The very popular comic artist and illustrator Bernie Wrightson passed away yesterday after a long battle with brain cancer. His beloved wife Liz has posted a much better obit over at his website than I could possibly write so I'll just share a few memories of the man.
Her piece says his first professional work appeared in House of Mystery #179 in 1968. I remember seeing him first in The Spectre #9 which came out the same month. That story carried no credit or signature and several folks in our comic book club were convinced it was by Frank Frazetta who was, of course, Bernie's hero. First time I met Bernie, I told him that and he said it was the greatest compliment he could have received.
Actually, his early work looked Frazetta-inspired but not interchangeable. And within a few years, Bernie had developed his own, unique style which recalled not only Frazetta, but Graham Ingels and other veterans of EC Comics, as well as plenty of non-comic illustrators. It wasn't long before that the elements of it that were pure Wrightson were turning up in the works of others. By the time he and Len Wein created Swamp Thing and produced the early issues, he was a major force in his field. That was just three years after he got into that field.
My other memories of him are just of hanging around at conventions, sitting in the bar at night, talking endlessly about this and that. As a person, he was like his artwork: Impossible to dislike. And pretty darned humble. The first hundred times he was asked for his autograph, he seemed genuinely surprised and flattered.
It was so sad that he was unable to draw in the last few years, and sadder yet to lose such a good man. I suppose we can take some comfort that his work — especially those issues of Swamp Thing — will be reprinted over and over again in years to come…but obviously, that's not enough. Not nearly enough. He was 68 years old.