A tip of the Pap-cap to Ken Landgraf, who supplied the raw scans for this 1965 story from Gold Key’s
The Munsters #8. Wallace Wood and his assistants did the artwork. According to an e-mail from Landgraf:
I spoke to [Dan] Adkins before he died...He and [Richard] Bassford penciled the job. Most likely they used faces from other Munster comics... Wood inked all the main figures, the assistants mostly filled in black areas and worked on inking the backgrounds ... KEN
Thanks, Ken. That provides an interesting insight into the Wallace Wood studio of the era. “Strictly For the Birds” isn’t a great story, and just pops up in the midst of a series mostly written, penciled and inked by artist Fred Fredericks. But anything done by Wood has its place on any Golden Age fan’s comic radar.
Ken sent me the scans a while back, too. Oddly enough, the online scan of that issue of THE MUNSTERS is missing the Wood story!
ReplyDeleteHi Pappy! It's amazing how even with crud like this story, Wood's inking stands out. There's no mistaking his work. When this story came out, was Wood considered a genius as he is now? Or when he did the Justice Society in the '70s?
ReplyDeleteBrad, Wood was considered a genius during the early part of his career, and especially when he worked for EC Comics. Some people consider that to be the apex of his career. Me, I cut him a little more slack.
ReplyDeleteWood was always highly regarded. I would not have passed up a comic in which his work appeared, and it appeared in some unusual places: science fiction magazines, monster mags, men's magazines, including porno.
Here's one of my favorites, scanned for one of the Hairy Green Eyeball blogs:
Mr. Mouse Meets Peter Max.