By Berni Wrightson (Archival Press)
ISBN: 0-93158-22-30-X
I was reviewing the first Un-Men collection (Get Your Freak On! – ISBN: 978-1-84576-748-8) when I decided to simultaneously – and gratuitously – revisit the classic 1970s Swamp Thing, which led me to The Mutants (ISBN: 0-937848-00-X) …and that led me here.
Towards the end of the turbulent 1960s a lot of fresh talent was trying to break into the comics industry at a time when a number of publishers were experimenting with cheaper black and white magazines rather than four-colour comic books. Companies like Warren, Skywald and a small host of imitators were hiring kids who then honed their craft in public.
A respectable number of those neophytes, such as Bruce Jones, Mike Kaluta and Jeff Jones, Al Weiss, as well as Wrightson, grew into major talents after drawing pastiches of the EC Comics they had loved as kids – and they paved the way when the comics market again turned to shock, mystery and black comedy to sell funny-books.
The seven tales collected here are garnered from such varied sources: horror, fantasy and Sci Fi tales, showing Wrightson’s absolute mastery of black and white line and tones, and mostly, as far as I know, self-penned.
The post-apocalyptic the Last Hunters has echoes of Vaughn Bodé’s darker works, whilst Feed It! (scripted by a young Mike Friedrich) is pure Graham Ingels, via Edgar Allan Poe. Wrightson’s Revolting Rhymes: Peter, Peter, Pumpkin Eater and Jack Spratt display to wonderful effect the artist’s broad yet sardonic sense of humour and are followed by a straight EC Weird Science-Fiction pastiche entitled Breathless (written by Marv Wolfman).
Visually King of the Mountain, Man! is vintage Wrightson, but again his devilishly wicked sense of humour is the real star. Ain’t she Sweet? and Uncle Bill’s Barrel, which close this volume, are indistinguishable from his professional horror work at DC, which surely shows that he was ready for the big time by this stage – even it wasn’t necessarily ready for him…
As a chronology of the development of one of the industry’s finest talents this is an indispensable package, but this book can stand on its own as a vastly entertaining fantasy anthology. Someone, somewhere please take note and republish this book (and The Mutants, too)!
© 1968, 1969, 1970, 1978 Berni Wrightson.