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| wolverton, basil | |
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Basil Wolverton ( July 9 , 1909 – December 31 , 1978 ) was an American Cartoonist and Comic Book Writer - Artist who contributed to many serialized publications during his career, including Marvel Comics and MAD Magazine . His unique style was humorously grotesque and disgusting to the extreme where many editors supposedly felt physically ill after seeing his pictures. He labeled himself on his stationery in the 1950s as a "Producer of Preposterous Pictures of Peculiar People Who Prowl This Perplexing Planet" ( {Link without Title} ). BIOGRAPHY Born in Central Point , Oregon and later movied to Vancouver , Washington , Wolverton in his early adulthood was a Vaudeville performer and a cartoonist and reporter for The Portland News. He sold his first work to a national publication at the age of 16, and began pitching comic strips to newspaper syndicates that year. His Comic Strip , ''Marco of Mars,'' was accepted by the Independent Syndicate of New York in 1929. But ''Marco'' was never distributed, as ''Buck Rogers,'' which debuted that year, was deemed too similar. It was 13 years later before he would sell his first comic features to the new media of comic books. ''Disk-Eyes the Detective'' and ''Spacehawks'' were published in 1938 in ''Circus'' comics. In 1940, ''Spacehawk'' (a different and improved feature) made its debut in ''Target'' comics. It would run for 30 episodes (262 pages) until 1942. In the 1940s, Wolverton produced the comedic feature ''Powerhouse Pepper'', which appeared in various comic books published by Timely Comics , the 1940s precursor of Marvel Comics from 1942 through 1952 (76 episodes, 539 pages). Comics fans and historians consider that series a high watermark of humorous comics, with its alternately alliterative and rhyming dialogue. In the tradition of Bill Holman 's '' Smokey Stover '', Wolverton placed throwaway gags into background signs, a device that later became a trademark of cartoonist Will Elder at '' Mad .'' Wolverton penned many other features to produce a total of some 1,300 comic book pages. Wolverton was baptised into Herbert W. Armstrong's Radio Church Of God in 1941, was Ordained as an Elder in 1943. A member of the board of that church, he was one of the six people, including Armstrong and his wife, who reincorporated the church in 1946 when it moved its original headquarters from Oregon to California . Wolverton received his most widespread publicity that same year, when he won a contest to illustrate "Lena the Hyena", a horrific character invented by Al Capp for his '' Li'l Abner '' newspaper strip. The character had been a running gag in Capp's popular strip; supposedly too ugly to appear in a newspaper, her face would always be covered with an editorial note saying that her face had been covered to protect the readers. In response to popular demand that she be shown, Capp launched a contest for artists to submit their conceptions. Out of a claimed half-million entries, Wolverton's was the winner; it appeared in the strip and was featured in '' Life '' magazine. The contest was claimed to be judged by no less than Boris Karloff, Frank Sinatra and Salvador Dali. It won Wolverton fame and notoriety, and moved his career into the mainstream spotlight for a few years, with features and caricatures appearing in ''Life'' and ''Pageant'' magazines. The portrait employed his unique "spaghetti-and-meatball" style, which he used in almost every illustration from then on. At the peak of his style in the early ‘50s, he produced what many regard as his best work:17 episodes of comic book horror and science fiction for Marvel and other comic book publishers. These included one story written by future best-selling novelist Daniel Keyes . Wolverton made several contributions to '' Mad '' in the '50s through the '70s. Yet by the by the end of the '50's he was devoting his attention to Biblical subject matter. He created a series of horrific apocalyptic illustrations for Armstrong's written work. In 1956, for example, Armstrong had Wolverton illustrate the booklet ''1975 in Prophecy'', and later, ''The Book of Revelation Unveiled at Last'', offered free on Armstrong's radio show, '' The World Tomorrow .'' In 1958 Wolverton began writing and illustrating ''The Bible Story,'' also titled ''The Story of Man,'' originally serialized in Armstrong's '' Plain Truth '' magazine and later published in six volumes, covering the entire history of the Old Testament. '' #11 (May 1954), art by Wolverton]] In 1968, Wolverton did a series of posters for the Topps Company , displaying the twisted headshots that brought him fame, and in 1973 returned to mainstream comics, illustrating several covers for Joe Orlando 's satiric '' Plop! '' at DC Comics . His career was cut short, however, by a Stroke in 1974. He died in Vancouver, Washington, four years later. LEGACY Many of Wolverton's humor features were collected in the book ''Wolvertoons'' ( Fantagraphics , 1990), edited by Dick Voll with graphic design by Bhob Stewart . The book received an endorsement on a Television Documentary about horror/fantasy writer- Director Clive Barker . In one sequence, Barker. running through a Los Angeles Bookstore , stopped to pull a copy of ''Wolvertoons'' off the shelf. Holding it up to the camera, he said "Grotesqueries!" and then continued running through the store. Wolverton's son, editorial cartoonist Monte Wolverton , draws in a style almost indistinguishable from his father's, and like his father, he has also worked for ''The Plain Truth'' and contributed to ''Mad''. REFERENCES
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