Gahan Wilson

Basil Wolverton

Wolvertoons

This is the first in a two-volume retrospective―collecting full comics stories, unpublished art, ads, etc.―and biography of the famous Mad cartoonist. This is the first of two volumes reprinting copious amounts of comics stories and recounting the career of cartoonist Basil Wolverton. Based on his correspondence and journals, the biographical portion of the books follow Wolverton from childhood to adult day-to-day life as freelance cartoonist, itinerant handyman, persistent contest enterer, and local pastor of the Radio Church of God. Wolverton lived and worked in the Pacific Northwest, unique among the first generation of comic book pioneers. In the precious period before the industry calcified into a commercial institution, Wolverton was free to work under the radar to explore in detail his weird tales of the future. The book collects all of Wolverton’s non-humorous comic stories and a substantial selection of his humorous comics, alongside dozens of pages of unpublished artwork, unsold features, and never-before-seen correspondence, including rejection letters!

The Life and Comics of Basil Wolverton Vol. 1 1909–1941

Creeping Death from Neptune

Greg Sadowski

This volume continues Sadowski’s biography of the famed Mad cartoonist. It includes scores of letters between Wolverton and his editors and publishers and excerpts from his personal diaries, providing documentary insight not only into Wolverton’s day-to-day life and career, but also the inner workings of the early comic book industry. It is also chock full of Wolverton’s comics stories from this period, including 17 science-fiction and horror tales fully restored and never before collected in a single volume.

The Life and Comics of Basil Wolverton Volume 2

Brain Bats of Venus

In this rip-roaring retrospective, Basil Wolverton’s often warped imagination combines with his outlandishly wacky visual humor to fascinate and delight It collects the ultra-rare treasures Scoop Scuttle, Mystic Moot, Bingbang Buster, and Jumpin’ Jupiter — as they’ve never been seen before! Due to the rock-bottom printing methods of 10¢ comic books, Wolverton’s intricate line work was routinely obscured, and often obliterated. In this collection, every effort has been made to restore the art to its original splendor, and to at last present the uniquely detailed graphics of this justly revered comic book master.

The Crackpot Comics of Basil Wolverton

Scoop Scuttle and His Pals

The complete collection of Wolverton's legendary costumed crusader. Basil Wolverton is one of the greatest, most idiosyncratic talents in comic book history. Though he is best known for his humorous grotesqueries in MAD magazine, it is his science-fiction character Spacehawk that Wolverton fans have most often demanded be collected. The wait is over, as The Complete Spacehawk features every story from Spacehawk’s intergalactic debut in 1940 to his final, Nazi-crushing adventure in 1942. Spacehawk is the closest thing to a colorfully-costumed, conventional action hero Wolverton ever created, yet the strip is infused with Wolverton’s quintessential weirdness: controlled, organic artwork of strangely repulsive aliens and monsters and bizarre planets, and stories of gruesome retribution that bring to mind Wolverton’s peer, Fletcher Hanks. Spacehawk had no secret identity, no fixed base of operations beyond his spaceship, and no sidekicks or love interests. He had but one mission in life: to protect the innocent throughout the Solar System, and to punish the guilty. He was a dark ― yet much more visually playful ― counterpart to Buck Rogers and Flash Gordon.

Basil Wolverton

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