Monday, July 19th, 1976

No more IT. I took an oath on a virgin body.

Back at SS. Work was as hard as ever but I breezed through my part with little trouble. It was good to be back. They installed a new air conditioner today up front.

Tried to get in touch with Terry twice earlier to tell him about the Con but failed.

Spent most of the day reading more of my Omnicon stuff. I particularly enjoyed Wally Wood's SALLY FORTH. Was surprised to find a new photo of Wood in today's TBG, also!

NOTES: No idea what that first sentence was about. Whose "virgin body?" Mine? We'll see how long that oath lasts. For one of the smartest students in school I could be so naive and stupid sometimes.

Wally Wood was, even then, my favorite comic book artist. In the fifties, he drew sci-fi masterpieces for EC comics, he was THE artist for MAD for its first decade, he designed the red costume for Marvel's DAREDEVIL in the early sixties, created the T.H.U.N.D.E.R. AGENTS for Tower Comics, pioneered self-publishing with WITZEND and at that point in the seventies was drawing ALL-STAR COMICS for DC. He was also tentatively dipping his hand back into self-publishing by releasing an odd-format"book" collecting the risque, hilarious SALLY FORTH strips he had done for a military newspaper a few years earlier along with uncredited assistance from Alan Kupperberg, Larry Hama, Ralph Reese and, I believe, Nick Cuti and Paul Kirchner. Sally was usually topless, the scripts were usually hilarious and the result was what I still call some of the artist's best work ever.

Wood attempted to really push the self-publishing over the next few years, going so far as to create his own fan club so he could market to his devoted followers. Fate had other ideas, however His drinking issues were followed by severe health issues. Instead of his gorgeous graphic novels such as THE KING OF THE WORLD from just a few years earlier, he ended up producing badly drawn porn to survive. Eventually Wally Wood took his own life in late 1981.

In 2009, I began HOORAY FOR WALLY WOOD, the only blog on the 'Net devoted to the life, art and career of Wallace Wood. If you're interested, you can find it here: http://wallywoodart.blogspot.com/

Seen above is the original art (not mine) to the cover of the oversized SALLY FORTH book I was reading on this date in 1976. The alien gentleman is Snorky. The art is by Wood with backgrounds and touchups by A. L Sirois, by that point his young assistant. Mr. Sirois is now an accomplished writer and artist in his own right and is one of my Facebook friends. I also have an original Sally Forth sketch by Wood (with Paul Kirchner) and an original Snorky sketch from sometime Sally writer/layout artist, Alan Kupperberg.