Gahan Wilson Sunday Comics

Wilson is famed for his wickedly macabre cartoons in Playboy and the New Yorker, but only his most diehard fans will be familiar with these lesser-known, seldom-seen forays into the Sunday color funnies section. This book reprints in vibrant and sharp color the complete run of syndicated Sunday comic strips Wilson created between 1974 and 1976, a mélange of salesmen, spacemen, cavemen, vampires, and other assorted freaks in five or six single-panel gags per strip. The humor is laugh-out-loud funny and utterly original. Structurally, these are perfect panel cartoons, with image and text working together to deftly complete the gags. Populated with Wilson’s trademark potato-lump people, animals, and monsters, these strips still pack a wallop today—especially when Wilson devotes the five gags each week to a single theme, as in the later strips. Many cartoonists can turn out a decent desert island or wallpaper gag, but few can give you half a dozen pitch-perfect variations on that theme in a single strip. Suitable (and hilarious) for all ages, this book is lovingly produced and proves the extent of Wilson’s extraordinary talent. (Sept.)