Love this guy. That’s about it, really. He’s one of my favorites, up there with Charles Addams and Edward Gorey.
One of my favorites is two horrified adults looking at their friends’ baby, who is in the backyard and bigger than their house.
The adults are saying, “My! How he’s grown!”
Regards,
Shodan
“Is Nothing sacred?”
I appreciate Gahan Wilson, but I can’t remember a specific cartoon to ruminate. I remember he drew a Classics Illustrated book on Edgar Allen Poe, and had a page showing Poe drinking with his DT hallucinations.
I appreciate Gahan Wilson, but I can’t remember a specific cartoon to ruminate. I remember he drew a Classics Illustrated book on Edgar Allen Poe, and had a page showing Poe drinking with his DT hallucinations.
I loved his Nuts strip in the National Lampoon.
He did amazing illustrations for a Zelzany book. A Night In The Lonesome October.
I really liked two novels he wrote; Eddie Deco’s Last Case, and Everybody’s Favorite Duck. To this day, every time I visit Disneyland, I think about that family, turned to stone, the bright yellow balloon still floating above the little girl’s head . . .
So, does anybody know if he has any other novels?
Anyone seen his animated TV show on (I think) Showtime? I caught an episode at a friends house: very funny. He’s got a real lock on the innate bizarrity and horror of being a child.
No other novels, but one short story collection The Cleft and Other Odd Tales. “M-1” is one of the funniest stories ever written.
A more complete bibliography (oddly missing Everybody’s Favorite Duck) is available at the Internet Speculative Fiction DataBase at http://isfdb.tamu.edu/cgi-bin/ea.cgi?Gahan_Wilson
For decades he had a cartoon in every issue of The Magazine of Fantasy and Science Fiction. It was the first thing I’d turn to. And then there were also the color cartoons he drew for Playboy.
Of course, now that Eve mentioned him he’s going to die. 
Thanks, Eve. I adore the guy and you have to go and kill him. :mad:
Anybody remember when he used to be on ATC every other friday, IIRC? He sounds so cheerfully NORMAL.
“I paint what I see” was a standard catch phrase with both of us for a while, when accused of being a bit negative about something.
My all-time favorite piece of his is the dust-jacket art for the original Arkham House edition of H.P. Lovecraft’s The Horror in the Museum and Other Revisions.
Just last week someone in my neighborhood set out for the taking a nice tight first edition copy of his 1978 collection, …And Then We’ll Get Him! Now has a prominent spot in my cartoon library.
“Nuts” was the best thing going the the National Lampoon Funny Pages back in the 1970s.
I also have a copy of The Cleft and Other Odd Tales, purchased specifically so that I could have a handy copy of his extremely creepy short story, “The Sea Was Wet as Wet Could Be.” This story can severely mess up your future enjoyment of Alice in Wonderland or, if you’re like me, enhance it.
Oh, and I know the guy. I was the editor for Everybody’s Favorite Duck. We enjoyed a lot of quality time together back in the 1980s, talking about Lee Brown Coye and other great pulp magazine illustrators.
. . . with which, you shoot up to this week’s Most Impressive Doper position.
Seconded.
Discussion? Debate?
Motion carries.
Typical Wilson cartoon: Living room, old lady and two workers staring at the fireplace, in which is a skeletal corpse with a long white beard wearing a Santa suit. Caption: “Well, Mrs. Harris, we found out what’s been blocking your chimney since last December.”
Ice cream parlor. Man at the counter is holding up his hands with a big gaping, goofy smile on his face. Lady behind the counter, holding an ice-cream scoop, says, “In your bare hands as usual, Mr. McReady?”
Psychiatrist’s office. Patient is lying on couch; psychiatrist is in chair, beckoning over his shoulder with a crooked finger; two grinning men in trench coats, carrying wavy daggers, are tiptoeing in through the door. Caption: “And when did you first become aware of this imagined ‘plot to get you,’ Mr. Thompson?”
Outdoor scene. Rainbow ends at a big pot of gold. Hiker is coming over the horizon, following the rainbow with an eager look. Next to the pot are two leprechauns and a huge pile of human skulls and bones. One leprechaun says to the other, “Here comes another one!”
Ice cream truck driver, in front of a crowd of small children, opens a door in the truck to reveal stacks of frozen child corpses. “Oops, wrong door!”
My absolute fave:
Football players are facing us, looking onto the field, with horrified expressions on their faces. Coach, standing nearby: “Damn, always knew that kid had a lotta guts!”
This one was from Playboy circa early 1970’s.
Medieval Execution Scene. The court jester’s head is on the chopping block. But BEFORE the executioner swings the ax he tells the jester:
“I’m sorrry I have to do this, I really liked you. You weren’t like the OTHER silly court jesters. Oh no …you made people think !!!”
My favorite, a full color page from an old Playboy:
Nighttime:A small diner, with a large neon, “EAT” sign: inside you can see the cooks looking nervously, mouth open, out toward the horizon.
Over the hill, a giant grinning monster is slithering stealthily toward the diner.
“My God, you don’t suppose it can read, do you?”