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witzend
When the formulaic constraints, censorious nature, and onerous lack of creator s rights in mainstream comics got to be too much for the brilliant cartoonist Wallace Wood, he struck out on his own with the self-published witzend. It became a haven for Wood and his fellow professional cartoonist friends where they could produce the kind of personal work that they wanted to do, without regard to commercial demands and with friends like Frank Frazetta, Al Williamson, Reed Crandall, Ralph Reese, Archie Goodwin, Angelo Torres, Steve Ditko, Harvey Kurtzman, Bill Elder, Art Spiegelman, Don Martin, Vaughn Bode, Jim Steranko, Jeff Jones, Howard Chaykin, Trina Robbins, Bernie Wrightson, and literally dozens more, it was bound to be a great ride! Now, Fantagraphics presents the complete run of witzend in this beautiful slipcased 2-volume set with a special introduction by Bill Pearson and a history by Patrick Rosenkrantz."
656 pages, Hardcover
First published May 31, 2014
8 people are currently reading
105 people want to read
About the author
Wallace Wood
756 books37 followersWallace Allan Wood was an American comic book writer, artist and independent publisher, best known for his work in EC Comics and Mad. Although much of his early professional artwork is signed Wallace Wood, he became known as Wally Wood, a name he claimed to dislike. Within the comics community, he was also known as Woody, a name he sometimes used as a signature.
He was the first inductee into the comic book's Jack Kirby Hall of Fame, in 1989, and was inducted into the subequent Will Eisner Award Hall of Fame three years later.
In addition to Wood's hundreds of comic book pages, he illustrated for books and magazines while also working in a variety of other areas — advertising; packaging and product illustrations; gag cartoons; record album covers; posters; syndicated comic strips; and trading cards, including work on Topps' landmark Mars Attacks set.
For much of his adult life, Wood suffered from chronic, unexplainable headaches. In the 1970s, following bouts with alcoholism, Wood suffered from kidney failure. A stroke in 1978 caused a loss of vision in one eye. Faced with declining health and career prospects, he committed suicide by gunshot three years later.
Wood was married three times. His first marriage was to artist Tatjana Wood, who later did extensive work as a comic-book colorist.
EC editor Harvey Kurtzman, who had worked closely with Wood during the 1950s, once commented, "Wally had a tension in him, an intensity that he locked away in an internal steam boiler. I think it ate away his insides, and the work really used him up. I think he delivered some of the finest work that was ever drawn, and I think it's to his credit that he put so much intensity into his work at great sacrifice to himself".
EC publisher William Gaines once stated, "Wally may have been our most troubled artist... I'm not suggesting any connection, but he may have been our most brilliant".
He was the first inductee into the comic book's Jack Kirby Hall of Fame, in 1989, and was inducted into the subequent Will Eisner Award Hall of Fame three years later.
In addition to Wood's hundreds of comic book pages, he illustrated for books and magazines while also working in a variety of other areas — advertising; packaging and product illustrations; gag cartoons; record album covers; posters; syndicated comic strips; and trading cards, including work on Topps' landmark Mars Attacks set.
For much of his adult life, Wood suffered from chronic, unexplainable headaches. In the 1970s, following bouts with alcoholism, Wood suffered from kidney failure. A stroke in 1978 caused a loss of vision in one eye. Faced with declining health and career prospects, he committed suicide by gunshot three years later.
Wood was married three times. His first marriage was to artist Tatjana Wood, who later did extensive work as a comic-book colorist.
EC editor Harvey Kurtzman, who had worked closely with Wood during the 1950s, once commented, "Wally had a tension in him, an intensity that he locked away in an internal steam boiler. I think it ate away his insides, and the work really used him up. I think he delivered some of the finest work that was ever drawn, and I think it's to his credit that he put so much intensity into his work at great sacrifice to himself".
EC publisher William Gaines once stated, "Wally may have been our most troubled artist... I'm not suggesting any connection, but he may have been our most brilliant".
