Cannon

by Wallace Wood

Your mission, should you choose to accept it... is CANNON by the legendary Wallace Wood (Mad, EC Comics, Daredevil)! CANNON appeared every week for two and a half years in Overseas Weekly, a newspaper distributed exclusively to U.S. Military bases around the world. Uncensored by commercial editorial restrictions, Wood pulled out all the stops - producing a thrilling and salacious Cold War spy serial run amok with brutal violence and titillating sex all in an effort to boost morale and support our troops! Under the employ of our government's Central Intelligence Agency, Cannon experiences action like no other agent! Undercover and under the covers, Cannon endures nude torture by beautiful women, explosive gunplay, naked catfights, bone-crunching plastic surgery, nudity, Hitler, nihilistic lovemaking, Weasel the spy, naked women, death from above, and more naked women! Take that, 007! "Pow! Zam! Comics aren't for kids anymore because of Cannon! Cannon is like a punch in the face with a cement-filled giant salami. Ugly description? Wait'll you see Cannon's ugly mug! And the gals? Wood style, of course! What else do you need?" - Gilbert Hernandez

Genres: Comics, Graphic Novels, Fiction, Erotica, Comic Strips, Thriller, Espionage

298 pages, Kindle Edition

First published January 1, 2001

About the author

Wallace 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".

Reviews

[Dan · Rating 4 out of 5]

When a pilot is shot down over China, he's brainwashed as the perfect killer. The United States government rescues him but, discovering they can't undo the brainwashing, finish the job and train him as a secret agent for the United States government as Cannon!

I'm a Wally Wood fan from way back and this was on my radar for years before I bought it. Produced for a newspaper for oversees servicemen, Cannon is the ultimate in testosterone comics. It's all fighting, guns, planes, and naked women.

Wally Wood writes, pencils, and inked the strip. I don't see anything to indicate he didn't also letter it. I have a feeling this was a blast for Wood to draw. I'm not exaggerating to say you can't go three pages without seeing a bare breast or ass and most of the pages that don't have nudity will have at least one gun or plane or fight scene on them.

The stories are James Bond type affairs with masterminds, schemes, double dealing, and sex, although the women in Cannon don't have sex pun names other than Madame Toy. Cannon is a combination of James Bond, Nick Fury, and any number of other spy characters, a bad ass that can handle any situation. I can see why servicemen would eat this shit up.

While I wouldn't quite put it in the same league of Atom Bomb, this was clearly a labor of love, be it a nubile naked woman, a jet, or a down and dirty fist fight. Wood uses stark blacks, shapely female forms, and knowledge of military craft and hardware to put together a fun and filthy masterwork.

Cannon - Wally Wood never met a plane, firearm, or naked woman he didn't like. Four out of five bullets.

[Dave Schaafsma · Rating 4 out of 5]

Cannon is an hilarious collection of strips done by Wallace Wood (who also did Sally Forth, among other things in the mainstream press. This is an adult comic done in the early seventies, end of the Vietnam era, for Overseas Weekly, largely for military personnel. As Wood says of another strip he drew, Heroes, "It has sex and Violence and horror, it's a guaranteed hit!" The hilarious thing about this comic is that every page has naked women in it. Well, almost every page. And sometimes women wear clothes, but not for long. The main character is a jar head programmed (pre-Jason Bourne!!) to be a perfect assassin. Women literally can't resist him. The tales are not great, all gunplay and testosterone, which creates a kind of interesting picture of our men in uniform and what they need. It's a kind of portrait of American Male, in a way, for the time.

Wood's storytelling is silly, but his drawing is great throughout. There's a selection of Heroes, pencilled by Steve Ditko, and all of Cannon is basically in that ere style of war comics. I used to read war comics even as an anti-war protester in the seventies, but I never saw anything like Cannon. Could not have been widely available then in the states. It's a fast read, as you might expect, pausing from time to time for a close look at particular images. . . hey, I was an adolescent in the seventies!

The main reason to take a look at this is for (ahem) historical purposes, as a cultural artifact, for comics history, for war comics collectors. This is a large book framework, with short essays by various people about Wood and his comics. Maybe if you can set aside the quality of the stories and the kitschy period art and the corny "sexy" dialogue this is actually a five star collection. I laughed aloud a few times. I guess it's maybe a 3.5 for me, finally, rounded up.

