Potrzebie
Tuesday, March 08, 2011
Wood Chips #28 / Topps #10: Topps Travel Posters
These are Topps Travel Posters by Wally Wood from 1967. Memory fades, but I think I bought the Madison Avenue products and then did the layout and design. Dom Sileo probably penciled the poster with inking by both Wood and Sileo. I know Dom worked on the Kansas poster as I recall talking to him while he was inking the background on an afternoon when Wood was not present. Sometimes Wood would do faces and figures while his assistant did the backgrounds.
These are Topps Travel Posters by Wally Wood from 1967. Memory fades, but I think I bought the Madison Avenue products and then did the layout and design. Dom Sileo probably penciled the poster with inking by both Wood and Sileo. I know Dom worked on the Kansas poster as I recall talking to him while he was inking the background on an afternoon when Wood was not present. Sometimes Wood would do faces and figures while his assistant did the backgrounds.
Labels: dom sileo, kansas chips, topps, wood
¶ 9:01 PM 0 comments
Wednesday, December 15, 2010
Wood Chips 23: The Rejects
Below is "The Rejects" from witzend 4 (1968), script and layouts by me, pencil art by Wally Wood, lettering by Bill Yoshida and inking by Wood with some inks by Dom Sileo.
Here's the story behind the story: At the time, a half-hour animated TV series concept of science-fiction humor seemed ideal for Wood. Such a show would have been unique then, and his juxtaposition of diverse, bizarre, funny characters made the idea appealing. Paramount was interested. As Wood requested, I took his individual character sketches and pencilled a presentation, grouping them together (much like "The Rejects" splash). Wood inked the board, added a b/w wash and delivered it to Paramount. Right on cue, Paramount chose that same month to close down its cartoon studio (December 1, 1967). End of brilliance.
Wood was immediately suspicious, believing that Ralph Bakshi, who had headed the Paramount cartoon studio, was secretly selling his animated sf concept elsewhere. He explained, "We have to copyright the characters, Bhob, so write a story that includes all the characters, and we'll publish it in witzend." I left and came back the next day with three pages of roughs. Before Bill Yoshida's son arrived to take the story away to be lettered by Yoshida, Wood made two changes. He deleted a complicated, labored pun on a line from the Beatles' "A Day in the Life". ("Now they know how many holes it takes to fill the Albert Hall.")
In the splash panel, he added a simple, wonderful phrase spoken by the lead character, I.Q., directly to the reader: "There are Good Guys and Bad Guys and the job of the Good Guys is to kill the Bad Guys." Wood was enamored of such mirth maxims and philosophical aphorisms. He devised or recalled them constantly, proclaiming them (in his near whisper) as he worked at the drawing table. But his "Good Guys" line struck me then, and still does, as multileveled. On the surface, it is a satirical reduction of a basic premise in genre fiction. It served as an insightful self-commentary on Wood's encounters and conflicts with art directors--and it also stands as Wood's summation of the true nature of life on Earth.
Larry Hama liked my "who walks on four legs" gag sequence so much that he borrowed it and reworked it into the Sally Forth adventure where she goes to Mars. "L. Sprague de Freeb" was a name Wood had used previously, I forget where. Since I had once met L. Sprague de Camp and listened to him drone on in a somewhat pedantic manner, I thought the name was hilarious and worked it into the dialogue.
John Barth's 1960 novel, The Sot-Weed Factor, is referenced in the next-to-last panel; it had a Doubleday Anchor paperback reprint about the time I wrote "The Rejects" in 1967. Barth was himself referencing Ebenezer Cooke's poem, "The Sotweed Factor, or A Voyage to Maryland, A Satyr" (1708), which some consider the first American satire.
The character of Kenneth Banghead was Wood's amusing twist on the veteran NBC newscaster of the 1940s and 1950s, Kenneth Banghart (who had a slight resemblance to Jonathan Winters).
Here's the story behind the story: At the time, a half-hour animated TV series concept of science-fiction humor seemed ideal for Wood. Such a show would have been unique then, and his juxtaposition of diverse, bizarre, funny characters made the idea appealing. Paramount was interested. As Wood requested, I took his individual character sketches and pencilled a presentation, grouping them together (much like "The Rejects" splash). Wood inked the board, added a b/w wash and delivered it to Paramount. Right on cue, Paramount chose that same month to close down its cartoon studio (December 1, 1967). End of brilliance.
