Comic Opera

Wally Wood accomplished a huge body of work with his time on this plane of existence. The EC period is probably the most admired of his oeuvre, but his later Mad stuff was also brilliant. It's unfortunate that color was not an element of that time period. It would have taken his work into a more dimensional realm, that is to say, it could have allowed focus, so that foreground and background could better be differentiated. But that's a minor quibble for this piece.

This "Comic" Opera posted here is for fans of Wood, but also for fans of the newspaper comics. This has incredibly complex layouts for such small space and jammed with detail of comic characters. I would go through and annotate who's who, but you probably know as much or more than I.

Wood's use of other cartoonist's styles blends perfectly with his own, making them more 3 dimensional with his craft-tint rendering. I have broken down each scan to tiers, rather than pages, so that you might look in closer to the wonderful detail.

The writing also is funny, and the 'songs' are terrific. If you know the melodies at all, give it a try, singing it out loud.

And watching Dagwood Bumstead die on stage is worth the price of admission alone.

This is later Mad at its finest. Cheers Woody!