Big Apple Comix #1 and only was the brainchild of Flo Steinberg, the longtime staffer at Marvel Comics in its heyday. It's a ground-level comic book sporting a dynamic Wally Wood cover, with work by a number of folks including Herb Trimpe, Mike Ploog, Neal Adams, Marie Severin, Alan Weiss, and others. Wood contributed greatly not least of which was his revisiting the EC classic story "My World" from Weird Science #22 (see yesterday's post) and offered up this raunchier updated sardonic variation dubbed merely "My Word".
It's a far different world envisioned here, the implacable optimism of mankind's eventual conquest of the universe replaced by the humbled desire to get through day-to-day modern life. "My World" looked outward towards possibilities while "My Word" looks inward at limitations.
In addition to the cover and the three page reflection Wally Wood also inked a piece in the little comic anthology. "Lots Yox" was drawn by Herb Trimpe and featured some particularly crafted biplanes taking on a rather familiar target. There's a second page to this story which reveals that all is not as it seems. It's a good reason to scout up a copy of Big Apple #1 if you can.
"My Word" has been reprinted a few times. Most recently I picked it up in The Erotic Art of Wally Wood.
Note: This post originally appeared at Rip Jagger's Other Dojo. I will be transferring some of those posts over here as the month goes on.
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That's some pretty raunchy but beautifully illustrated art.
ReplyDeleteClassic Woody can get quite raucous, but his craftsmanship (at least up until the end) makes it still sleek somehow.
DeleteI was moderately sure that if you'd devoted a post to "My World," another centered upon "My Word" would have already followed. It's a really savage satire on the whole "sense of wonder" expoused in the first story. In my essay I commented on the story's first page:
ReplyDelete'"My Word," however, depicts a world over which the artist has no control, except in the sense that he can exaggerate the already dire reputation of New York City in the 1970s. In the far left of the splash panel, for example, one sees not only a demented version of Batman's villain The Penguin exposing himself to a little girl, while the Shadow stands to one side, apparently willing to let the Penguin do as he wants since the two of them belong to the Cyrano de Bergerac "huge schnozz" club.'
It's the difference between the zest of youth and the weariness of age. Woody seems to be a guy who was filled with gusto at times and overcome with life's rigors at others as his drink problem highlights. His work toward the end is reflective but rather gloomy overall, the very opposite of the forward-looking essence of those early sci-fi classics for all their ironic thematic heft.
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