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Displaying 1 - 5 of 5 reviews
January 10, 2015
Given the talent involved--a plethora of brilliant cartoonists, from both the mainstream and the underground, contributed work to this ground-breaking zine--the result is something of a disappointment. The whole is less than the sum of its parts. Witzend emerged fairly early in what was to become the underground explosion, coming after the earliest such work but preceding the seminal Zap, and representing an early attempt to provide a venue for creator-owned comics work. The zine's primary claim to fame on this front is probably its catholic agenda--it trumpets a policy of no policy from the beginning--so it gives us cartoonists who were already legends (Wood, Kurtzman, Frazetta, Williamson etc.) beside up and comers (Wrightson, Jeffrey Jones, etc.), cartoonists rooted in the mainstream (notably Ditko but others, including even the King himself, Jack Kirby) and cartoonists beginning to define the underground sensibility (e.g. Spiegelman, Bodé). Seeing figures such as Ditko and Spiegelman rubbing shoulders is fascinating. The content is also eclectic. Most is comics, of course, but there are single images, portfolios--including the final "good girls" issue, featuring nothing but a diverse array of images of women, most of which conform to the "good girl" (i.e. hot) aesthetic but many that don't--illustrated poems and fiction, even a special issue devoted to the films of W. C. Fields (admittedly a bit of an outlier even in this context). And it is a treasure trove. There are lots of great things here. Whatever one thinks of Ditko's politics, for instance, it's hard not to credit the first two Mister A stories and the two "Avenging World" stories that appear here as technically masterful and as works that pushed against the boundaries of what comics could/should do in ways very different from what the underground and subsequent alternative cartoonists did--the "Avenging World" stuff especially, which shows an amazing grasp of comics design and iconography, regardless of one's opinions of Ditko's politics. (Aside: the only issue to run a letter column includes a letter specifically critical of Ditko, and another early issue includes a rather unkind parody of Mister A; so, despite the policy of no policy and of freedom of artistic expression, even the magazine itself seems to have been ambivalent about Ditko's work.)
Nevertheless, the policy of no policy (and probably the fact that Witzend didn't pay its contributors, giving them only the copyright in their own work but no compensation), means that the whole thing is very scattershot, very hit and miss. The idea of a no-holds-barred editorial ethos has its appeal, but the magazine does not capitalize on the possibilities. For one thing, too much of the work really doesn't take advantage of the possibilities of no editorial interference; many a story here differs only superficially from what would have been permissible at Warren, for instance, or even at Marvel or DC; clichéd sword and sorcery fantasy, or SF, does not transcend its limitations by throwing in a few tits. For another, there is also something to be said for a sense of mission and of editorial planning. Many a promising start peters out, many an odd by-way gets pursued (the Fields issue being merely the most extensive and overt instance), many a work or artist promised in the next or a subsequent issue never materializes. And, after the first few issues, which came out on a fairly regular schedule, the quality declines considerably, as (apparently) fewer of the great cartoonists found a venue that offered only ownership but no money a viable outlet for their work. There is still the occasional gem almost up to the end, but later issues look even more cobbled-together than the earlier ones.
Witzend was a noble and idealistic experiment, and this collection offers an excellent document of the magazine (including illuminating essays and reminiscences). However, as with many another noble and idealistic and innovative experiment, the result is more often than not of more historical than aesthetic interest. Fans/scholars of comics (especially of work going against the grain of the mainstream) will find a lot to interest them here, but I suspect readers just looking for good comics will find it uneven at best.
Nevertheless, the policy of no policy (and probably the fact that Witzend didn't pay its contributors, giving them only the copyright in their own work but no compensation), means that the whole thing is very scattershot, very hit and miss. The idea of a no-holds-barred editorial ethos has its appeal, but the magazine does not capitalize on the possibilities. For one thing, too much of the work really doesn't take advantage of the possibilities of no editorial interference; many a story here differs only superficially from what would have been permissible at Warren, for instance, or even at Marvel or DC; clichéd sword and sorcery fantasy, or SF, does not transcend its limitations by throwing in a few tits. For another, there is also something to be said for a sense of mission and of editorial planning. Many a promising start peters out, many an odd by-way gets pursued (the Fields issue being merely the most extensive and overt instance), many a work or artist promised in the next or a subsequent issue never materializes. And, after the first few issues, which came out on a fairly regular schedule, the quality declines considerably, as (apparently) fewer of the great cartoonists found a venue that offered only ownership but no money a viable outlet for their work. There is still the occasional gem almost up to the end, but later issues look even more cobbled-together than the earlier ones.
