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Is Nothing Sacred?
Bizarre cartoons featuring humorous monsters and weird people satirize American society
127 pages, Hardcover
First published January 1, 1982
22 people want to read
About the author
Gahan Wilson
283 books49 followersGahan Wilson was an American author, cartoonist and illustrator known for his cartoons depicting horror-fantasy situations.
Wilson's cartoons and illustrations are drawn in a playfully grotesque style, and have a dark humor that is often compared to the work of The New Yorker cartoonist and Addams Family creator Charles Addams. But while both men sometimes feature vampires, graveyards and other traditional horror elements in their work, Addams's cartoons tended to be more gothic, reserved and old-fashioned, while Wilson's work is more contemporary, gross, and confrontational, featuring atomic mutants, subway monsters, and serial killers. It could be argued that Addams's work was probably meant to be funny without a lot of satirical intent, while Wilson often has a very specific point to make.
His cartoons and prose fiction have appeared regularly in Playboy, Collier's Weekly, The New Yorker and The Magazine of Fantasy and Science Fiction. For the last he also wrote some movie and book reviews. He has been a movie review columnist for The Twilight Zone Magazine and a book critic for Realms of Fantasy magazine.
His comic strip Nuts, which appeared in National Lampoon, was a reaction against what he saw as the saccharine view of childhood in strips like Peanuts. His hero The Kid sees the world as a dark, dangerous and unfair place, but just occasionally a fun one too.
Wilson also wrote and illustrated a short story for Harlan Ellison's anthology Again, Dangerous Visions. The "title" is a black blob, and the story is about an ominous black blob that appears on the page, growing at an alarming rate, until... He has contributed short stories to other publications as well; "M1" and "The Zombie Butler" both appeared in The Magazine of Fantasy and Science Fiction and were reprinted in Gahan Wilson's Cracked Cosmos.
Additionally, Gahan Wilson created a computer game titled Gahan Wilson's The Ultimate Haunted House, in conjunction with Byron Preiss. The goal is to collect 13 keys in 13 hours from the 13 rooms of a house, by interacting in various ways with characters (such as a two-headed monster, a mad scientist, and a vampiress), objects, and the house itself.
He received the World Fantasy Convention Award in 1981, and the National Cartoonist Society's Milton Caniff Lifetime Achievement Award in 2005.
Gahan Wilson is the subject of a feature length documentary film, Gahan Wilson: Born Dead, Still Weird, directed by Steven-Charles Jaffe.
Wilson's cartoons and illustrations are drawn in a playfully grotesque style, and have a dark humor that is often compared to the work of The New Yorker cartoonist and Addams Family creator Charles Addams. But while both men sometimes feature vampires, graveyards and other traditional horror elements in their work, Addams's cartoons tended to be more gothic, reserved and old-fashioned, while Wilson's work is more contemporary, gross, and confrontational, featuring atomic mutants, subway monsters, and serial killers. It could be argued that Addams's work was probably meant to be funny without a lot of satirical intent, while Wilson often has a very specific point to make.
His cartoons and prose fiction have appeared regularly in Playboy, Collier's Weekly, The New Yorker and The Magazine of Fantasy and Science Fiction. For the last he also wrote some movie and book reviews. He has been a movie review columnist for The Twilight Zone Magazine and a book critic for Realms of Fantasy magazine.
His comic strip Nuts, which appeared in National Lampoon, was a reaction against what he saw as the saccharine view of childhood in strips like Peanuts. His hero The Kid sees the world as a dark, dangerous and unfair place, but just occasionally a fun one too.
Wilson also wrote and illustrated a short story for Harlan Ellison's anthology Again, Dangerous Visions. The "title" is a black blob, and the story is about an ominous black blob that appears on the page, growing at an alarming rate, until... He has contributed short stories to other publications as well; "M1" and "The Zombie Butler" both appeared in The Magazine of Fantasy and Science Fiction and were reprinted in Gahan Wilson's Cracked Cosmos.
