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Basil Wolverton (July 9, 1909 – December 31, 1978) was an American cartoonist, illustrator, comic book writer-artist and professed "Producer of Preposterous Pictures of Peculiar People who Prowl this Perplexing Planet",[1] whose many publishers included Marvel Comics and Mad. His unique, humorously grotesque 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," while Jules Feiffer stated, "I don't like his work. I think it's ugly".[2] 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.[3] 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 (Novelty Press), running for 30 episodes (262 pages) until 1942.[3] 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. Later gag cartoon mags continued to use Powerhouse Pepper strips leftover in inventory throughout the 1970s, reprinting the same few stories endlessly. 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 to be judged by Boris Karloff, Frank Sinatra and Salvador Dal . Among 500,000 entries, Wolverton's was the winner;[4] 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" style he employed regularly thereafter.[3] 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".[5] Among the most celebrated of these tales was "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". Mocking the glossy cover images of Life Magazine, Wolverton's hag was the first magazine parody cover image on Mad. 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".[6] 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 Mad rip-offs from other companies such as Cracked, From Here To Insanity, Crazy, Man, Crazy and Cockeyed, also featured Wolverton's work as did an issue of Ballyhoo. In 1956, Wolverton illustrated Herbert Armstrong's apocalyptic booklet 1975 in Prophecy and later, The Book of Revelation Unveiled at Last, offered free on Armstrong's radio show The World Tomorrow. In 1958, Wolverton began writing and illustrating The Bible Story, also titled The Story of Man, covering the entire history of the Old Testament, serialized in The Plain Truth and later published in six volumes. Later career In 1968, Wolverton did the Ugly Posters series for Topps, displaying his trademark twisted headshots.[7] 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". Wolverton's return was cut short by a stroke in 1974. He died in Vancouver, Washington, four years later. Personal life 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 re-incorporated the church in 1946 when it moved its original headquarters from Oregon to California. Wolverton's son, editorial cartoonist Monte Wolverton, draws in a style similar to his father's; the younger Wolverton also worked for The Plain Truth and contributed to Mad. Several cartoonists have been influenced by Wolverton's "spaghetti-and-meatball" style, including the hotrod stalwart Ed "Big Daddy" Roth. Bibliography Books Books by Wolverton or collecting his work include: Notes References External links de:Basil Wolverton sv:Basil Wolverton
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