Good evening, folks! (Actually I'm just assuming it's evening where you are as you read this - I really have no way of actually knowing WHAT time it is)... Welcome to our third edition of The OOB Archives - Multi Media!
I'll be posting random articles culled from this now long-defunct publication I did in the late 80s... just for, as my Out Of Bodies buddy Mark would say "shits and giggles!" Our third random stop - an article I had penned myself, although for reasons I can't recall I used the pen name Gifford Hamlyn - a character I played when I did a pretend radio show with my buddy Micheal Sargent called W-I Don't Know - say WHAT? Never mind for now... that's another rabbit hole.
Anyway, originally introduced in 1987 in Multi Media's Introductory Issue here's...
Berni Wrightson
by Donald Jefferes
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Just recently I was moving around dusty boxes in an extremely hot attic looking for a particular box of comics I had put there years ago. Breaking a sweat and suffering multiple muscular contortions I reemerged from the tiny attic space walking like Quasimoto. I opened the large bulky box and began pulling out magazines.
There were all kinds of old magazines of different subjects. Science Fiction, particularly Star Trek, Beatles memorabilia, a few old Conan The Barbarian comics, movie program books, I saved it all. But I was looking for the good stuff. I was looking for my old horror comics.
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| always love a good scare |
Now I admit I must've seemed a bit strange as a kid, maybe a wee bit too introverted in this strange little world of crypts and horror. I used to go to the neighborhood candy store, buy my supply of horror comics, and go off to some place quiet like my room - and drift into a frightening world of walking corpses and axe wielding psychopaths.
These horror comics were my buddies - my companions. I used to take a couple with me to read when I knew I would be spending a weekend with my Titi Mary in the city. Basically I bought the large format black and white horror comics. Creepy, Eerie, Psycho, Scream and an occasional Vampirella. Some of these were put out by a company called Warren. A lesser known company than the superhero ridden world of Marvel, the comic industry giant.
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| Peter Cushing was a fan. |
I even went to the only Horror Convention ever assembled in the city. It was sponsored by Hammer Films. I remember getting into the elevator at the convention on my way to the dealer's room when I met Mr. Warren and the horror film actor Peter Cushing. They signed my program book.
It wasn't the magazines themselves that were so great, in fact sometimes they got downright stupid, but some of the contributing artists! One particular artist whose work I like a lot is Berni Wrightson.
This is the kind of art I've always wanted to do. If the word Macabre had a form, a vision, this was it. Every comic panel this guy did was done in a dramatic, deliciously horror-loving way!
It's been years since I've given away much of my comic collection, but I made sure to hold onto the Wrightson stuff! There are other horror artists I enjoy the work of as well. Richard Corben is one of them. But whereas most other artists never seemed quite at home leaving the safety of the comic panels and branching out to more treacherous grounds, like the independent endeavors of Barry Windsor Smith, (posters, books, special publications, etc.) Berni Wrightson seemed to have all the credentials.
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| Berni Wrightson, 1977 |
When I was at the High School of Art & Design a group of friends and I would frequent a place nearby called The Comic Arts Gallery. It was the only place in the city that would place works on exhibit as well as sell comics. This particular opening we went to was exhibiting the works of Berni Wrightson. When we showed up we realized we were a day early and the exhibiting area was roped off. Sitting on the floor just beyond the ropes was a scruffy long-haired man in dungarees, fingering through a box of what seemed to be comic originals.
The next day at the opening this man was suddenly transformed into a well dressed, clean shaven individual. It was Berni Wrightson.
While he talked to a small crowd of comic enthusiasts I found myself just listening to the questions and answers. I was in no way a comic expert like these kids seemed to be and I didn't want to ask him anything dumb. Like anything about the Swamp Thing, which he did and I knew close to nothing about. What I did want to say - but didn't - was how much I enjoyed a story he illustrated titled "Jenifer". One of the most imaginatively drawn pieces I ever saw in a comic book.
A few favorite works come to mind when I think of Berni Wrightson, like Edgar Allan Poe's The Black Cat, Clarice - a horrifying Yuletide story, and H.P. Lovecraft's Cool Air. I found myself looking closely at the exhibit paintings, particularly a piece titled Mementos. It's a picture of an axe murderer resting on fence with several "trophies" displayed all around him. Oh, the trophies are heads!
In the catalog book which accompanied the exhibit Berni Wrightston is quoted as saying this of his art.
"I sometimes feel, with the themes I deal with, that is - horror, death and the macabre, that I'm committing to paper things that are better left to the imagination...
or even not dwelt on at all."
Looking at Berni one would never imagine he was capable of conjuring up some pretty disturbing images of horror - he's such a gentile, soft spoken, normal man. Not crazy at all. Stephen King once wrote of Wrightson, "...the craziness seems to funnel directly into the work. In fact, it makes you a little uneasy to think what might happen if that craziness were escaping in other directions..."
Shortly after the exhibition I came across a book that was quickly becoming the inspirational tool of every budding young artist, The Studio. The book featured the talents of some very good comic book artists like Barry Windsor Smith, Jeffrey Jones, Micheal Kaluta, and Berni Wrightson. Illustrated in the book, as well as at the exhibit, were pen and ink renderings depicting the Mary Shelly tale of "Frankenstein". The way Wrightson envisions Frankenstein's monster is a little different from the Boris Karloff Hollywood version we're all accustomed to. Berni Wrightson's monster is a more corpse-like, pitiful, tormented creature.
I'm curious now to see what Berni Wrightson will come up with next. Warren Magazine is long gone now, so there aren't many horror outlets left. Horror comics, or at least the type of horror comics I enjoy, have seemingly vanished - the main reason why I don't collect them anymore. Occasionally a friend of mine who still collects comics will show me a few interesting things put out by smaller independents - and some of them show some promise and they are slowly gaining in popularity with comic enthusiasts - but in general I feel it just isn't the same.
I fully admit, the problem may just be me. I'm a Monster Kid stuck in a time warp. I gravitate towards whatever it is that Berni Wrightson tapped into so well - that dark, delicious, moody old school horror where every comic frame is a treat for the eyes and imagination.
I keep dreaming I'll walk into a comic book store one day and find the place bursting at the seams with fascinating, imaginative art. And suddenly, out of the corner of my eye, I'll spot a new large format, black and white horror comic featuring the art of Berni Wrightson!
Now wouldn't that be great!!!
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