Additionally, Gahan Wilson created a computer game titled Gahan Wilson's The Ultimate Haunted House, in conjunction with Byron Preiss. The goal is to collect 13 keys in 13 hours from the 13 rooms of a house, by interacting in various ways with characters (such as a two-headed monster, a mad scientist, and a vampiress), objects, and the house itself.
He received the World Fantasy Convention Award in 1981, and the National Cartoonist Society's Milton Caniff Lifetime Achievement Award in 2005.
Gahan Wilson is the subject of a feature length documentary film, Gahan Wilson: Born Dead, Still Weird, directed by Steven-Charles Jaffe.
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Displaying 1 - 2 of 2 reviews
February 24, 2021
Wilson was a comic genius with a dark and slightly askew bent who was wildly popular for many years. He could tell a story with a single cartoon, and he never failed to make me grin. There's a werewolf wearing a Santa Claus suit and worried reindeer are looking in the window and one elf says to the other, "Any time Christmas falls on the full moon- we've got problems!" There's an empty tomato can in the gutter and it's raining hard and the worms and insects and spiders are going up the ramp into it two-by-two, side-by-side... Two Pilgrims are standing with muskets in hand in the background and two distraught turkeys are in the foreground and one says, "You won't -believe- what those bastards have dreamed up now!" And well over a hundred other excursions into mad chuckles and ironic giggles.
September 14, 2024
Gahan Wilson (1930-2019) was a cartoonist known for his macabre imagination and dark humor, though he also dipped into relatively mundane observational humor as well. His cartoons appeared in The New Yorker, The Magazine of Fantasy and Science Fiction and Playboy on a regular basis, as well as many other magazines and books. There are several collections of his work, the one I’m looking at today is from 1982.
The title cartoon twists a common saying by having it be a sincere question of people who appear to be worshipping “nothing.” The wraparound cover takes off from that cartoon by having characters from other entries also participate in worship. I should note here that I am again stretching the definition of “comic strip” as Mr. Wilson almost exclusively did single panel comics.
The first cartoon in this volume has a man in a lobster bib in a courtroom inhabited by giant lobsters. His (human) lawyer worries that the man won’t be able to get a fair trial. Later in the book, there’s a lobster sitting in a restaurant wearing a human bib. The last cartoon is of an unamused man watching two laughing men on the television, the caption indicating that this is one of those local news shows with enforced jollity that’s gone a little too far.
Some of the cartoons have the joke be obvious from the drawing itself, others rely on a combination of picture and caption, and a few look like ordinary scenes until you read the caption where the joke is.
One of the more interesting cartoons from the perspective of decades later is one of a disgruntled-looking baker decorating a wedding cake with two grooms on top, while a fellow baker tries to reassure him with “the world changes.” Remember, published in 1982!
You probably already know if you are a fan of Gahan Wilson’s art and humor style, but if you are somehow new to him, this is as good a start as any! Check out your local library or used book store.
The title cartoon twists a common saying by having it be a sincere question of people who appear to be worshipping “nothing.” The wraparound cover takes off from that cartoon by having characters from other entries also participate in worship. I should note here that I am again stretching the definition of “comic strip” as Mr. Wilson almost exclusively did single panel comics.
The first cartoon in this volume has a man in a lobster bib in a courtroom inhabited by giant lobsters. His (human) lawyer worries that the man won’t be able to get a fair trial. Later in the book, there’s a lobster sitting in a restaurant wearing a human bib. The last cartoon is of an unamused man watching two laughing men on the television, the caption indicating that this is one of those local news shows with enforced jollity that’s gone a little too far.
Some of the cartoons have the joke be obvious from the drawing itself, others rely on a combination of picture and caption, and a few look like ordinary scenes until you read the caption where the joke is.
One of the more interesting cartoons from the perspective of decades later is one of a disgruntled-looking baker decorating a wedding cake with two grooms on top, while a fellow baker tries to reassure him with “the world changes.” Remember, published in 1982!
You probably already know if you are a fan of Gahan Wilson’s art and humor style, but if you are somehow new to him, this is as good a start as any! Check out your local library or used book store.
Displaying 1 - 2 of 2 reviews