Cartoonist Wallace Wood created and published his own magazine -- witzend. Witzend immediately became a venue for personal work, without regard to commercial constraints and with contributors like Frank Frazetta, Al Williamson, Gray Morrow, and Reed Crandall. (And that was just the first issue!) In later issues, Steve Ditko, Art Spiegelman, Vaughn Bodé, Jim Steranko, Jeffrey Catherine Jones, Howard Chaykin, Bernie Wrightson -- and dozens more -- joined in.
Crandall, Reed: - Reed Crandall (1917-1982) is best known for his art for EC--and later Warren's--horror, crime, war, and adventure comics; he also contributed to Flash Gordon in the 1960s. Some of his more family-friendly work was featured in the Classics Illustrated and Treasure Chest series; he drew the Buster Brown comics for Buster Brown shoe stores for many years. He attended the Cleveland School of Art in Ohio, graduating in 1939, and served briefly in the Air Force during WWII--which served him well as one of the primary artists for the aviator-team comic Blackhawk. Crandall was inducted into the Jack Kirby Hall of Fame in 1998 and the Will Eisner Hall of Fame in 2009.
Pearson, Bill: - Bill Pearson got his start as an assistant to Wallace Wood. He was an independent editor and publisher. He lives in Arizona.
Spiegelman, Art: - Art Spiegelman is one of the world's most admired and beloved comic artists, best known for his Pulitzer Prize-winning Holocaust narrative, Maus. Born in Stockholm in 1948, Spiegelman studied art and philosophy at Harpur College before joining the underground comics movement in the 1960s. Spiegelman taught history and the aesthetics of comics at the School of Visual Arts in New York from 1979 to 1986, and in 1980 he founded RAW, the acclaimed avant-garde comics magazine, with his wife, Françoise Mouly. Honors Spiegelman has received include induction into the Will Eisner Hall of Fame and the Art Director's Club Hall of Fame. In 2005, he was named one of Time magazine's 100 Most Influential People. He was made an Officier de l'Ordre des Arts et des Lettres in 2007, and in 2011 he was awarded the Grand Prix at the Angoulême International Comics Festival. In 2015, he was elected to the American Academy of Arts and Letters, and in 2018 he became the first comic artist to receive the Edward MacDowell Medal.
Williamson, Al: - Al Williamson (b. 1931, d, 2010) was a comics artist best known for his work on EC's Weird Science and Weird Fantasy comics titles (and, later, Creepy and Eerie, comics magazines that featured EC alumni). He also adapted Star Wars into comics, and worked on the newspaper strips Flash Gordon and Secret Agent X-9, both creations of Alex Raymond. He also inked various Marvel superhero comics, and was inducted into the Will Eisner Hall of Fame in 2000.
Wood, Wallace: - Wallace Allan Wood (1927-1981) is widely considered to be America's greatest science fiction cartoonist. But Wood could -- and did -- do it all: humor (a founding cartoonist of Mad), crime, superheroes, romance, war. He was also a pioneering alternative/underground cartoonist/publisher with his magazine witzend. Among many other honors, he was inducted into the Will Eisner Award Hall of Fame in 1992.
