A Minnesota Woody In King Arthur's Court!

I cannot know, but likely Wally Wood's dream job was drawing the comic strip Prince Valiant. I might be wrong and the answer is Flash Gordon, but the strip Wood had a chance to draw was in fact Valiant. Hal Foster was nearing the end of his tenure on the massive successful comic strip he'd created decades before and was casting about for new talent to take the artistic helm while he continued to write. The call went out and two comic book favorites -- Wally Wood and Gray Morrow were selected to prepare sample pages, pages which actually ran in the strips longstanding continuity. Above is Wally Wood's effort.

Here it is in glorious black and white. Wood was able to mimic Foster's style quite effectively here, thereby hiding his own distinctive flourishes. While not a ghost the new artist was expected to maintain the look and feel of the strip and Wood does a stellar job here. Neither Morrow nor Wood got the gig, which went to John Cullen Murphy. 

Wood of course was no stranger to Prince Valiant in print, having done the definitive spoof of the comic for MAD magazine many years before in a little effort called "Prince Violent". Read the full effort here. 

He'd turn his hand to spoofing the strip again in the Marvel Mini-Comic Prince Violet. But he wasn't done yet. 

Some years later for his porn comic Gang Bang #2 Wood once again visited Camelot and gave Foster's Prince a distinctively naughty turn in "Prince Violate". Notice he Wood makes specific use of the very designs used some years before in his try-out for the official strip itself. In fact those are the best panels in this effort which produced at the end of Wood's career sadly show his diminished talents. It's a raunchy and sometimes funny spoof featuring an abundance of fellatio, but not prime Wood sadly. To see more check it out here, but make sure to clear away the kiddies. 

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