Wallace Wood’s Official Shit List
Wallace Wood, unarguably one of the world’s greatest ever comic book artists, used to have two lists pinned to the notice board in his home studio. One was titled “Friends of Odkin” – all the names on this list had paid ten-or-so dollars to join Wood’s self-managed fan club and would receive from him a membership card, certificate, subscription to the gazette and an autographed original ink drawing of one of Wood’s characters. The other list was titled “Wallace Wood’s Official Shit List” – all the names on this list had fallen out with Wood in some way, and would receive from him nothing but lifelong hatred.
Whereas the Friends of Odkin list was sloppily handwritten, Wood’s Official Shit List was so important that he had it typed up and properly formatted, with a large blank space at its bottom for late additions. It was constantly updated depending on who fell in and out of his favour, and because the old lists were discarded there is no historical record of which of Wood’s contemporaries were on them. Even Rick Stoner, who visited Wood’s home in Derby, Connecticut, on the 14th and 15th of April 1978 then went with him to Niagara Falls on the 16th, would give no clues. “I won’t name any names from this list of about twenty or so,” he wrote in his article Remembering Wally Wood, printed in issue 11 of The Journal of Madness in June 2001, “I’m just glad I wasn’t on that one”.
Thankfully for us, Stoner took plenty of photographs of Wood’s home on Saturday the 15th April 1978, some of which were reprinted in that same issue of The Journal of Madness, and one of them features a very clear shot of Wood’s Official Shit List. Twenty-one names of important and well-respected members of the comics industry, all united by the fact that they’ve irritated Wallace Wood. This version of the list follows, to which I’ve added a brief biographical description of each person and, where known, their association with Wood. Note that the last two names have been handwritten in; obviously they’d pissed Wood off after the list’s printing deadline.
#wallywood #wallacewood #shitlist https://instagr.am/p/Cgw2zgqO-0M/
Continue reading August 02, 2022 at 12:12PM →
