Basil Wolverton

Basil Wolverton (July 9, 1909 – December 31, 1978)
at the Lambiek Comiclopedia
Archived
from the original on February 21, 2019. was an American cartoonist and illustrator known for his intricately detailed grotesques of bizarre or misshapen people. Wolverton was described as "Producer of Preposterous Pictures of Peculiar People who Prowl this Perplexing Planet." His many publishers included Marvel Comics and '' Mad'' magazine.

His drawings have elicited a wide range of reactions. Cartoonist Will Elder said he found Wolverton's technique "outrageously inventive, defying every conventional standard yet upholding a very unusual sense of humor. He was a refreshing original." However, there are some negative responses such as when Jules Feiffer stated, "I don't like his work. I think it's ugly."

He was posthumously inducted into the comic book industry's Jack Kirby Hall of Fame in 1991.

Biography

Early life and career

Born in Central Point, Oregon, he later moved to Vancouver, Washington, and worked as a vaudeville performer and a cartoonist and reporter for the ''Portland News''. At age 16 he sold his first nationally published work and began pitching comic strips to newspaper syndicates. His comic strip, ''Marco of Mars,'' was accepted by the Independent Syndicate of New York in 1929 but never distributed because it was deemed too similar to ''Buck Rogers,'' which debuted that year.

''Disk-Eyes the Detective'' and ''Spacehawks'' were published in 1938 in ''Circus'' comics. In 1940, '' Spacehawk'' (a different and improved feature) made its debut in '' Target Comics'', published by Novelty Press. It ran for 30 episodes (262 pages) until 1942.

Other Wolverton characters include Scoop Scuttle, a newspaperman who ran as a backup feature in Lev Gleason Publications' ''Daredevil Comics'' and ''Silver Streak Comics''; and Mystic Moot and his Magic Snoot in Fawcett Publications' ''Comic Comics'' and ''Ibis The Invincible''. "Bingbang Buster and his Horse Hedy" was a three-page backup story in Lev Gleason's ''Black Diamond Western'' #16–28 (1950–1952).

Powerhouse Pepper and Lena the Hyena

Wolverton's humor feature '' Powerhouse Pepper'', about a superstrong if none-too-bright boxer, appeared in various comic books published by Timely Comics, the 1930s and 1940s precursor of Marvel Comics, from 1942 through 1952. The strip was characterized by alliterative, rhyming dialogue, screwball comedy and throwaway gags in background. The Timely titles, such as '' Joker Comics'', ''Gay Comics'' and '' Tessie the Typist'', debuted a number of his spin-off characters and features, including Flap Flipflop, The Flying Flash (who later appeared in Charlton Comics' ''Jack in the Box'' #13), Leanbean Green, "Cartoon Crime Mystery" featuring Inspector Hector the Crime Detector, Doc Rockblock, "Picture Poems about Peculiar People", "Funny Boners", Dauntless Dawson, "Hothead Hotel", "Bedtime Bunk", "Foolish Faces" and more.

Five issues of a '' Powerhouse Pepper'' comic book were released in 1943 and 1948 by Timely, but not all the covers were by Wolverton and many interior pages were also not devoted to Wolverton strips.

In 1946, Wolverton won a contest to depict "Lena the Hyena", the world's ugliest woman, a running gag in Al Capp's ''Li'l Abner'' newspaper strip where Lena remained unseen beneath an editorial note stating her face had been covered to protect readers. Capp, responding to popular demand, announced a contest for artists to submit their interpretations. Among 500,000 entries, Wolverton's was the winner; it appeared in a ''Li'l Abner'' daily and ''Life'' magazine. Wolverton's fame briefly led to ''Life'' and '' Pageant'' printing his caricatures. The Lena portrait typified the unique "spaghetti-and-meatballs school of design" style he employed regularly thereafter.

