Wallace Wood has been a favorite artist for this blog, because he is a favorite of a lot of comic book fans. Including this story today, I have posted 46 stories by him. The man died almost 40 years ago, and yet his artwork is still thrilling fans, including cynical old me. In 1970 Wood did some stories for Marvel Comics’
Tower of Shadows. He wrote and drew them, along with his assistants. I enjoy the imagination of his sword and sorcery stories. Wood, besides being an artist who could do dynamic work from scripts of other writers, was a natural storyteller on his own.
“Sanctuary” appeared in
Tower of Shadows #8 (1970).
I have fond memories of Tower of Shadows, and especially of Steranko's “At the Stroke of Midnight” (#1) and of Neal Adam's “One Hungers” (#2). “Sanctuary” appeared in the penultimate eighth issue. After the ninth, Tower of Shadows morphed into Creatures on the Loose.
ReplyDelete(I don't have any of my comic books from 1968 into 1970; they were left behind on an island in the Pacific, and I would have altogether missed some issues release in the summer of 1970. I later replaced some of the issues of Strange Tales and of Captain America.)
Unsurprisingly, I appreciated most of Wood's work, including this story. I wish both that he'd been better treated and that he'd taken much better care of his health.
I think Wallace Wood is someone to study as not the way a person would want to live their life. The only time I saw Wood in person was on a panel at the San Diego Con (my first SDCC, 1980). At first security would not let him in the building, thinking he was a derelict. When I heard that story it furthered the depression I had when I saw him. I presumed at the time he was on drugs because he looked under the influence of something. He had very little to say, and my friend and I got up and left. It wasn't much of a surprise when I heard a year later that he had killed himself.
ReplyDeleteYour story of picking up issues of comics left behind is familiar. I was discharged from the Army in late '68, and for the next year or so I collected issues of comics I had read and given away by putting them on a table in the barracks dayroom. We weren't allowed to keep anything that wasn't authorized. As a civilian when hunting down those comics I found them readily available.
Rather a complex revenge, Druidking. Too bad for the poor workers murdered by your victim, eh?
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