Violent Wood

Wallace Wood had sort of a long history of involvement with Prince Valiant, the comic strip. First, like most all other cartoonists the admiration, if not adulation, of watching the epic strip unfold (literally) every Sunday in full tabloid size glory. And then the influence  in drawing, for Wood as a boy and even later as a professional was considerable (as with so many illustrator-cartoonists).

But in the case of Woody, he had the unique experience of periodically lampooning Prince Valiant— for Mad a number of times, in the comic book and later the magazine. It should be said here that however brilliant Wood was as an artist for these parodies, in the case of Prince Violent it was Harvey Kurtzman's writing and breakdowns that took Wood to the heights of achievement. Wood proved many times later that his own writing was, well, somewhat wooden. Kurtzman was 'A" number one in laying a foundation of classic quality for artists to build their own brands of humor.

Wood plus Kurtzman were the best in their genre (ok, Will Elder plus Kurtzman were the best too—I'll post about Elder in due time).

Wood was so good at simulating other artist's styles, he could have ghosted any comic strip for any cartoonist. Prince Valiant would have been the ideal strip for him to do that.

 
I posted this much earlier in the year, but the above parody is worth repeating for the art.

And the above double page spread shows Wood's incredible ability to mimic other cartoonists, with Prince Valiant right in the middle of the action. And the art for Prince Violent, below, well, is just plain gorgeous.