Bernie Wrightson
Bernie Wrightson was born in 1948 and made his way into the world of comics in the mid to late 1960s. Wrightson's talents seemed for a long time to specialize into the black and white macabre comics of Creepy and such magazines. His wonderful artwork seemed to be perfectly suited to this.
In the early 1970's, he worked with Len Wein on creating a mythical monster/superhero for DC Comics, the Swamp Thing. The Swamp Thing was a unique creation in that it was a cross between superheroics and the macabre and it immediately was copied by Marvel Comics with a similar creation that was less memorable.
Wrightson also had the time to do a lot of BATMAN and his version of the Caped Crusader allows for immense long bat ears and a wide and flowing cape (which is very impractical for superheroes but it looks great).
The 1970s also saw Wrightson create a portfolio for one of the most influential horror novels, Mary Shelley's FRANKENSTEIN. Wrightson worked for many years to create a wonderfully macabre body of work of black and white, highly detailed, finely sketched pieces of art, that were finally collected in one tome in the early 1980s.
Although real superheroes never seemed to interest Wrightson, he also created some wonderful examples of combining superheroes with the macabre, such as in the Spider-Man graphic novel HOOKY.
That Wrightson was equally adept at humor becomes evident in another superhero mash-up:
And no, it is not misspelled on this graphic novel: Bernie Wrightson initially always spelled his first name Berni to be able to make the distinction from another Mr. Wrightson with the same first name, who was an olympic swimmer in the early 1970s. With Jim Starlin, Wrightson also created the best BATMAN epic I have ever read, BATMAN: THE CULT. The Cult dealt with Batman finding himself opposite an underground leader of the forlorn, Deacon Blackfire, who manages to totally destroy the Batman legacy. Yet, Batman finds himself again and returns to triumph in this extraordinarily brutal saga, also wonderfully colored by Bill Wray.
With the popularity of ALIENS on the film screen, Wrightson also found it interesting to adapt his craft to fit into the annals of science fiction with his highly detailed art for the Aliens.
An unusual side effect of this was the later combination of superheroes opposite the aliens:
Now and then, Wrightson also did work for film related projects, such as the comic book version of the George Romero film CREEPSHOW and he worked on designs for the Reavers in SERENITY.
In January 2017, Wrightson retired from the business because of his health issues. Unfortunately, this past March 18th, he passed away after a long battle with cancer.
With the passing of Bernie Wrightson, we find ourselves again facing the loss of incredible talent of the likes of Bob Kane, Will Eisner, Jack Kirby, John Buscema, Frank Frazetta and Gene Colan.
You will be missed, Bernie !
All Art Copyright DC Comics, Marvel Comics, Dark Horse Comics, Warren Publishing