Wood was immediately suspicious, believing that Ralph Bakshi, who had headed the Paramount cartoon studio, was secretly selling his animated sf concept elsewhere. He explained, "We have to copyright the characters, Bhob, so write a story that includes all the characters, and we'll publish it in witzend." I left and came back the next day with three pages of roughs. Before Bill Yoshida's son arrived to take the story away to be lettered by Yoshida, Wood made two changes. He deleted a complicated, labored pun on a line from the Beatles' "A Day in the Life". ("Now they know how many holes it takes to fill the Albert Hall.")
In the splash panel, he added a simple, wonderful phrase spoken by the lead character, I.Q., directly to the reader: "There are Good Guys and Bad Guys and the job of the Good Guys is to kill the Bad Guys." Wood was enamored of such mirth maxims and philosophical aphorisms. He devised or recalled them constantly, proclaiming them (in his near whisper) as he worked at the drawing table. But his "Good Guys" line struck me then, and still does, as multileveled. On the surface, it is a satirical reduction of a basic premise in genre fiction. It served as an insightful self-commentary on Wood's encounters and conflicts with art directors--and it also stands as Wood's summation of the true nature of life on Earth.
Larry Hama liked my "who walks on four legs" gag sequence so much that he borrowed it and reworked it into the Sally Forth adventure where she goes to Mars. "L. Sprague de Freeb" was a name Wood had used previously, I forget where. Since I had once met L. Sprague de Camp and listened to him drone on in a somewhat pedantic manner, I thought the name was hilarious and worked it into the dialogue.
John Barth's 1960 novel, The Sot-Weed Factor, is referenced in the next-to-last panel; it had a Doubleday Anchor paperback reprint about the time I wrote "The Rejects" in 1967. Barth was himself referencing Ebenezer Cooke's poem, "The Sotweed Factor, or A Voyage to Maryland, A Satyr" (1708), which some consider the first American satire.
The character of Kenneth Banghead was Wood's amusing twist on the veteran NBC newscaster of the 1940s and 1950s, Kenneth Banghart (who had a slight resemblance to Jonathan Winters).
©copyright 2010 by Bhob Stewart and Bill Pearson
Labels: bakshi, dom sileo, kenneth banghart, l. sprague de camp, larry hama, pearson, sally forth, witzend, wood chips
¶ 12:38 PM 4 comments
Wednesday, May 26, 2010
To read my article about scripting Jungle Jim #22, go to Pappy's Golden Age Comics. I remember Wood saying, "Oh, and Bhob... make sure they are little people, not pygmys." I immediately had the image of Princess Rima riding on Jungle Jim's shoulder. Rima, of course, is a reference to W. H. Hudson's Green Mansions (1904), which you can read here.
My every action, word, thought, had my feeling for Rima
as a motive. Why, I began to ask myself, was Rima so much to me? It was
easy to answer that question: Because nothing so exquisite had ever been
created. All the separate and fragmentary beauty and melody and
graceful motion found scattered throughout nature were concentrated and
harmoniously combined in her. How various, how luminous, how divine she
was! A being for the mind to marvel at, to admire continually, finding
some new grace and charm every hour, every moment, to add to the old.
And there was, besides, the fascinating mystery surrounding her origin
to arouse and keep my interest in her continually active.
That was the easy answer I returned to the question I had asked myself.
But I knew that there was another answer--a reason more powerful than
the first. And I could no longer thrust it back, or hide its shining
face with the dull, leaden mask of mere intellectual curiosity. Because I loved her; loved her as I had never loved before, never could love
any other being, with a passion which had caught something of her
own brilliance and intensity, making a former passion look dim and
commonplace in comparison--a feeling known to everyone, something old and worn out, a weariness even to think of.
From these reflections I was roused by the plaintive three-syllable call
of an evening bird--a nightjar common in these woods; and was surprised
to find that the sun had set, and the woods already shadowed with the
twilight. I started up and began hurriedly walking homewards, thinking
of Rima, and was consumed with impatience to see her; and as I drew near
to the house, walking along a narrow path which I knew, I suddenly met
her face to face. Doubtless she had heard my approach, and instead of
shrinking out of the path and allowing me to pass on without seeing her,
as she would have done on the previous day, she had sprung forward to
meet me. I was struck with wonder at the change in her as she came with
a swift, easy motion, like a flying bird, her hands outstretched as if
to clasp mine, her lips parted in a radiant, welcoming smile, her eyes
sparkling with joy.
--W. H. Hudson
--W. H. Hudson
Labels: dom sileo, jungle jim, roger brand, steve ditko, tom palmer, wood
¶ 9:03 PM 2 comments