[Josephus FromPlacitas · Rating 5 out of 5]

Goodness gracious was this ever fun. As long as you could overlook the copious racism, lusciously stupid sexism, and insane Cold War imperialism, this comic was a BLAST. It was just hilarious, with beautiful black and white compositions. Hitler running a South American republic with a stolen American nuke, forcing the Playboy-bunny-shaped woman superspies from China and Russia to team up with the emotionless American supersoldier? Laugh-out-loud ridiculous fun. And Wood's inks were amazing, the substance of his figures were crazy. When the later stories got more soap opera-y and less over-the-top action-y, it lost some steam, but rarely do you get a book that has you putting it down so much to hold your eyes and sides from laughter.

[Rick Ray · Rating 4 out of 5]

The CIA rescue Cannon, a pilot who had previously been captured by the enigmatic Madame Toy and brainwashed to be an ideal assassin for the Reds. Learning that the brainwashing cannot be undone, the CIA instead harness Cannon's capabilities into being their own elite operative. Cannon then goes on to scheme, shoot and screw his way through a series of missions handed down by his clandestine handlers.

The primary audience for Wally Wood's Cannon were overseas servicemen and it definitely reads that way. These strips were completely packed with testosterone, with almost every page having guns, violence and naked women. Though the writing is paper-thin, it's clear that Wood was having a lot of fun putting this together. There are jokes aplenty and even years later, Cannon is a really fun time. These aren't war comics in the same vein as EC Comics' Frontline Combat and Two-Fisted Tales which toed a fine line between jingoism and war weariness, but rather intended to be light-hearted action romps that served as pure escapism. Some of the Cannon adventures even read like lampooning of war/espionage comic tropes, but I don't really think Wood was putting that much effort into cultivating a satirical tone. Instead, much of the stories here are rather silly and come off as liberated from any kind of editorial censorship.

The drawing is fantastic throughout as Wood is undeniably a master of composition and paneling. Visual language in the Cannon strips are sublime, with so much of the action comprehensible from just the illustrations alone. A small gripe is that Wood doesn't deviate much in character design - particularly with respect to the women he draws - making some of the artwork feel a little repetitive after a while. The prose can also be hokey at times, but Wood does a fairly strong job keeping the script light.

This isn't any kind of masterclass in comics by any means, but there is something quite engaging in reading a war time comic that differs so substantially in tone from its contemporaries and previous influences. Despite the excess raunchiness and mindless action, Cannon is a unique product amongst the subgenre of war comics. This edition includes some great essays about Wood and his time working on Cannon, and also includes some short strips illustrated by Steve Ditko and inked by Wood.

[Emma Sea]

2,3,4 star ratings, no reviews. I wish people would just stick a one-liner in and say why they liked/didn't.

[Dominick · Rating 2 out of 5]

Two stars might seem harsh, but the rating scale says that means "it was OK," and honestly, that's all I can really say. This was a weekly one-page strip about a James Bond-style secret agent, with the entire run collected here, and little about it stands out. Wood is one of the masters of comics art, and that is often reflected here, but all too often, pages look rushed, or even completed by other hands (the introduction does acknowledge his use of assistants). The stories are, well, pretty much generic spy pulp, rarely offering anything more than relatively silly thrills. The strip's heavy dependence on partial female nudity (lots of breasts, occasional butts, and a lot of improbably placed objects to obscure genitalia) only adds to the implausibility of it all--after a while, one begins to wonder just how many ways a woman can be deliberately stripped, or accidentally fall out of her clothes--not to mention how there can be so much sex with nary a genital of either sex ever in sight. That said, nobody draws hot chicks like Wood, so there's that, anyway.

[Derek Royal · Rating 3 out of 5]

The art is superb. No question about that. And if you're a fan of Wally Wood, then this is one you'll need to read. But if you're looking for great Wood storytelling, then you should check out some of his EC work or T.H.U.N.D.E.R. Agents. The premise is great, but the various storylines devolve into cliches. The adventures become excuses to showcase Woods wonderfully rendered naked women on about every page (or every installment in the original strip). Given the original audience, overseas male readers, this shouldn't surprise. At times, the narrative set ups become sadly laughable. I'd like to imagine Wood laughing as he created much of this.

