When I was a youngster scouring the spinner racks for my favorite comic book titles, I was always attracted to the brightly-colored, action-centric covers on Dell and Gold Key comics. At the time, I was a Marvel/DC fan and the art in these others just didn't float my boat as much, and the quarter that I usually had would only get me two comics. I did buy one eventually and it was entirely because of a certain TV show.
It was not until many years later that I discovered who this artist was that had painted so many realistic-looking covers -- George Wilson. Since then, I payed more attention to this fellow's art and began collecting those self-same issues of Dell and Gold Key comics that I'd passed over years before.
It turns out that Mr. Wilson produced not only a lot of covers, but over 500 of them during his career. Typically rendered in oil and gouache, Never illustrating interior stories, instead Wilson's painterly eye was perfectly suited to create work that would entice readers with his covers. He also did work for Gilberton's CLASSICS ILLUSTRATED, as well as various mass-market paperback book covers.
After word came out over a year ago, it has now been announced that Hermes Press, that really cool publisher of comics, newspaper strips and other pop-culture goodies will be publishing THE ART OF GEORGE WILSON, scheduled for release next February.
From the publisher:
What made many of the great adventure comics of the 1960s so attractive were their fantastic painted covers by artist George Wilson. Wilson's covers harkened back to the era of pulp magazines and were spectacularly eye-catching. He turned in efforts for literally hundreds of comics titles including: Classics Illustrated, The Twilight Zone, Ripley's Believe It or Not, Dr. Solar, Magnus Robot Fighter, Turok, Son of Stone and Star Trek, to name but a few. This new art book focuses on over 300 examples of his cover art and features numerous examples of Wilson's artwork scanned from the originals together with many of the book covers he created including his extensive run on Avon's The Phantom(as well as his work on the Gold Key version).
ISBN-13: 978-1-61345-288-2
Price: $75.00 ($78.60 CAN)
Publisher: Hermes Press
Imprint: Hermes Press
Writer: Anthony Taylor
Artist: George Wilson
Format: Hardback
Pages: 288
Following are examples of Wilson's covers and a few originals from his massive body of work.
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| Space Family Robinson #1 (Gold Key, December 1962). |
See more fantastic George Wilson art HERE.
