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Al Williamson: It Started With Flash Gordon
If it sounds like Wheatley has more than a little respect for Williamson, that's no mistake. And that's why at a time when he's eager to work more as a creator and less as a publisher he's actually taking on more publishing duties by producing Al Williamson Adventures. This new coffee table book includes representative works by Williamson and an impressive line-up of well-known authors. The 96-page trade hardcover collection includes seven stories, spotlighting one graphic novel length feature and one brand new tale, along with a forward by Liberty Meadows creator Frank Cho. "Getting the rights to the stories from Harlan Ellison, Bruce Jones, Marc Schultz and Archie Goodwin's lovely wife, Anne Murphy, proved to be fairly easy once we tracked them all down," Wheatley said. "They are all big fans of Al's work too, and have been very supportive of the project." Wheatley said that the project began after Williamson worked with Insight Studios on their pulp homage, Titanic Tales. "When he saw the results, he began dropping broad hints that he'd like to see me design a book of his work. Since I'm a fan of Al's going way back, I knew exactly what art and stories I would want to see in a book. On a visit to Al's home I got him to pull out his original art and not only did he have all the art for the stories I wanted to run, but he also had art for a story that had never been completed or scripted. From that moment on I knew we had the makings for a fantastic book," he said. For Williamson himself, though, it started much earlier. It started with Flash Gordon, the 1940s action-filled, meticulously illustrated adventure comic strip by Alex Raymond. The Spirit, Will Eisner's smoky creation, Hal Foster's exquisitely rendered Prince Valiant and other strips followed close behind. In Spanish, of course. Fans and historians know Al Williamson for his highly evocative art over the last fifty years. Many, though, don't know the full scope or variety of his efforts. He has worked on everything from penciling and inking stories in EC's Weird Science-Fantasy in the '50s to inking John Romita, Jr. on Daredevil for Marvel in the '90s, stopping along the way for a highly respected run on the daily and Sunday Star Wars strip with the late writer Archie Goodwin. During his career, he has worked with the proverbial Who's Who of comic book talent. The list of names includes John Prentice, the artist who took over Rip Kirby in 1956 following the sudden death of its artist, Alex Raymond. "I first met John in January of 1960. He was looking for an assistant to go down to Mexico with him to help him out on Rip Kirby," Williamson said in a tribute after Prentice passed away. "I learned a lot from John Prentice. It was great working with him. It was fun. We were good friends. I miss him." Before he met Prentice, though he met Roy G. Krenkel, Angelo Torres, Wally Wood, Joe Orlando and the rest of the EC gang. When publisher Bill Gaines and writer/editor Al Feldstein brought that group together, they must have known in some sense the amazing level of talent they had assembled. There is equally no way they could have known what a permanent impression they would make on the industry or the art form. Williamson, along with artists such as Wally Wood, Harvey Kurtzman, and others carved out a distinctive ñ and as it turns out, lasting ñ niche in American comics with the quality of their work on the EC line. Although it has been 50 years since the "New Trend" began and almost 45 since it ended, today's top creators routinely cite the horror, crime and science fiction comics that comprised the "New Trend" as being among the most influential comics in the history of the medium. While more experienced fans might know Williamson for his EC work, younger enthusiasts might know him exclusively for his inking abilities. Then as now, he maintained a distinctive style that is neither entirely old school nor entirely new, containing elements both classical and innovative. Many comic book artists know acclaim from fans or from fellow professionals. Williamson is one of those rare artists who unquestionably has both. South America For a young Al Williamson growing up in Colombia, the world of comics held incredible fascination. His wonderment was encouraged by his mother, who regularly bought comics for him (she would read them, too). Her favorite, he says, was The Spirit, printed in Mexico, and he quickly developed a liking for it as well. It wasn't his favorite, though. That honor was reserved for Alex Raymond's legendary run on Flash Gordon. Even Flash Gordon wasn't his favorite from the beginning, though. "The first artist to inspire me was an Argentine artist called Carlos Clemen, then Bill Everett, creator Amazing Man and Sub-Mariner," he says. Thoroughly revved up by the Buster Crabbe serial, Flash Gordon Conquers the Universe, and the realization that Hollywood was making movies from comics, he was hooked. "I was immediately taken with it and really just overwhelmed by it," he once told Comic Book Marketplace in 1997. "It took over my life at the age of ten." With the excitement of the serial and the subsequent introduction to Hal Foster's work on Prince Valiant, Williamson's career was set in motion. "I started drawing in school every chance I got," he says. North America When his parents split up and his mother decided to return to North America, Williamson wasn't all that concerned with the differences he would experience or the situations that might confront him. He had other priorities. "This was where comics were done," he said. "This is where Alex Raymond lives." In 1943 Williamson and his mother settled in San Francisco where he promptly began to devour his daily helping of Raymond's Flash Gordon. Then the unthinkable happened. Well, unthinkable to a 12-year-old fan at any rate. Raymond joined the war effort and his duties on the strip were taken over by Austin Briggs. No reflection on Briggs, but he just wasn't Raymond, whose departure was not sufficiently explained. Not that any justification would have sufficed for the young Williamson. "The next year my mother and I moved to New York. I went to the office of