One aspect of Wally Wood's career which I've not really spent too much time on is his bent for pornography. Back when comics were squeaky clean vehicles meant only to entertain the teeming and impressionable youth of America and little beyond it was perhaps sensible by and large to keep things like raw unbridled sex at arms length. But that didn't mean that artists didn't dabble in that greatest of all human endeavors, and one of the first I ever knew about who drew stuff like this was Wally Wood. You'd find him on the latest issue of DC's Justice Society of America rendering a sexy new character like Power Girl, rendered strikingly but still within the confines of the weakening but not yet extinct Comics Code Authority. At the same time you could look higher in the racks where the little kids couldn't reach or perhaps behind the counter and find more raucous and frank presentations of sex from a master like Wood. One example I remember seeing back in the day is the Weird Sex-Fantasy Portfolio. He did a bunch of others such as his Gang Bang Comics at the end of his career and this "Malice in Wonderland" and "Wizard of Ooze" for men's magazines but those I never encountered until much more recently. Here is that portfolio in all its NSFW glory!
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.
Richard Pryor (not the famous comedian), whose Collector's Press produced this as well as portfolios by Eisner and Hogarth, became a patron for Wood in his declining years, and has shared some of the correspondence he had with Wood from the late 70's up to the end. Wally Wood was always hustling and fantasizing about a big score and it's somewhat sad to see him scheming and reaching for it, because we know how it ends. But in other ways, despite his facade of cynicism, he persisted in his brainstorming, he never ran out of ideas and he kept dreaming big until he finally had to rest.
ReplyDeleteSo tragic and so true. Woody was not unlike Gil Kane and Jack Kirby and others in the old guard who saw that comics needed to change to thrive. All three of these guys were hampered by the strain of earning the daily bread and none of them struck the pot of gold in their primes. Some suggested that Woody was in some ways afraid of success as he'd walk away from projects which were just on the verge of taking off. More likely he just liked working on his own terms and sadly that included bouts with the bottle. A great artist, but like us all a flawed man.
DeleteNaughty... but very nice. He could certainly draw women.
ReplyDeleteHe seemed to idealize women and lust after them as well, and those twin passions seem evident in every stroke of his brush as he put them down on paper.
DeleteI've found that at least one of Wood's naughty frolics, The Pipsqueak Papers, has some interesting psychological aspects, the more so because I think Wood was probably aware of what he was putting on display.
ReplyDeleteThe Pipsqueak Papers are among his most revelatory pages. I agree, they are very personal bits and pieces of him put on display in the context of comic art. It's almost like seeing different aspects of one personality interact within itself in the search for understanding. Though that sounds a bit heavy-handed to be honest.
Delete