbing the information.

Maybe a month later my phone rang pretty late at night. A quiet raspy voice asked for me. When I said, that's me, the voice said, "This is Wallace Wood," and there was a pause, as it sounded like a long drag from a cigarette, "you can call me Woody."