[Matthew J. · Rating 4 out of 5]

Oh, man. This is...uh...Well, it's of its time. It's strong jawed, macho men punching out bad guys and bedding women. Women who seem unable to keep their clothes on...when they even bother to put any on. Definitely not for the casual comic reader, or for kids. I enjoyed the heck out of it, but it's totally reprehensible. At least it was from a time when everyone could agree that Nazis need to get punched and shot whenever there's an opportunity.

[Josh · Rating 4 out of 5]

If you can imagine Cannon as a film co-directed by Sam Peckinpah and Russ Meyer, you'll probably have a good idea what this contains. Wally Wood is a legend, and though this is trashy and sexist, it's still hilariously over-the-top (intentionally so) and incredibly well drawn.

[MB Taylor · Rating 4 out of 5]

A nice collection of Wally Wood comic strips from the early 70s. The strips were originally published in Overseas Weekly, "a tabloid intended for U.S. military personnel stationed abroad" and could never have appeared in the comic books of the times.

By today's standards the strips seem fairly tame; not publishable in mainstream comics, but probably nothing beyond what you can see in some of the independents. There is lots of gratuitous female nudity with carefully positioned legs, furniture, hands or whatever preventing us from seeing any more than boobs and butts. There's also lots a hand-to-hand and gun violence. I'd rate it somewhere between PG-13 and R.

I love Wood's art, and this didn't disappoint. My only complaint is that the book is in a odd format (11" wide by 7.5" high). Apparently the strips were originally published is a more standard vertical format, so each original page was cut in half and spread across two pages of the book. On the plus side this made the art really big, about twice the size of a regular comic book. Unfortunately it also means we don't get to see the original page layout; and on one page only, it meant we only get got to see 2/3rds of a panel. This left a bit of space on the second half of the page, and the editors thoughtfully showed us the full original page (although in a smaller size.)

For the main part of the book this wasn't really a problem, but book's appendix contains reprints of two additional Cannon stories. These are printed in their original vertical format, with two comic book pages per book page, so the art is smaller than I would have liked. Especially since the art in these stories was drawn by Steve Ditko (and inked by Wood), another one of my favorite artists.

[Xisix · Rating 4 out of 5]

Trashy and glorious. A bawdy tale by Wallace Wood for servicemen, this tome manages to cram as many buxom women with it's square-jawed ultra macho protagonist as it can. Think of a Russ Meyer film traced to a page. Although certain sexist attitudes are quite non-PC, one can still be entertained without feeling guilty. Some weakness comes from the shallow characters racing about from one scene to another. Even Cannon changes his looks frequently to be in disguise. If you like being tittilated then by all means pick this one up !

[Tom · Rating 2 out of 5]

The writing is... Not good. Much of the art is rushed. However, even rushed Wally Wood is a phenomenal artist. My 14 year old self would be disappointed to hear me say this but his over-reliance on naked women instead of actual plot became boring relatively quickly.

[Bulent · Rating 2 out of 5]

Amerikan soğuk savaş düşünce dünyasının her yönüyle sergilendiği bir çizgi roman Cannon.
Cannon kariyerine U-2 uçak pilotu olarak başlayan ve ABD ordusu adına Kızıl Çin'de casusluk yapan bir asker. Uçağı düşürülüp Çin Halk Cumhuriyeti askerleri tarafından yakalanınca çok şiddetli işkence ve beyin yıkama operasyonlarına maruz bırakıyorlar onu. Ardından Madam Toy (Bayan Oyuncak) isimli bir çinli kadın tarafından beyni yıkanıyor ve ABD'ye nükleer bilimcileri öldürmek için görevlendirilmiş bir ölüm makinesi olarak dönüyor. Bu sefer Amerikalılar onu yakalıyor ve yeniden beyni yıkanıyor. Her şeyin sonunda Cannon, insanlığa, duygulara ait hiç bir şey içinde kalmamış bir askere dönüşüyor. Görevini tamamlamak için kadın, çocuk bile olsa düşmanları öldürmekten rahatsız olmayan bir ajan.

