Wally Wood Sketchbook

It’s nice looking at the behind the scenes of what went through Wallace Wood’s mind. It was a shame to lose such a brilliant talent.

Research

Don't get me wrong, I am a great appreciator of Wally Wood's art, but this sketchbook is just that, rough sketches. If you thought you might see some unused covers, or detailed drawings that Wood just did for pleasure, there are a few, but not much. Most of these sketches are pretty bare bones, just Wood scratching out some ideas, and many of the drawings have hardly any intrinsic interest at all. Though there are some good drawings here, as well as a lot of character design sketches that are fairly fleshed out. There are lot of character designs for trading cards. There is also some of his more commercial work, including a series of lunchbox designs. If you a completist, than you will like this book. The most interesting drawings to me were the ones Wood did in his youth, not just because they were the most complete, but because you can see the enormity of his talent even then.The book does have some good interviews, including a rare one with Wood himself. The editors unfortunately chose to put the interviews on the margins of the pages, the book is not very big, about the size of a comic, so the art is squeezed into the same space as the text. The sentences are very short, making for choppy reading. An odd choice, and one that does not serve the art, or the text. There are some good drawings here, but there is mostly rough sketches, character studies, doodles and layouts - alongside early works of a young genius.

Wood is known as one of the early Mad magazine artists, but it's nice to see some preliminary sketches of his other work here. With examples of various genres, including both ink and pencil drawings, this slim volume doesn't really have his best stuff. Woody's work has a slightly stiff and old-fashioned quality, but if you're interested in illustration or science fiction (especially of the 1950's), this is passable. A lot of weird and absurd images, obsessively rendered. I was struck by the long hours he must have put in. The bio describes the sad end of his life. For better examples of Wood's cartooning, get reprints of '50s era Mad magazines. For his classic sci-fi illustrations, "Against the Grain: Mad Artist Wallace Wood" has more to offer than this book, but it's much more expensive.

This comprises a lot of Wood's pencil work and early layouts on everything from MAD magazine to the Daredevil, accompanied by interview material with Wally Wood. Highly recommended, especially for completists.

Book came in great but very used contidtion just like i ordered

Some of the review said this was onlyfor the hardcore Wood fan. I am probably not a hardcore Wood fan but I am a huge comic art fan and I enjoyed this book a great deal. I will admit that I bought it used for less than 10 dollars (including shipping of course) so it was not a huge investment but the art was great.

I was very satisfied with this product especially with the price I got it for and the condition it was in when I got it. If you are Wallace Wood fan this is definitely a great addition to your art book library.

I came late to Wally Wood's work, as I wasn't a fan of Marvel, and had been too young to appreciate Wood's work with EC in the 50s.This book will appeal to comic book aficionados, and contains some great examples of Wood's work. Given how much his work is going for now, the price is very reasonable, and the value of the book will rise.In the galaxy of comic book artists only Jack Kirby's work is more popular than Wally Wood.