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Bernie Wrightson

His Influence

When I was four or five years old, my father would take me to a small "country" store on the outskirts of Clintwood. There, I would purchase comics being sold three-to-a-pack with the covers chopped off - I would later in life learn that this practice was not legal!

Most of these comics were out of date as much as eight years or more. It was in one such package that I found a coverless copy of Swamp Thing #4. Inside was a giant green muck-monster locked in combat with a werewolf! I wasn't able to truly appreciate this book until years later, but I kept it around until I was a teen. I would often flip through it, completely flabbergasted by the brilliant artwork. I was taken with the way Wrightson made figures look both realistic and cartoon-like at the same time, the incredible details he had managed to fill each panel with, and the wonderful boldness of the "spotted blacks." It would be many years later before I would find a complete back issue of Swamp Thing #4 and would finally get a chance to see the amazing cover Bernie had produced.

Click on the thumbnail to see a classic Wrightson Swamp Thing page.

"Swamp Thing" is trademarked and copyrighted by DC Comics. No infringement is intended, nor should it be inferred.

Since I was a teen, I have sought out Wrightson's work vigorously, and I still find myself flipping through Bernie's FRANKENSTEIN book on a regular basis. Unbelievable stuff! It's not to be missed.

His Story

Bernie Wrightson began drawing at an early age, growing up a fan of EC's 1950's horror comics. He was immediately enamored by the work of Graham "Ghastly" Ingels, one of EC's premier illustrators. In 1968, Wrightson landed his first comic book job after meeting Dick Giordano at a convention. In 1968, Wrightson landed his first comic book job, on DC's HOUSE OF MYSTERY, after meeting Dick Giordano at a convention.

In issue #59 of HOUSE OF SECRETS, Bernie co-created a muck-monster character with writer Len Wein, leading to the launch of the famous SWAMP THING. Wrightson would supply what is arguably his best comic book artwork for ten issues of the book before calling it quits. SWAMP THING was a critical success, and the name of Bernie Wrightson became known throughout the world of comics.

Bernie began doing artwork for WARREN PUBLISHING, who published the black and white horror mags CREEPY and EERIE, which were very reminiscent of EC's TALES FROM THE CRYPT and VAULT OF HORROR.

For many years, Wrightson would labor away on images from Mary Shelley's classic story, FRANKENSTEIN, for Christopher Enterprises. Unfortunately, the company went under before the project was finished. Wrightson continued working on the pieces in his spare time, rendering them in a style that was an homage to turn of the century artists like Franklin Booth and Howard Pyle.

In 1979, Wrightson published A LOOK BACK, which featured a large collection of his works and a detailed retrospective of his career. In 1983, his FRANKENSTEIN was published by Dodd-Mead. The collection of art in this book is considered by many to be the pinnacle of his career.

Bernie occasionally does a few comic book projects, but much of his recent work has been in film.

For more information on Bernie Wrightson, please visit comic-art.com.

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