Witzend was a noble and idealistic experiment, and this collection offers an excellent document of the magazine (including illuminating essays and reminiscences). However, as with many another noble and idealistic and innovative experiment, the result is more often than not of more historical than aesthetic interest. Fans/scholars of comics (especially of work going against the grain of the mainstream) will find a lot to interest them here, but I suspect readers just looking for good comics will find it uneven at best.
February 24, 2015
On some level, you have to consider witzend both a success and failure. It never created the opportunities for its creators or cartoonists in general that it was intended to author. The comics themselves are frequently enjoyable (and more frequently gorgeous, as the artists could draw a lot better than they wrote), but rarely exceptional and often below the standard of professional published work. Yet witzend is still an obvious early step in the direction of creators controlling and owning their own work and it provided inspiration, however indirect, for much of Image Comics and other creator-owned comics of today. There's much to applaud in witzend, even if it never came close to achieving what it might have accomplished in another era. Fantagraphics did their usually outstanding job on this slipcase edition.
February 1, 2022
I think Witzend should be discussed in the same vein as Zap, Mad, Raw and many other publications that are credited with modernizing the medium.
It ultimately failed financially, but changed the way the game was played and seen.
Whether or not Wood made his projected millions or not, they did what they set out to do. Give creators a place to have ownership of their work without editorial input. Need look no further than Ditko’s Rand-Rants. The Mr A and Avenging World sections, to release those at the height of the Vietnam War and amid the social revolution was daring and goes to prove their mission statement.
Not everything in here landed for me of course. But I was in awe consistently. I could feel reverberations of a post 2020 world in the political sentiments from the 60’s and 70’s.
Wish this collection was still in print so it was more accessible. I’ll cherish my issues for a long time.
I highly recommend the book “The Best of Witzend” from Fantagraphics which has a large section of a Witzend history written by Bill Pearson himself. The context for the trials in this publications history certainly allowed me to enjoy these on a deeper level than I may have otherwise.
It ultimately failed financially, but changed the way the game was played and seen.
Whether or not Wood made his projected millions or not, they did what they set out to do. Give creators a place to have ownership of their work without editorial input. Need look no further than Ditko’s Rand-Rants. The Mr A and Avenging World sections, to release those at the height of the Vietnam War and amid the social revolution was daring and goes to prove their mission statement.
Not everything in here landed for me of course. But I was in awe consistently. I could feel reverberations of a post 2020 world in the political sentiments from the 60’s and 70’s.
Wish this collection was still in print so it was more accessible. I’ll cherish my issues for a long time.
I highly recommend the book “The Best of Witzend” from Fantagraphics which has a large section of a Witzend history written by Bill Pearson himself. The context for the trials in this publications history certainly allowed me to enjoy these on a deeper level than I may have otherwise.
January 1, 2020
Like HUMBUG and TRUMP, not the legendary magazine Witzend is collected, and it's a bit of a miss. The early Wood edited issues are pretty great, but once he takes a backseat it becomes a real mixed bag until you get an issue devoted to WC Fields which I can't imagine anyone outside of Fields collectors enjoying.
September 6, 2014
I would only recommend this to someone who is a fan of some of these classic artists. In fact, you have to be enough of a fan to shell out the cash for this nice hardcover edition and maybe be a bit of a completionist as well. All the stuff by Wally Wood is amazing. Other standout stories would include the Kym stories, which are wordless, but well drawn. Also, there are some nice illustrations by Reed Crandall, Gray Morrow, and Frank Frazetta. The stuff by Vaughn Bode and Steve Ditko is OK, but Bode's work does not look as good in this size format, and Ditko completely loses his sanity about two stories in. Final highlights would be the final Good Girl issue and a beautifully painted psychedelic witch story done by Morrow.
So what could possibly be wrong with this? Well, many of the humorous bits are really not funny, mostly they are either dated or simply nonsense. They were probably written for the head shop crowd. The Alex Toth story is, unfortunately, the most boring comic he ever wrote or drew. The W. C. Fields issue is a bit informative, but mostly out of place. And the work by Roger Brand and Jack Gaughan is terrible.
So what could possibly be wrong with this? Well, many of the humorous bits are really not funny, mostly they are either dated or simply nonsense. They were probably written for the head shop crowd. The Alex Toth story is, unfortunately, the most boring comic he ever wrote or drew. The W. C. Fields issue is a bit informative, but mostly out of place. And the work by Roger Brand and Jack Gaughan is terrible.
Displaying 1 - 5 of 5 reviews