<span class="SFPTagline"> From SCIFIPEDIA </span>

Wallace Allan Wood was born on June 17, 1927 in Menahga, Minnesota. He became interested in comics at an early age, being influenced by the strip work of Roy Crane, Hal Foster, and Alex Raymond. After graduating from high school in 1944 he signed on with the Merchant Marine and later became a member of the 11th Airborne Paratroopers. In the summer of 1948 he arrived in New York City, intending to break into the comic book business.

By 1950 he was well on his way to becoming one of the best known and most influential comic artists in the world. His realistic science-fiction and horror work with Bill Gaines’ EC Comics gained him fame but his work for Harvey Kurtzman’s MAD, including his eye-popping renderings of buxom females, proved that he was also a top-notch cartoonist.

Woody (as he was known to his friends) was fully capable in other artistic arenas as well. He produced magazine illustrations, advertising art, panel cartoons, and bubble-gum trading cards. By the mid-60’s he was doing both covers and interiors for Galaxy, and also executed six covers for Galaxy Science Fiction Novels.

He had also established his own “alternative” magazine, Witzend, which soon became an outlet for non-mainstream work by his colleagues among the day’s best known cartoonists and artists. Witzend is widely acknowledged as an ancestor of underground comics, although Wood never saw it as such and had little respect for the underground aside from the work of R. Crumb, Gilbert Shelton, and Richard Corben. It was also in the pages of Witzend that he began publishing artwork and background material pertaining to his magnum opus, The Wizard King, for which he released two volumes before his death.

Although his work in the comics field gradually grew less prolific and declined a bit in brilliance, Wood remained widely influential. If anything his reputation continued to spread, in part on the strength of his work for MAD, which remained commonly available in paperback book editions published by Ballantine. Meanwhile he continued to contribute art and writing for the major companies while also working for smaller publishers such as Atlas, Charlton, Harvey, Gold Key, and Warren. He is credited with the famous red costume design for the Marvel Comics character Daredevil. In 1965 he created the T.H.U.N.D.E.R. Agents series for Tower Comics.

Awards

The recipient of many awards during his lifetime, none of the accolades could help Wood in his battle with his own inner demons in the form of alcoholism and chain-smoking. His refusal to moderate his self-destructive activities led to the breakup of his third marriage (to Muriel Van Sweringen) and to kidney failure. A stroke in 1978 left him with impaired vision in one eye. Unable to deal with declining health and forced to make a living drawing pornographic comics of poor quality, he shot himself on November 2, 1981. He was 54 years old. As Harvey Kurtzman, who at EC had overseen what many people still regard as the pinnacle of Wood’s early success, once said, "Wally had a tension in him, an intensity that he locked away in an internal steam boiler. I think it ate away his insides, and the work really used him up."