June 15, 2010

Al Williamson's "The Success Story"


R.I.P. Al Williamson (1931-2010)








Creepy #1 (1964, Warren)
Story: Archie Goodwin
Art: Al Williamson

5 comments:

Rich said...

A great story, and apparently based on some real life experiences of Goodwin or Williamson (up until the murder and the rotting corpse revenge, anyway). It was actually originally published in Creepy #1 back in '64.

Unknown said...

Learn more about legendary comics artist Al Williamson in this Mr. Media interview with his friend and artist Mark Schultz, in which he discusses the book Al Williamson’s Flash Gordon: A Lifelong Vision of the Heroic.

John Glenn Taylor said...

Rich, thanks for the info! I'm not sure how true to life "The Success Story" is, but to me it reads like an unauthorized bio of Bob Kane (up until the murder and the rotting corpse revenge, anyway).

"Baldo Smudge" does resemble Al Williamson though, which I take as proof of a great sense of humor on Williamson's part. He will be missed.

Karl-Erik Lindkvist said...

According to Mark Evanier "Baldo Smudges" real life counterpart was Don Sherwood and his comic strip "Dan Flagg". Williamson drew the writer as Archie Goodwin, the penciller as himself and the inker as Angelo Torres. Baldo Smudge has a strong resemblance to "Rip Kirby" which probably was some kind of hommage to his former employer John Prentice on Williamsons part.

Dave M! said...

This brilliant premise was years ahead of its time. I wish Marvel reprinted it for CRAZY. "The Success Story" would have fit right in with "Kaspar the Dead Baby". The ending sucked, but poor Archie was probably too busy keeping Alex Toth happy.

In the spirit of Baldo Smudges, I'm not even writing this.