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ow pgs; staple pull
Neal Adams mummy cover; Wrightson, Sparling, Aragones art; COMIC BOOK IMPACT rating of 6 (CBI)



Artists Information

Starting out as an amateur, a meeting with Frank Frazetta at a comic convention in 1967 inspired Bernie Wrightson to pursue his dream of becoming a comic book artist, he began working for DC after contributing work samples to Dick Giordano, in the Silver Age he would illustrate short stories in horror anthologies, in one of those tales he invented the Swamp Thing, who would be granted his own title, which Bernie drew the first ten issues of, then he moved over to Warren, known for their macabre content, and grew his fan base, at one point he was living in the same building as Al Milgrom, Howard Chaykin and Walt Simonson. He left comics to form an artist's collective known as 'The Studio' where he would concentrate on posters and lithographs, portfolios and the like, his adaptation of Mary Shelley's Frankenstein is commonly regarded as his finest achievement. His pen and ink and brush work on this black and white collection is elegant and emotionally resonant. He also collaborated with Stephen King on adapting his work like Creepshow. In later years he did spot work on comics, while continuing his poster work, notably illustrating the popular Batman: The Cult series. He passed away in 2017 after a long battle with brain cancer.

In the 1950s, he worked for companies like Harvey, Toby Press, Charlton and Ziff Davis, doing western, horror and romance titles. He also did syndicated strips like 'Mister Rubbles' and 'Sam Hill'. For Gilberton's Classics Illustrated, Sparling drew 'Robin Hood' and Mark Twain's 'A Connecticut Yankee in King Arthur's Court'. In the late 1960s, Sparling was additionally present in Eerie with several horror stories. From 1960 to 1972, he did the daily 'Honor Eden' for the McClure Syndicate. Jack Sparling remained active until the late 1980s. In the final stages of his comic book career, he worked mainly on Western Publishing titles like 'The Twilight Zone' and 'Turok', but he also did contributions to DC and Marvel titles.