Rip Jagger's Other Dojo

I'm wrapping up my month-long focus on Wally Wood with arguably his most significant contribution to comics, the prozine witzend . Wood was an artist constantly on the prowl for opportunities and in retrospect his career has a real gypsy aspect to it as he bounced from one project and company to yet another and yet another. He was in many ways like others of his generation of artists such as Steve Ditko and Gil Kane who were not necessarily content with the corporate approach to comics and the limitations on expression that imposed.  So he decided to create witzend (at one time called et cetera ) and gave a space for his fellow pros to see their work published for no fee but also no pay, the difference being they kept the rights. witzend was black and white version of what Image Comics would do decades later but on a much, much larger scale and with a keener interest in profit. In these pages readers found stories unlike what the "Big Two" were producing bu...

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 t...

As important as fine talents the likes of Gene Colan and Frank Miller have been to the development of the Daredevil comic book, it's easily arguable to me that the single most important artist in the history of the was Wally Wood. What Wood did was simply transform Daredevil from a musty looking superhero who might've dropped in out of the Golden Age into a sleek modern hero literally suited for the Silver Age. He did it with a single color -- red. From his inception the design of Daredevil had played off his name by adorning his cowl with little horns. What Wally Wood did was to take that notion and give the character named "Devil" a deep rich color which evoked his name in all its glory. Soon after taking the helm Wood started diddling with the look and along with Stan Lee even made sure the hero got some high profile exposure in the Fantastic Four of all places and by fighting one of the greatest of all Marvel battles ever against the indomitable Prince N...

Daredevil was the comic without fear. Marvel was on a dandy run, creating new heroes every month and growing in response to fan demand. Stan Lee had found a formula for success which leaned heavily on artists Jack Kirby and Steve Ditko for the hits which changed the face of comics and made the Silver Age profoundly different and profoundly modern.  Taking the approach which had worked on Fantastic Four and Spider-Man , Lee turned to Bill Everett, the Golden Age creator of the Sub-Mariner. That lasted exactly one issue. Everett was a master in his time but his Daredevil look positively antique, well-crafted but of a different era. Lee turned to EC veteran Joe Orlando to take up the slack and inked by Vince Colletta the comics looked more like what Marvel was doing elsewhere.  Despite battling the borrowed Spidey villain Electro and running up against new foes like The Owl and The Purple Man, Daredevil seemed to be a comic which was sputtering.  ...

Two of Wally Wood's most famous creations collide atop a vintage spare Wood skyscraper. Dynamo is the highest profile hero for the THUNDER Agents and while Daredevil was not Wood's creation, the amazingly effective red costume was (with the addition of the missing double-d emblem). Now for the fans who bought The Rocket's Blast Comics Collector  the two heroes clash and Dynamo gets the short end, but that's perhaps to be expected since Wood pitted DD against the Sub-Mariner of all people, and he survived. Daredevil is the ultimate underdog superhero and it's likely Wood identified with that. More Daredevil this weekend amigos. Rip Off

One of Wally Wood's most personal creations is the ferocious Animan. That's shown by the fact that Wood saved Animan for his independent publication witzend ! Animan appears in the first two issues of witzend . The splash above is clearly inspired by this Hal Foster panel from the earliest adaptation of Edgar Rice Burroughs' Tarzan of the Apes .  (This is my favorite Tarzan image and arguably my favorite book cover.) It's possible that Frazetta was inspired by it for Tarzan and The Lost Empire and then Wood by him.  It was a pose which clearly made a powerful impact on Wood, as he used it in other places as well. Here it's the cover of a volume of Sally Forth comic strips.  Animan even appears here as part of the advertisement for issues one and two of witzend . The drama of this panel is potent indeed.  There are sketches of a figures much like Animan found on pages from Wood's earliest days . Clearly this was a fig...