Wallace Wood and the Art of Self Promotion

I can vividly recall the first time I encountered the work of the late, great Wallace Wood at his full-on, no holds barred, sci-fi driven best. It was within the pages of an almost impossible to acquire (at least if you were living in the UK in 1969) publication which went under the title of 'Witzend'.

'Witzend' was Wood's brain child, but by the time the story to which I refer appeared, he had pretty much consigned the editorial and publishing duties to his friend and assistant (one of many), Bill Pearson.
The story in question was titled, 'Spawn of Venus' and was breathtaking, it was a hitherto unpublished story for the legendary EC comics line and had been intended for publication as a 3D comic. But EC comics were in the last stages of succumbing to the forces of self-righteous indignation as US senators and upholders of morality railed against a publishing company whose output was unashamedly focused on tales of grand guignol horror and science fiction.

The tour de force moment of Wood's delineation of this story occurs right at the start of the doom laden epic, to put it quite simply it's all in the splash panel. Here you only get to see the reaction on the faces of the space explorers as they gaze in horror at the ghastly thing bearing down on them.

Here you can see Wood's splash page in all it's 'original' glory and here is a series of snapshots of the self promotional artwork I created, clearly still heavily under the influence of this amazing art some 45 years later.

Now come the time for a little competition—the winner of which will receive an A3 signed print on quality matte art paper of this little meisterpiece (comes mailed in a sturdy cardboard tube to the address of your current domicile).
But to find the question you need to answer you must journey over to my new blog—so click here and all will be revealed!