In the 1950s, Wolverton produced 17 comic-book horror and science-fiction stories for Marvel and other comic-book publishers, including one story by author Daniel Keyes, which led to him being "hailed for creating uniquely grotesque monsters". Among these tales were "The Brain-Bats of Venus" for '' Mister Mystery'' #7 and "Where Monsters Dwell" in Marvel's '' Adventures into Terror'' #7, the title of which was later used for a 1970s Marvel reprint series.

''Mad''

Wolverton first appeared in '' Mad'' with a single panel in #10, drew ''Mad Reader!'' for #11 and also contributed an iconic Lena-like image to the cover of #11, which was billed as the "Beautiful Girl of the Month". Although Wolverton contributed sporadically to the title—appearing in just nine issues over two decades—his work was memorable enough that, in 2009, ''The New York Times'' dubbed him "The Michelangelo of Mad Magazine". E.C.'s other humor title, ''Panic'', edited by Al Feldstein (who later became ''Mads editor for 30 years) also used Wolverton's art on a ''Panic'' cover, though publisher William M. Gaines was not a fan of Wolverton's work. Other humor magazines from other companies such as '' Cracked'', ''From Here to Insanity'' and ''Cockeyed'' also featured Wolverton's work, as did an issue of ''Ballyhoo''.

Later career

In 1958, Wolverton serialized a comic strip version of The Old Testament stories in the magazine The Plain Truth, under the title ''The Bible Story'', further serialized in another magazine, Tomorrow's World, from 1969 on as ''The Story of Man''. From 1961 on, Wolverton's biblical comics were also published in book format.

In 1968, Wolverton did the ''Ugly Posters'' series of trading cards for Topps, displaying his trademark twisted headshots.

In 1973, he returned to mainstream comics, illustrating several covers for Joe Orlando's satiric '' Plop!'' at DC Comics. '' Comix Book'', a joint production of Marvel Comics and Denis Kitchen's Kitchen Sink Press, featured two strips by Wolverton, "Calvin" and "Weird Creatures".

Personal life

In 1934, Wolverton married his Vancouver High School classmate Honor Lovette (class of 1927). They remained married until his death.

Wolverton was baptized into Herbert W. Armstrong's Radio Church of God in 1941 and was ordained as an elder in 1943. As a board member of that church, he was one of the six people, including Armstrong and his wife, who reincorporated the church in 1946 when it moved from its original headquarters in Oregon to California.

Wolverton died on December 31, 1978, at age 69.

Wolverton's son, editorial cartoonist Monte Wolverton, has worked for ''The Plain Truth'' and contributed to ''Mad''.

Bibliography

Books

Books by Wolverton or collecting his work include:
* ''The Bible Story'' (1961)
* ''Wolvertoons: The Art of Basil Wolverton'' (1990) ()
* ''Wolverton in Space'' (1997) ()
* ''Basil Wolverton's Powerhouse Pepper'' (2001) ()
* ''The Basil Wolverton Reader Vol.1'' (2003) ()
* ''The Basil Wolverton Reader Vol.2'' (2004) ()
* ''Basil Wolverton: Agony & Ecstasy'' (2007) () (reprints from ''The Bible Story'')
* ''The Original Art of Basil Wolverton'' (2007) ()
* ''The Wolverton Bible'' (2009) ()
* ''The Culture Corner'' (2010) ()
* ''Spacehawk'' (2012) ()
* ''Creeping Death from Neptune: The Life and Comics of Basil Wolverton Vol. 1'' (2014) ()
* ''Brain Bats of Venus: The Life and Comics of Basil Wolverton Vol. 2'' (2019) ()
* ''Scoop Scuttle and His Pals: The Crackpot Comics of Basil Wolverton'' (2021) ()

References

External links

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{{DEFAULTSORT:Wolverton, Basil
1909 births
1978 deaths
20th-century American illustrators
American comics artists
American fantasy artists
American science fiction artists
American horror artists
American humorists
Christian comics creators
People from Vancouver, Washington
Churches of God Christians
Golden Age comics creators
Mad (magazine) cartoonists
People from Central Point, Oregon
American vaudeville performers
Will Eisner Award Hall of Fame inductees
EC Comics