King Features Syndicate, owners of the strip, and demanded an explanation," he says. He was 13 years old. "A lady there was very nice and she offered me proofs of Briggs' strips, but I turned them down. I suppose it wasn't very polite, but I didn't want them," he says with a laugh. EC - A World Of It's Own Becoming an artist is different for each individual. Williamson described himself as "pretty much self-taught," although he counts the high standards of influences such as Roy Krenkel and Frank Frazetta as benchmarks. "I was working with Frank on John Wayne Comics, and this particular scene called for John Wayne and a sidekick to be going along when a rabbit darts out in front of them. Frank said, 'I've never drawn a rabbit.' He closed his eyes for a moment, then drew a great looking rabbit," he says. He had made his first successful foray into comic book art in Famous Funnies. "I did a couple of spot illustrations," he says. That title, ironically, had been the first American comic book he had ever seen. In the process of breaking in, he became friends with a few of the artists working for publisher William M. Gaines at EC Comics. "Wally Wood and Joe Orlando kept on telling me to come up and meet Bill," he says. "I finally met him at a party at Wally's. I was 20 or so. He was always very nice, but he demanded respect. You knew you couldn't mess around with a deadline." Williamson says Gaines was quick to give him a chance, but that chance came with the caveat "If you're late, you don't work for me again." "If the deadline was in two weeks, I made it in two weeks, but Bill always made a production of it, like he didn't think I was going to make or he'd been sweating over it all day," he laughs. Not that Williamson didn't cut it close. "I was a goof off," he said. "I would have a bunch of my friends come over the night before an assignment was due and we'd knock it out. It wasn't the most professional situation, but it was a great time." The camaraderie of those late night sessions was one of the perks of working for EC. Even though Williamson was the youngest (he was 20 when he started), he got along well with the other creators. "They were all sweethearts," he says. "They were all good artists in that group, and they were good people, too." The End of EC When Senate hearings inspired by Dr. Frederic Wertham's claims about the influence of comic books on youngsters came about, so did the Comics Code. The Code put an end to the axes in heads, hangings, electrocutions and other graphic depictions on the covers of the "New Trend" titles, although they had never really been a big factor on the science fiction titles with which Williamson was more associated. On the heels of the demise of the "New Trend," Gaines launched the "New Direction" titles; Williamson's artwork was featured prominently in Valor. It, though, like all the "New Direction" titles was short-lived. "I don't think any of us thought about how long it would last," he says of his time at EC. "It was sad when it was over, but Bill had MAD and I was already working for Stan Lee doing westerns over at Marvel [then Atlas], so it wasn't as if I lost my livelihood." After EC After the end of EC's comic book line, Williamson worked for several other publishers. He also ended up working with John Prentice on the newspaper strip Rip Kirby. "Johnny was wonderful to work with. He was very patient, but he was the best schooling I could have had on meeting a deadline. He always made it clear how important that was," he says. Rip Kirby, of course, was not the end of Williamson's newspaper work. In addition to a run on Secret Agent X-9 he teamed up with his old friend Archie Goodwin for a long, respected run on the Star Wars strip. He remembers the collaboration fondly and identifies him as his favorite writer to work with. "When King Features called me to do this strip, I immediately thought of Archie to write it," he says. "We had lunch. Archie said to me, 'I'll write if you draw it,' and I said, 'I'll draw it if you write it,' and that's how we got together for that." Goodwin, who launched Marvel's creator-owned Epic line, had also worked for Warren, but was best known as a writer-editor for DC Comics. "Archie was very good," he says. "He wrote a story you could draw. He wrote with the artist in mind." Another great DC Comics editor Julie Schwartz switched the track of Williamson's career by offering him an inking assignment. Here he could still inject elements of style and detail, but he could work without the time consuming undertaking of designing and laying out each page. In other words, he could work faster. As a result, a whole generation of comic book fans grew up knowing Williamson more as an inker than as a pencil artist. Whether it was over Curt Swan's pencils on a Superman comic or John Romita, Jr. on Daredevil: Man Without Fear, his inks tend to bring their own elements to a story without suborning the style of the penciler. In 1995 he illustrated a 2-issue Flash Gordon series for Marvel with his good friend Mark Schultz, creator of Xenozoic Tales. "It was hard work, but fun," he says. Place in History Al Williamson continues to ply his craft in the comics industry, accepting both inking and full illustration assignments. He works from 9 to 5 each day at his Pennsylvania home, taking an hour for lunch. If he pauses to reflect on the place in history earned by the EC creators, he does not do so indulgently. Instead of a prideful comment about the importance of what they achieved or how he has never yet missed a deadline, one is more likely to get a comment about what a good group of guys his fellow artists were. While he originally kept copies of all the ECs (over time he gave them to friends), he eventually kept only the science fiction and the war titles. He still enjoys what he does, and if he laments certain directions the industry has gone in, he doesn't dwell on them. "Sometimes it seems just a little bit hard to believe that I've been in this business for 50 years," he laughs. Al Williamson Adventures will be available in two editions, a trade hardback retailing for $34.95, and a special signed, limited edition (limited to 500 copies), selling for $54.95.
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