Buraya kadar olan çizgi romanın hikayesi. Peki soğuk savaş düşünce dünyası nerede mi? Kadınların (iyi ya da kötü olsunlar farketmeksizin) çıplak olduğu, özellikle Rus ya da Çin kökenli kadınların tamamının cinselliği kullanarak Amerikalı Erkekleri ele geçirdiği, onları kullandıktan sonra öldürdüğü bir dünya burası. Küba benzeri San Sierra denilen diktatörlükte asi gerillalara Rus ve Çinliler, diktatöre ise Amerikalılar destek çıkıyor... Ülkesini sömüren, halkına zulmeden bir diktatöre destek çıkmanın ardında hiç bir sorun görmeyen Cannon bir anda bu diktatörün Hitler olduğunu görünce ortalık karışacak tabii ki...

Velhasıl, askerler, savaş silahları, yarı çıplak kadınlar, her an cinsel ilişki kurmaya çalışan casuslar, Rus ve Çinli kötüler ile sıradan amerikalı'ya salınmak istenilen korkunun tamamı bu çizgi romanda kendine yer buluyor.

[Chris · Rating 4 out of 5]

Crammed full of over the top sex and violence, this book collects the Cannon comic strip by Wallace Wood. It originally appeared in The Overseas Weekly, a tabloid sold exclusively on U.S. military bases. Pure male fantasy, John Cannon is an unstoppable fighting and killing machine working as a secret agent for the United States government. Emphasis is on the action, no characters are given much depth. The Overseas Weekly was not subject to the Comics Code Authority, nor seemingly any restrictions, and Wood makes the most of it.

Women are mostly props who spend most of their time unclothed. They are all drawn with the same bodies, differentiated visually by face and hair style. Many are femme fatales working for an enemy or otherwise duplicitous. They all fall under the spell of Cannon's allure. They are variously tortured, shot, beaten and called bitch. There seems to be an ugly underlining assumption that when they're hit, they deserved it. You might say it's a product of it's time and meant for a particular audience. You might say it's blatantly misogynist.

Wood is deservedly a cartooning legend and his illustration abilities are enviable. He does so much with a brush, a pen and black ink. He creates human figures in every possible pose with beautiful backgrounds and a variety of textures. It seems that there is nothing he can't draw; cars, weapons, explosions, and naked women who look mostly alike.

Recommended for Wood fans, but know what you're getting into.

[Ryan · Rating 4 out of 5]

This is amazing if you don't mind paper-thin plots and salacious material. Goes out of it's way to show naked girls and the main-character John Cannon has no personality. This is intentional too. In fact, other characters constantly remark on how he acts like a machine. Turns out he had been brain-washed too many times and that left him with no personality. So I guess everything you could fault this series for is intentional. You can't complain about it, because it is exactly what it sets out to be. My only legitimate (I think) gripe, is that the writer intentionally kills off all the most interesting characters.

I don't think I would ever read this again. But I would like to keep it on my shelves for the art alone. Not sure if wood does all of it. But my guess is that he had a lot of assistance in the inking department. In my humble opinion, this is the nicest Wood art that I have seen. That might be because these strips don't have primitive color messing up all those nice lines.

[Philip · Rating 3 out of 5]

Great art in this collection of comic strips created for a newspaper distributed to overseas servicemen. How could the art not be great? It’s by Wallace Wood. (I’ve heard he didn’t like to be called Wally.)
Since it wasn’t going to appear in a family newspaper, there is quite a bit of violence & nudity in the strips. That wouldn’t bother me if the excuse for so much of the nudity weren’t rape or the threat of rape. About a third of the way through the book, the sexual violence stops. If it hadn’t, I wouldn’t have finished the book. I have dropped my review by a star for what is there. I know the 60s-70s were a different time, but it’s still awful to encounter such blatant examples of how different.

