Name: The Wolverton Bible
Author: Basil Wolverton, Monte Wolverton, Grant Geissman

Compiled for the first time, in a beautiful hardcover, the legendary MAD and EC artist's lesser-known, later Biblical illustrations for the Worldwide Church of God covering the Old Testament and Book of Revelations. Cartoonist Basil Wolverton was known for his grotesque drawings, fantastically odd creatures, spaghetti-like hair, smoothly sculpted caricatures and insanely detailed crosshatching. His career in the golden age of comic books lasted from 1938 until 1952, after which his illustrations and caricatures extended into such publications as Life, Pageant and MAD magazines. Stylistically, he has been regarded as one of the spiritual grandfathers of underground and alternative comix. Less well known and understood is his work for the Worldwide Church of God, headed until 1986 by radio evangelist Herbert Armstrong. From 1953 through 1974, Wolverton, a deeply religious man, was commissioned and later employed by the church to write and illustrate a narrative of the Old Testament (including over 550 illustrations), some 20 apocalyptic illustrations inspired by the Book of Revelations, and dozens of cartoons and humorous illustrations for various Worldwide Church publications. Compiled and edited by Wolverton’s son, Monte, the 304-page Wolverton Bible includes all of Wolverton’s artwork for the Worldwide Church of God corporation. Recording artist and noted EC authority Grant Geissman (Tales of Terror: The E.C. Companion and Foul Play!: The Art and Artists of the Notorious 1950s E.C. Comics!) provides an insightful foreword, while Monte Wolverton delivers commentary and background in the introduction and in each section. This volume is authorized and commissioned by the Worldwide Church of God and endorsed by the Wolverton family. Many of the illustrations in this book are regarded as Basil Wolverton’s finest work. Still others have never been published, and some of the humorous drawings printed here rival Wolverton’s work in MAD magazine. From Booklist Basil Wolverton created the most famous MAD magazine cover, the May 1954 “Beautiful Girl of the Month—Reads ‘MAD.’” Ludicrously grotesque, it’s typical of the humorous cartooning that was Wolverton’s principal livelihood. Humor wasn’t the self-taught artist’s only mode, however. From 1952 to 1974, he illustrated the Bible for publications of the Radio (later Worldwide) Church of God, a broadcast-based ministry whose eccentric beliefs crop up in the drawings. His son Monte prepared this complete collection of his church-related work, including some typically funny stuff done for the student publications of the church’s Bible schools. Wolverton used a lot of contrasting pattern work to compensate for his essentially stiff, flat, untutored style, meticulously filling in fields of dots, lines, and, after he upgraded his pens, hatchwork. Wolverton’s faces have only a handful of types and expressions, and he couldn’t do foreshortening. His Book of Revelation drawings, full of grotesque horror, are more impressive than the others; but altogether his religious art demonstrates that he was kind of the Douanier Rousseau, the Grandma Moses, of comics. --Ray Olson Review “Wolverton’s unsparing depiction of nightmarish prophecies are relentlessly grim but absorbingly so. There are hints of Goya’s crazed, melancholic Saturn and prediction of Charles Burns’s brooding mutant teens…Such humanity is everywhere is Wolverton’s art―as much in the laughably goony portraits as in fire-and-brimstone ferocity.” - Nicole Rudick, Artforum “I just discovered that underground grotesque comics virtuoso Basil Wolverton had produced a series of biblical illustrations… stories that went beyond the whitewashed, cheerful kids’ books of the day, to show the Old Testament for what it is: a book full of blood, thunder and revenge. Accordingly, Wolverton’s illustrations, done in the same unmistakable, stippled style that characterized his grotesqueries, show off the grim, the violent and the destructive in the Old Testament, putting the blood and guts in the spotlight…it is perfectly him, humorous, grisly, mad and wonderful.” - Cory Doctorow, BoingBoing “Underneath the screaming and plagues, the giddy joy that [Wolverton] seems to take in his art radiates off the page, just like it does in his secular work.... His creatures from sci-fi and horror, his fascination with grotesque bodily exaggeration, his devout Christian faith―here it all comes together into an operatic and apocalyptic peak.... The Wolverton Bible might seem like a paradox to its religious audience and its alt-comics fans―even if Wolverton himself never saw the contradiction.” - Martyn Pedler, Bookslut “This book is a tremendous boon as it shows a genius illustrator at the pinnacle of his ability... Basil Wolverton is one of the legends of comic art.” - Tim Jamson, Mania “Wolverton’s pen presents disaster rather than combat; ruin is highlighted, not heroism…Wolverton illustrated a blind man given sight, a child playing near a viper’s nest, a young boy petting a lion and a wolf. These are images of the heavenly promise, or paradise, but from a pen so tilted toward threat and terror they, too, are frightening to behold…Whether believers or potential converts found themselves plagued by nightmares of the child and viper we may never know, but certainly this volume, assembling as it does a visual representation of a disturbing religious dream, will help readers better understand the fearful allure of end-time theology.” - Spencer Drew, Rain Taxi “I love that Wolverton’s Adam and Eve look like Cary Grant and Rita Hayworth, and that the images of Noah’s Ark have the beautifully clean look of a wood carving. Dramatic scenes such as Abraham’s sacrifice of Isaac, the devastation brought by locusts, and Samson’s blinding, showcase the artist’s talent for visceral, visual storytelling.” - Leigh Stein, The New Yorker “[W]ith their crashing planes, erupting volcanoes, boil-stricken sufferers, and monstrous whirlwinds[,] Wolverton’s literalist depictions of Revelation are powerful, shocking, and above all grotesquely beautiful. ... Though Wolverton’s approach to [the Old Testament] stories was somewhat more matter-of-fact than his apocalyptic panoramas, there is still a passion for the bizarre evident in the Bible Story illustrations. ... Wolverton’s Bible illustrations sit on the border between sacred and profane, and that unique placement is what gives them such power.” - Gabriel Mckee, Religion Dispatches About the Author Basil Wolverton was born near Medford, Oregon in 1909 and died in 1978. His Fantagraphics-published books include Basil Wolverton's Culture Corner and The Wolverton Bible, and his work is featured in Supermen!: The First Wave of Comic Book Heroes 1936-1941.

The Wolverton Bible -

Basil Wolverton, Monte Wolverton, Grant Geissman

Edições (1)

Estatísticas

Avaliações