Tuesday, October 18, 2011

I'm the other Wally Wood

As anyone who has tried to find me by typing "Wally Wood" into a search engine, I am not that easy to find. The first three pages of Google results are all about the famous and brilliant cartoonist, Wallace Allan Wood who died of a self-inflicted gunshot wound in 1981. According to the Wikipedia article on him, he disliked the name "Wally Wood" by which most people know him and his drawings, although he sometimes signed his work "Woody," a name I outgrew when I left the U.S. Army.

That Wally Wood made his name drawing a variety of comics: science fiction, horror, adventure, and more. When he was drawing for Mad Magazine and I was an aspiring humor/satire writer, I was tempted to visit the Mad offices, introduce myself, and see what they would think of having two Wally Woods on the staff. In the event, I didn't make the visit so I'll never know.

There is yet another Wally Wood who turns up in a Google search earlier than I do. That Wally Wood "was the founding president of the Finger Lakes Trail Conference. He was a long distance hiker living in Rochester when he organized existing hiking clubs in 1962 at Keuka College forming the Finger Lakes Trail organization. The Annual Wally Wood Hike honors his memory."

I'm not that Wally Wood either.

1 comment:

  1. Glad you're not those WWs. I like the one I know!

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