[Jesse · Rating 4 out of 5]

I didn't quite read all of it. I read about a third in one sitting, them skimmed through the rest. I went in expecting to just enjoy the art, but I ended up actually enjoying the story a lot! It's fun to try to get into the headspace of the intended audience (servicemen reading it one strip at a time), seeing some fairly complex plots play out in that manner was interesting. It all moves at a fast clip, of course, never boring.
Wally Wood's art is of course the main draw here. And it does not disappoint. The perfect comic artist, he knows when to use simple clean lines and when to add details. Everything is distilled, perfectly punchy and ridiculously sexy. Pure Pulp Fantasy.

[Dan D · Rating 4 out of 5]

SOME OF THE BEST WALLY WOOD ART I'VE SEEN
And the reproduction quality of that art is off-the-charts excellent.
For most Wally Wood fans that will be enough. He's remembered as a great artist, not a great writer.
I found these strips to be on about the same wavelength, but 'R' rated, as his Thunder Agents material - using familiar genre material, but adding new twists and surprises. Unlike Thunder Agents, Cannon has a lot of violence, nudity and sexual situations, so it's not for kids.
Wood's writing has some strengths. He keeps things moving, never over-explaining plot or characters, letting us actively participate as we figure out what happened in between. Sometimes the plot feels character-driven, as opposed to superimposed by the writer.
But it's the artwork that is the real treasure here. It should be noted, rarely it looks like it was drawn by other artists. Assistance was frequently requested on long-term comic strips like this, and the book doesn't try to lie - this is hinted at in the introduction.
But the majority looks like it was drawn by Wallace Wood himself. All in all a wild, entertaining ride through a world of male espionage fantasy and Cold war paranoia - every woman is beautiful and they all want to sleep with you. Half of them want to kill you afterwards, so sleep lightly.

[Eric · Rating 2 out of 5]

The writing was pretty bad, art was phenomenal, I learned a bit of Wallace Wood story reading this and he was a pretty remarkable dude with an incredible career. From an army veteran to Starting work at Mad magazine designing the Daredevil iconic look, creating crazy erotic magazines parodies pushing the envelope. He just lived life to the fullest. I have respect for him. The comic was produced for soldier I think in Vietnam its got generic plot but its a cool little American answer to james bond with some cool adventures of tintin twists.

[Du · Rating 3 out of 5]

I think this would be a much better book to parse out and review over a longer period than an afternoon. It's just a lot of repetition, which makes sense as it was originally comic strips. It's funny how in each storyline the female character always loses her clothes early on. Probably not realistic for real life.

[Dana Jerman · Rating 4 out of 5]

The last paragraph of the bio on the last page by J. David Spurlock makes me cry. Such a remarkable life and a stunning contribution to comics. Each panel here is action packed with lovely ladies, lively lads and international intrigue written with American GIs from the 50s and 60s in mind.

[Bernard Convert · Rating 4 out of 5]

Un maestro du dessin et de l'encrage, mais les scénarios sont un peu simplistes... Sauf qu'ils sont malicieusement construits pour faire apparaître une femme nue toutes les trois cases...
Sauvés ! Dieu soit loué !
Mes vêtements...
On n'a pas le temps... Venez...

[Al McCarty · Rating 4 out of 5]

Sex! Violence! Espionage! intrigue! Wally Wood! And so many boobies!
I love how Woody inserted himself as a character toward the end of the story. Not him as a character, but one that has his exact likeness.

[Brandon · Rating 4 out of 5]

This was fun. Then it got even more fun when I started visualizing it as a movie shot word for word (and thought for thought via voiceover). It would be so silly. Ben Stiller as Cannon?

[Viggo Pedersen · Rating 3 out of 5]

The drawings were great. The stories weren't of the best I've read!

[Jorge Schumacher · Rating 3 out of 5]

Uma obra um tanto datada, mas divertida. Só que é bastante sexista e machista, até porque foi escrita para servir de diversão para os soldados americanos que serviam na Guerra do Vietnam.

[Da Collector · Rating 5 out of 5]

One of the best books I’ve read this year.

[doowopapocalypse · Rating 2 out of 5]

Pros: Wallace Wood is an exceptional artist. Cons: Everything else. Sexism, Racism, Sexual Violence...

No thanks.

[Canavan · Rating 1 out of 5]

✭

[Christian · Rating 3 out of 5]

Three and a half. Cannon is a bombastically propagandist time capsule that is probably best read ironically these days considering the subject matter.